Pre-season

Ill be posting each week with the pre-season tasks, then when the challenge begins ill be aiming for daily posts but may only get around to every 2 or3 days depending on my commitments.

So the first pre-season task was to introduce ourselves. I did a fairly small intro on the forums but thought I would share a more in-depth one here for anyone interested.

Firstly, some general stats: Im Jess, im 24yrs old, married with no children, I work full-time as a registered nurse in intensive care and am studying part-time for my masters degree. Im 170cms tall, about 108kg (ill do more accurate measurments when we get to that task). I have dark brown hair, blue eyes and am fairly shy at first. Im also a vegetarian/vegan. My ultimate goal weight is 60kg. I will address my goals more in depth when we get to that task.

Im doing the 12wbt because im turning 25 in June and have yet to live my twenties. Ive been overweight since I was 19yrs old. Ive battled with eating disorders in the past- I developed anorexia when I was 12yrs old which led to bulimia at 14yrs old and was very skinny all through high school. At the end of high school I went to university and started gaining weight. I didnt stop gaining weight! I was a size 18. In my final year of uni I went to weight watchers and lost 19kg and was a healthy size 8 again. The following year I finished uni and started working full-time shift work. I also moved in my then fiance. I have been steadily gaining weight since then. We got married when we were 22yrs old and its coming up to our 3yr wedding anniversary and we are yet to start our marriage. Im not interested in spending time with my husband or doing anything fun because im ashamed of my weight. My husband loves me no matter what size I am but I feel so uncomfortable in myself I cant be myself. I tried weight watchers again a couple of times, but my situation has changed now and I dont feel that program works for me anymore as it did when I was still living at home with my parents and going to uni. I want to do the 12wbt challenge as I find I get very disheartened if I dont see results. Ive heard Michelle's style of training is to go hard & fast and strip fat quick to get results.

Ive been a vegetarian for 5 years and recently a vegan. I dont eat any products that come from an animal. This has made diet programs hard to follow as well, as not many can be tailored to veganism. But I was very happy to hear the 12wbt can be tweaked. For exercise, I have access to a 24/7 gym so there is no excuse for not going!

Limitations & barriers I foresea would include being a shift worker for starters- I work 12hr shifts. For a day shift I get up at 5am and leave to go to work, I start work at 7am and work til 7:30pm and get home at around 8:30pm so thats a very long day. And I usually do 3 of these days in a row. For night shift I leave home at 6pm to start work at 7pm, and i work through til 7:30am the next day, get home at about 8:30am then sleep til about 3-4pm then usually go back to work again, and again I do 3 of these in a row. Its going to be very hard to find time to exercise between shifts. The upside is, I get 4 days off a week, so thats 4 days I can be smashing it up minimum! The other barrier is my study, if I have an assignment due or need to study then I have to study. But im going to try to plan exercise breaks between study sessions- go to the gym for even 30mins or take the dogs for a quick walk.

Ive been raiding the forums over at 12wbt and the support so far is just amazing, and we havent even started yet! Looking forward to meeting some great people and seeing all the transformations! We can do this guys!