STARKE'S DORM ROOM

My name is Michael, I'm a 25 year-old Software Engineer from Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. I work/workout in Westlake, another Cleveland suburb. I'm your quintessential computer nerd, and have been for years. Soda, crappy eating habits, and a sedentary lifestyle along with over consumption of alcohol during my college years lead me to be very unhappy with the way I looked and felt. About 28 months ago, certainly at my worst, I weighed in at 240 pounds and easily a third of my body weight was fat. At 5'8" I was if not morbidly so, certainly obese.

I made a choice back then that I was going to do something about it. Being the nerd that I was(/am) I realized that if there was any hope of me actually pulling through with the plan I was going to have to be anal retentive and fastidious about tracking the statitics of my progress. Numbers mean something to me, and are until recently, much of how I tracked my progress. I downloaded, and paid $45 for a piece of software to track my food intake as well as my exercise. Best money I ever spent!

Tdoay I am 55 pounds lighter, with a body fat % of approximately 19. I've maintained my weight at this level since January of this year. In January I moved from a more general health-centered diet to one that while still healthy, is focused on protein intake, combined with supplementation. My workouts are now targeted less on cardio for fat-burning, and are now more focused on building muscle (Don't worry I haven't given up cardio, it's now just part of my workout instead of being my whole workout). I flex and while I'm not ripped like some of the folks I see in pictures here, I see defined muscles where I used to just be flabby.

That makes me smile, and it's the biggest thing for me recently since I'm starting to see results that are external and visible, rather than just the numbers that I used to watch before. I have amazing muscle tone in my legs that I didn't have at this time 3 years ago (I used to run for distance as part of my cardio). My biceps have just exploded in the last few weeks. All of my lifts are up, many of them by 100% or more over the first time out in January. Every week I shed a bit more flab. The love handles I used to have are now almost non-existent and my belly only slightly overhangs my belt where it used to be very noticeable, even clothed.

I never used to know or care anything about the gym or weightlifting. I never used to know or care anything about nutrition. Everything I know now is due to self-study and determination to improve myself. Noone was going to do the work for me. I've come to realize that I actually enjoy much of the "hard work" of working out doesn't really feel like work to me. I hope to continue learning and improving, and I hope that I can share my enthusiasm with all of you.