This weekend marks the hopeful end of the benevolent Bhudda Belly regime. It has come to my attention lately (most recently by the fact I now have only two pairs of pants that fit) that I am, in fact, chunky. There's many reasons why: I stopped exercising when I traded my bike in for a bus pass in November; my diet has been anything but moderated; I spend my days sitting in a chair, typing on a keyboard; sitting down to a Ukranian Easter feast and being so full of food that I had to sit up until 1:30 to let it digest.

When I was younger, I was really skinny; the type of skinny that is just a little off, a little not-right. Part of this had to do with the diet I had at the time; Mom and Dad were on cholesterol-reduced diets, which meant the entire family was on cholesterol-reduced diets; Mom also had a much different idea of what a "reasonable" portion was, being a rather small person. The other part was due to what I did for a living: I worked in a lumber yard, walking around all day, stacking lumber, and loading drywall into customers' trucks. I was way more active then than I am now.

University, it appears, was my window to weight gain. When I moved to UBC, I started cooking for myself. My portion size was much larger than when I was living at home, I started eating richer foods, and my life of sitting at a computer began in earnest, as I got into chatrooms, wrote essays, and eventually started working for an Internet company.

Now, at first, this really wasn't a problem. I was really underweight when I was younger; at 17, I weighed 130/140 pounds and had a 28" waistline. Quite frankly, I needed to gain some weight. After a couple of years, I looked better, my face filled out, and I generally started to carry myself better. Unfortunately, I never really stopped. The last time I weighed myself (february?), I clocked in at 187 pounds. I have, basically, gained 50 pounds in the last 10 years. And that's not okay.

So we get to the present. This morning, I couldn't find a pair of pants to wear, because nothing fit. My 'relaxed' jeans are definitely stressed; all of my nice shirts and sweaters balloon out at the front, and I feel the least amount of energy inside me in years. Kirsten and I had already talked a few times about getting me out to the gym, or about getting back on the bike to get to and from work/school. Until this morning, when I frantically couldn't find a pair of pants that fit (I finally did; the other pair that fit were dirty), it didn't quite hit home though.

I guess I've felt, to this point, that I was still "ok" - that as long as I was under 200 pounds, I wasn't really overweight. But now, I can say that I am, and that I need to do something about it. I know now that I need to get my fat arse up and moving, and I need to shed some pounds (my lowest weight in the last 4 years was 170, when I was working out with Alan, Kevin E., Wim, and Brian). My goal isn't really pound-related - I want to get rid of the gut, and get the cardiovascular back in shape.

I'm giving myself 3 months for the cardiovascular - I want to do a lot of hiking this summer - and 6 months for the belly. I don't want to build a lot of muscle; I've never felt right with that body type. What I want is to be lean again, not necessarily strong, but wiry; I want to get back down to a 32" waits, if not a 30.

Kirsten is going to go to the gym with me on Mon/Wed/Fri, and help get me into shape. I'm considering taking the Tue/Thu and going swimming at the local pool. My biggest roadblock is that she wants to go at 6am, a time hereunto spurned by my body. Only the coming weeks will reveal if I'm turning a page in life and getting back to the body I feel is right, or if I just resign myself to being a fat guy.