AB180

Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm looking forward to sharing my progress (and pictures when I build the nerve) with the group. Cheers!

I've been checking out this site for a while now, getting up the nerve to join. Now that I have, here's my story. Towards the latter part of last year (2008), I began to re-evaluate certain aspects of my life. In particular, I was pretty inactive, and didn't have much committment or follow-through with plans and ideas. My wife and I then took the plunge into buying our first house, and it all started to click for me. I started seeing us settling down and raising a family and really that's my inspiration. I want to be a good role model for my children (whenever we have them), and a reliable support for my wife. I want to be strong enough to lift/carry/fix things in my house - to lift the kids I'll have one day into the air when we play. I hesitate to say that the changes i made were new year's resolutions - since I hope they will last much longer than resolutions typically do. So far, I've been more committed to my ideas and projects (my wife has even noticed and commented positively). Most pertanent to this board perhaps is that I've made a much stronger committment to my physical health. I was never much of a gym person. When I did go, I'd usually run on a treadmill for half an hour and call it a day. But now I've hired a personal trainer to show me the rest of the gym (there's a lot of equipment on the other side of they gym . It's only been 4 weeks, but I'm already seeing results (I'll post some photos soon) and sticking with the trainer for a month or two to come - until I can get my own rhythm/routine going. As for my diet, here's where the confession comes in. I'm not a Vegan. I do occasionally eat meat, but no eggs or dairy (also no gluten or nuts). But in adjusting the nutrition in my diet to support my new level of activity, I've been very interested in adopting the vegan options, as I do agree that they are the healthier options and as (if not more) effective when training. I'm not sure if I'll ever eliminate meat entirely from my diet or not, but I know that I enjoy the growing portion of my diet that is meat-free so we'll see where it leads. Given this, I hope that there will still be a place for me here, because I've been struck by the open, gracious, genuine support that members of this community show to the new members. Here's hoping I can find ways to help be a part of that as my training progresses. Cheers, AB180.