DAY 0 - What the hell am I doing?

Tomorrow marks the day that I start a new fire-under-my-ass fitness kick.  I'm usually pretty good at staying with these things if and only if I have a goal to reach for.

About 4 months ago, I decided that I wanted to be fitter, leaner, more muscular so I amped up my workouts and also increased the time I spent working out from 3 days a week to 6. After about a month or so, I saw nothing that I wanted or expected to see.  My body got bulkier due to the heavier workouts and I gained about 8 pounds.  I ate a lot more because I was so hungry all the time from the increase in exercise.  I was confused and frustrated and lost all motivation.  I stopped working out 6 days a week and was lucky to get out a run or two a week. My bulkiness quickly declined and I was back where I started except more confused and more frustrated with my body.

I was one of those people that ate whatever I wanted and thought, if I work out long enough, hard enough, then I can eat all the crap I want.  The more I work out the more crap I can eat.  But obviously that wasn't working.

All of this started when I joined instagram.  I started following fitness gurus amazed by their bodies and discipline and eventually learned that diet is key to shaping  their bodies the way they want it to go.  Of course, I'm very skeptical about all of this so I bought books.  Paleo books. And the information in these books scare the crap out of me.  If all of what I've been reading were true (it has its scientific logic that I can accept), then what the hell have I've been doing to my body with all that shit I've been shoveling into my mouth all this time?!

So with this new found curiosity I plan to test the following:

1) How I feel physically - Currently, I get fatigued very easily, I'm always sleepy, and my body is always tired.  It takes quite a bit of coffee to get me 'energized' in the morning regardless of how much or how little I sleep.  I expect to feel more awake and for my body to feel less cumbersome.  I expect to sleep better and for my mind to be less congested (but that could also be the case because I'm a little koo-koo in the head).

2) How I look physically - I am 'fit' compared to most of America (not by own standards).  I don't have a gut, I have some muscle definition especially in my arms and back, but I do have a pooch, cheese thighs, thunder thighs, and an ample behind.  I expect to tone up and tighten up.  I will keep up a steady exercise plan with increasing intensity but not more than I did before so I can test the full extent of this 'diet'.

3) How my skin reacts - I have been plagued with acne for about 10 years now.  Nothing seems to help it.  I've tried drinking butt-loads of water, I've tried a shitload of products (high and low end), tried all the home remedies you can think of, and nothing ever seems to work.  I expect my skin to clear up quite a bit since I've pretty much canceled out all of the things I can possibly to do fix my face except changing what I eat.

Wish me luck and I hope you enjoy my suffering as I sink into a catatonic state, dreaming about cake.

-S