My weight and fitness have varied greatly over the years. All kinds of reasons motivated a start and all kinds of reasons stopped momentum.

In the past, I’ve successfully completed a round of P90X with a large gap in the middle due to an injury. P90X is one of those infomercial products — a bunch of workout DVDs and a fitness plan. It’s an excellent workout and it helped slim me down a considerable amount. The other part of my slimming down came from dietary changes as well as taking up an interest in indoor rock climbing.

I’ve been exercising on and off for the past couple of months. My last regular exercise routine was thrown off by yet another move. As I finally feel a bit more settled in in my new/old home, it’s time to kick off another big fitness push. Yesterday, I tried out day one of Insanity. Insanity is made by the same people behind P90X and is also a set of DVD workouts. As you can tell with the name, the workout routine is not a little light exercise.

Day one is simply a fit test. You get to see where you stand with a set of exercises. At the end of the 20+ minute workout, I was drenched. Today, is day two. I’ve read about Insanity and I’ve got a friend who has done the routine multiple times. They all warn you — you will be floor. You will be sore. Yet, they came back for more. (Okay, I’m done rhyming now).

So here are some public goals: I’d like to finish the 60 day Insanity plan as quickly as possible without injury. Additionally, I’d like to get back to indoor climbing by mid-October.

photo by cyclonebill

Over 20 years ago, I was a pretty heavy kid. I weighed about 180 pounds and that mass was on a 5’3″ frame. A routine checkup showed a cholesterol level so high that a few more points was heart attack territory. That’s quite the shocker to a 13 year old.

I changed my my diet by cutting out fried foods entirely. I love french fries, but they had to go. After a while, the smell of a fried potato no longer enticed me. Plus, my cholesterol level dropped to an acceptable range. My streak of not eating french fries lasted seven years.

Recently, I found out that my LDL level was a tiny bit high. I was pondering my diet today while doing yoga and figured I could probably take on that cholesterol problem the same way as before. I’d recently read a piece at “The Happiness Project” talking about abstaining from certain foods instead of moderation. That was the likely inspiration for my brain remembering its old plan.

Farewell, french fries. The ubiquitous side dish will no longer be found on my plate.