Me climbing (limping) up on a sandhill

Hello! My name is Laszlo and this is my blog about getting fit and a little bit slimmer. Okay, quite a bit slimmer. The pic on the left is from a desert in Western Australia, but I live in Hungary, hence the funny name (pronounced lahs-low, never mind the Z). When I don’t run or blog, I disguise myself as a EE (electrical engineer) designing medical stuff.

I chose  this picture, because what I’m doing now is pretty much like walking up on a sandhill. If  you’re not careful and determined enough, you’ll end up lower than you originally started. But the rewards are great: there’s vista waiting for you on the top and you’ll feel like being on top of the world.

Why LimpingMonkey?

Okay, here’s a few reasons, pick your favorite:

• I am being sarcastic
• Although I don’t limp I couldn’t say my running style is something worth teaching
• Sometimes (depending on context) I use the word Monkey as a term of endearment (hm, very official)
• Other times I use it in a different way  (the diplomatic version)
• The domain name was available

My story in a nutshell

I’ve never been  skinny (in fact, I was always a little overweight, except when in the army). During my late teens I played handball (what they call Olympic/European kind) and I was reasonably good at it (being taller than the others and left handed). It was during these years that I picked up running / jogging.  I enjoyed it very much, although I’ve never been and never will be a runner. My center of gravity is way too high (I’m 198 cm or 6′ 6″), even my ideal 90 kg (about 200 lbs) is too much for endurance running. Nevertheless, I really got hooked on it. Apart from feeding on the runners’ high, it gives me a sense of achievement and goals to reach.

You can guess the rest. During college and the following years life took over and I slowly put on some serious excess weight. The runs became shorter and less frequent. I never really looked morbidly obese, I’m tall tall enough and the pounds are somehow distributed evenly on me. At my peak, with a BMI of over 34, I was 135 kg (that’s 300 lbs, give or take), but even then I still ran/jog occasionally. (It’s not all fat you know, I got some muscles, too.)

So now, at close to 40, my goal is apart from the usual weight loss goals is to be able to run regularly, improve my performance a bit and perhaps finishing some races before the closing bus.

I intend to give you (and myself) fun, but thorough reports and updates on my journey. Yes, being an engineer, I can’t escape from my obsession with numbers, trends, etc. I (re)started this whole thing in 2009/Q4, but I’ve had this blog only since Feb 2010. For the sake of simplicity, I will consider January 1st, 2010 as the kick-off date (week #0).

I am selfish and am doing this to help me get to where I want to be, but I hope you can also learn something from my mistakes and experiences. I know I gain a lot from reading other people’s blogs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Limping Monkey