8 weeks to live

Mnemonix, over on Flickr, has an interesting project he called 8 weeks to live. He visited his doctor, who told him he was overweight and had high cholesterol. His response was to do a u-turn as far as eating went, and drop 25 pounds in eight weeks. He didn’t quite make it, but the results are pretty damn impressive.

I know where he’s coming from, and have done a similar program in the past. My program was over four months and involved losing a little more than 45 pounds. I’ve had a number of problems getting my exercise routine kick-started over the last few months, ansd sticking with anything has been a challenge. The excuses have been varied and plentiful, but I think I’ve run out of them.

My back has been giving me serious grief up until very recently, I spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of the computer (which is easier than getting off my ass), and I like Guinness far too much. The back is fine, the computer use will drop pretty significantly after this month outside of work, and my Guinness consumption is around 3-4/week. So, I’m good to go, and can think of nothing I could use to rationalize to myself that I can’t.

While I have no intention of documenting a project like Mnemonix did, I am going to take his method and modify it a little. I’ve set up a program with a 4 week, 12 week, and 24 week goal. I’ll be documenting the process, but I won’t be sharing a whole lot with people. I may later, it depends on whether I succeed or fail, probably. I know I can do it, because I’ve done it before, and it really won’t take that long. My only knock on something like 8 weeks to live is that it’s very short-term. I’m hoping what I’ve come up with is better titled as “24 weeks to life”.

I love running, and I want to be where I was in May of 2003. At that point I was running over 60km a week, and I felt amazing. I’m happy to report that for the first time in almost two years, I’ve been running on-program for 3 weeks straight. It’s only 3 times a week now, but that’ll expand after Christmas.

So, Monday is the start of the 24 week program, with the end being the week of my 39th birthday.

Here comes the mountain… I think I may even be ready for it.