Confessions of an overweight skinny kid

I've always been a skinny kid.  Now my grad school lifestyle (unhealthy food and absolutely nothing resembling exercise) has caused me to gain ALOT of weight in unfortunate places.  I'm also closing in on the end of my thesis and I need the exercise to help keep me sane.  So I'm trying the resolution thing.  I'm eating healthy and exercising when I can.  I'm using Chris' Kinect to do the Ubisoft Your Shape exercise program. I signed up for their website that helps track the calories you burn.  So far so good.  The Kinect is pretty awesome because all of the games get us up and moving, which at this point is exactly what we need.  The Kinect Sports lets you post videos of you playing the games.  It's fantastically funny to watch the videos.

I figured I would track my progress here, not because it's entertaining but because it might help keep me motivated.  I'm not really weighing myself to track my progress.  I'm a scientist.  I know exactly how long it takes to lose a pound.  It's depressing.  I also know that weight is just a number.  It has a correlation to health at extremes of the scale but not so much in my weight range. So if I'm not weighing myself then I can't get depressed about a number and how little it has changed. I'm hoping it will force me to notice that I have more energy and am sleeping better.  I'm hoping it will make me notice how much less stress I have (haha).  My goal is to be healthy, reduce stress and not let exercise be another source of stress.  If I work a 14 hour day, I don't need to workout.  I need to fall into bed, and that's ok.  If I need a break from work and Disco Dance for 20 minutes, that's ok too.

Today I broke the 200 calorie burned mark on Your Shape.  I've been doing the Zen classes and the personal training so far.  I really am enjoying the workouts.  I like the potential variety you can have in your workout. I like the short sessions so you can do more sessions if you want, but you aren't locked into a 45 minute workout. I wish the program it designs based on your fitness test was a little more varied.  Based on my fitness level and the answers to a few questions, it decided that I wanted to do a toning program.  Which is not wrong.  But I want to do cardio too.  And sculpting.  I want to be well rounded.  And not bored.  So I've been selecting workouts myself and not following my "personal workout" that it designed for me.  I also have some trouble because I'm tall.  I'm 6'2" tall.  When it tells me to lift my arms, they go out of the Kinect viewing area and I don't get credit for lifting my arms.  Whatever, I'm not worried about it.  I'm moving, which is all that matters.

So stay tuned.  It will either be a success or an amusing decent into madness.....