An Introduction and A Goal List
It all starts with an Introduction. My Name is Andrew Rouleau and as of this day January 29, 2024, I weigh 286 lbs. (130kg). That’s a lot of weight. More than I have ever weighed before. That is something that I think needs to change.
My goal for this blog is to help keep me accountable along this latest (and hopefully final) weight loss journey. I’ve tried to put a lot of thought into what I think I need to do to keep myself on track. Hel, I’ve done all this beforehand a few years ago. The lowest weight I’ve recorded for myself in the last 2 years was 249 lbs. (113kg), that’s a massive gain of 37 pounds (17kg) in just about a year and a half. What happened to me? A lot of things. Stress, working long hours, not exercising, not having the motivation to exercise, eating out frequently, take your pick. None of those things matter to me. The who, what, when, where, why, and how of the past has already been answered for me; those questions now have to be answered about the future me.
Who? Me of course. I’ll be the same person later in life as I am now (hopefully thinner). There may be other people helping along the way, but for now this is a solo adventure. I’m not new to the world of endurance sports. I’ve completed a half marathon and have a couple of 50-mile rides under my belt. The biggest problem I’ve had with training is being inconsistent. I’ve completed those feats by basically being lucky. I had a friend coach me through the half and I failed to complete maybe 30% of the runs I was given. All the really long rides I’ve done have basically been sufferfests because I did most of them without training whatsoever.
What are my goals? Simple, the title of this blog is The Round Roadie; I no longer want to be round. I like to think of myself as a pragmatic person, and as such I’m not going to give an overly optimistic goal for myself. I’d like to say that by the end of the year I’ll be at the average weight for men at about 180 pounds (81kg). That over 100 pounds in 11 months! That’s absolute suicide. Instead, the year-end goal is going to be 240 lbs. (109 kg). That’s about 4 pounds (1.8kg) per month in weight loss. I also have some other personal goals I’ll get into later in this post.
The When questions are pretty simple and mostly already stated. When is the end of this endeavor? There is no end. I feel that I will always struggle with my weight and my fitness level. Either I will advance my goals after I reach them, or I will fall back on pizza and binge watching instead of exercising. There are other When goals I’d like to hit, that I haven’t quite settled on just yet. I have some distances I’d like to be able to complete this year and I haven’t evaluated when it will be best to attempt them. I’ll update when it becomes clearer.
Where will I be exercising? On my trainer when the weather is bad or I don’t have time before work to go out. Outside on the roads of North Texas when the weather is nice and I have time. There will also be events that I’ll try to go to throughout the year. I haven’t yet decided which ones, but the ones I do choose will hopefully be fun.
Why is that my goal? I’d like to live a happy long life and not being able to do the activities that I want to do because I’ll get winded after 5 minutes does not make my happy. I currently live on the third floor and everyday I walk my dogs up and down the stairs. EVERYDAY, I walk back up those steps breathing a little heavy. I’d like that to change.
How will I be losing all this weight? Skiing! Well, either that or road cycling. I’ve cycled some long distances in the past and its one of the most enjoyable forms of exercise that I’ve found so far. A long with cycling regularly, I’ll be taking my dogs on long walks and the occasional run. Dieting will also be in the mix as an important asset, but I won’t be partaking in any one particular fad diet or another. Counting my calories, maintaining decent macros, and focusing more on home cooked food that fast food.
I suppose this will be the stopping point of this post. It’s late and the dogs need to be walked. I aim to post every Sunday from here on out. Until then:
Goodbye and Ride On
