The journey starts here, oh gawd...

Welcome to my very first post in what I hope is going to be an informative and dare I say it, inspirational, blog aimed fair and squarely at the Dad Bod's out there.

Over the course of the next 8 weeks, I'll be aiming to take this soft and sensitive "Dad Bod" of mine through a rigorous, but theoretically achievable training and diet regime to see exactly what can be achieved by your average 40-something Dad & Husband.

I guess a bit about me, I'm 40 years of age, married to my wonderful and supportive wife Petra for 15 years and have two fantastic kids in Isabelle (10) and Kai (7). We live where the city meets the country in Victoria, Australia and my entire working life I've been into the IT sector, so a rather sedentary work life.

Despite being what I now realise is mildly-semi-committed to staying fit by way of Personal Trainers (hope you're enjoying your holiday in Europe for the next 2 months by the way Adam), I can see that I have never been truly committed to the cause of losing the extra weight and getting my level of fitness up to where I really want it.

I want to be able to run around the oval with the football with my son and not feel like I'm having an coronary event. I want to be able to walk up the stairs at work 2 levels without hoping there's oxygen and a paramedic on standby once I exit the stairwell.

I also want to either prove or disprove the idea that you can get supremely fit and get ripped in this 8 week tour of pain. I'm frustrated by watching the "Six Pack Shortcut Guy", or the "Athlean-X" guy, or our friends over at "Freeletics". So let us put the commitment required to achieve the results, and by us, I mean me, and see what can actually be achieved by an average every day kinda guy.

In general terms though, the goal is to reduce my Body Fat weight by at least 50%, of which I have a healthy 18kg worth, and really work hard to get myself very fit. The mixture of training and diet will get me to these goals.

It's tough carrying this Dad Bod around all the time, so for context and by definition, and I take extreme artistic license in where I choose my source for definition, "Dad Bod" is referred as...

"Dad bod" is a male body type that is best described as "softly round." It's built upon the theory that once a man has found a mate and fathered a child, he doesn't need to worry about maintaining a sculpted physique.

Personally, I let that description set in for a moment, and was then hit with a more apt analogy of this common affliction...

If human bodies were cuts of meat, the dad bod would skew more marbled rib eye than filet mignon; or, if human bodies were sea mammals, dad bod would be more like a grazing manatee than a speedy dolphin. The dad bod is more mudslide than mountain, more soft serve than sorbet, more sad trombone than clarinet, more mashed potato than skinny fry. The dad bod is built for comfort.

Yeah, ok, that's pretty much me, but clearly I'm not the only one with this "terrible" subscription. As if going through with this is not throwing myself under the bus enough, I'm certainly throwing myself under a bus that just so happens to be full of 120 kilo-a-piece construction workers by saying that there's plenty of "us" around. At work, at your kids soccer practice, whilst waiting in line at the grocery checkout.

But this is where I say, NO MORE.

Slowly watching my belt buckle disappear, running out of breath walking to Mustafa's Kebab Emporium and most importantly, not having the energy to get through the day and spend that quality time with my family.

There will be pain, there will be tears (real men cry) of both Agony and Ecstasy and their may be the odd vomiting scene that's for my trainers enjoyment is likely to not be edited or censored in anyway.

So away we go and I  hope you enjoy the journey as much as I'm likely to cry through it...