Challenge 1 - Deadline April 25th

So, to give you a little background on the first challenge and how it arose. Well, Andrew and I had been good friends for many years, but in the last 5-6 years we had drifted apart for one reason or another. I was off married having kids, and had moved down the country out of Dublin from where I was originally from. Andrew stayed in the City. This year, we got back in touch, and we've both been following a similar journey, where we are both on the path to end being overweight.

I'll allow Andrew post his story seperately, but here is an overview of my where my weight has been. I had always been a bit overweight (which I accepted), but in the last few years after the kids were born, I really started to pile on the weight. At my heaviest in May 2008, I was over 17stone (238lbs). Like many of you, in the past I'd made many failed, or average atempts to lose weight, each short lived, and weight put back on. Over the same period my Wife had also gained weight, especially after having 2 kids. But in 2008 my wife made some great leaps forward when she knocked her weight on the head and lost a staggering 48lbs in less than 6months. This inspired me to lose weight, and I made some inital progress last year to lose weight. I managed to get down to below 16stone by September 2008, but by Feb this year I had gone back up to 16stone, 4lbs, and I was letting things slide again.

For me though, I'd been listening to Anthony Robbins Audio books recently, and it finally clicked with me what I had to do to lose weight, which I'll discuss in more detail in another post, but I set my mind to burn my bridges and lose the weight once and for all.

So, Andrew and I hadn't seen each other in over 5 years. We'd talked briefly on occassion. But now that we were back in touch and knew we were on a similar path and mindset for losing weight, we decided to set eachother a challenge, and a goal. To finally meet up again, but we couldn't do so, without having lost a certain amount of weight first. And this has become 'Challenge 1' of this blog!

Ok, The first challenge. Andrew and I have set ourselves our first challenge. We started this blog after the challenge was set, so some progress has been made so far, but essentially, here is the details of the challenge. Both of us have set a weight loss goal for a set date. We will meet up on that date (as we will with every challenge deadline we set), and we must meet that weight loss goal.

Dara's Weight loss goal:
Height: 6' 1"
Starting Weight (Feb 21st 2009): 16stone 2lbs (226lbs)
Target by April 25th: 13stone 7lbs. (189lbs)
Total weight loss goal: 37lbs

Andrew's Weight loss goal:
Height: 6' 7" (yes he's one tall fella)
Starting Weight (Feb 21st 2009): 25stone 10lbs (360lbs)
Target by April 25th: 23stone 5lbs.(327)
Total weight loss goal: 33lbs

Can we do it... track our progress here!!! :)

We weigh in every Saturday, so we'll post our progress photos and stats weekly, though we may post on this blog more frequently that weekly.

No weigh back... only forward!!

Dara :)