Eating Clean and Living Lean — An Average Joe’s Journey to Become Healthier and Fitter

Hello! Hallo! Ola! Salut! Ni Hao!…. You get the drift! Firstly, thank you for taking the time to read my first ever blog, I really do appreciate your time. Nevertheless, before I start to explain why I have made this blog, I better introduce myself…

My name is Andrew Houghton, but you can call me Andy! I am 21 (nearly 22, which means I can nearly relate to a certain Taylor Swift song) years-old, originally from Essex, who is currently a finalist Computing & Management student at Loughborough University in the UK. I have many hobbies, whether it being playing sport with friends, socialising or interest in new technology (don’t worry I'm not that much of a computer nerd).

From a young age (around 12 to the present day) I have always had problems with my weight and body, my bodyweight fluctuates massively and have tried different ways to lose weight. Quite a lot of these have worked, but in the very short-term. I get very good instant results which is great and I feel great about myself, win-win right? I'm afraid not. Once another booze or food infested Christmas comes around, just like the one that has just passed, I'm back to square one again and am back to my poor eating habits. The pictures below shows a good visual representation of what I am talking about:

I have never really been the one to be into ‘blogging’, some of my friends do it, but I have never really seen the appeal. The idea of putting your ideas (sometimes your deepest thoughts) on open source software where everyone can see, sometimes scares the hell out of me! If I'm totally honest, I always thought blogging was for people who are ‘edgy’ and a bit eccentric.

Nevertheless, I have never really had a real reason to blog before and as if by magic I have now found that reason, and this is where the story begins!

Just before my University broke up for Christmas break, I started to go to the gym quite regularly with one of my best mates and I have started to see the benefit of healthy living. For me, I have discovered the feeling of doing a good work-out is amazing and indescribable.

At this time of year, everyone is making new year’s resolution. Statistics from last year (yes, I mean 2015) show that only 8% of people are successful in achieving their resolution. This is frighteningly low.

My aim for this year (2016!) is not to give myself a new year’s resolution, but to change my lifestyle and properly start my fitness journey of me becoming the person I want to be. I call this “Eating Clean and Living Lean”. What does this person look like? Well… its hard to explain, the easiest way I can think of is someone that is body confident, who’s body mainly consists of muscle (no puppy fat or stretch marks). If I find a good visual representation of this, I will put this on my next blog. I'm not trying to change my personality traits, just my body, I like to think I'm a nice person (I hope my mates will vouch for me on that one!)

I am creating a series of blogs over the next 12 months which will allow you to follow my journey to see how I get on with my goal. I am no expert, however, I will give all the tips and lessons I pick up on these blogs so you will hopefully get some use out of reading them. My reason for doing this is because I see this as an opportunity to help others who are in the same position as me because “If I can do it then absolutely anyone can do it!”.

I am in the process of creating meal plans and workout plans and I think this will be the subject of my next blog, as if people want to do the same as me then by all means the more the merrier. We might even be able to create our own on-line community!!!

I am looking forward to start this journey and hopefully I won’t be doing this alone. If there are topics you want me to talk about in my next blog then email me on aphoughton3@hotmail.co.uk.

That’s about it from me. Thank you for going all the way to the end of this post, go and treat yourself to a cookie…. oh I mean a handful of cashew nuts (I can tell this is going to be tough already)!

Ciao!