My name is Paul, I am 30 years old and I’ve always been a bit porky.  I first became aware of this when I was about 12 years old and I was at school.  I took my top off in front of my classmates and was met by howls of derision from my classmates. Ever since then I have always just accepted that I am a bit on the big side, and being a consummate lazy bones, I’ve never really done much to rectify the situation.  Occasionally I have tried diets, but they’ve only lasted for a few days before I am back on the cakes.  As for exercise, it’s always been a bit of a non-starter for me, as it has always seemed like a fairly pointless waste of time, and there are far too many TV shows that could take my attention away from it.

So why now?  I turned thirty this year, and I have a two and a half year old daughter. The idea of her growing up in a household where both parents are overweight fills me with a certain amount of dread. If she turns out to be big it wouldn’t matter a jot to me, but it could have a serious affect on her, and I don’t want that to be on my head.  And I am sick of being this way.  For years it hasn’t bothered me, but as I get older I am waking up the sense that I am not invincible, and that I may be storing up future health issues.

As well as this, I am a smoker.  Being slightly nihilistic in my twenties the health issues have never really seemed like a present threat, but again when you start a family your priorities have to change. And so as well as the weight loss, I am going to be giving up smoking, so be prepared for some very angry posts from me in the first few weeks.

So what are my aims? Being a bloke, obviously the whole ‘getting down to so and so weight’ is not really my style.  I want to be healthy, and I would like to be toned. Not muscled per se, but I would love to replace my moobs with pecs, and my beer keg for something a little bit more washboard.  As such, while I imagine Ellen’s approach will be a little diet based, mine will be more exercise based, or at least that is how I see this going with a few weeks left before we actually start.  The whole point of this experiment will be that we do not know from the outset how we’re going to do this, more that we’re committed to doing it.