I'm 35lbs over my goal weight. I used to be lean-muscled with a small gut at ~187lbs in high school and college, but then I joined the Peace Corps after graduation and left to serve in Zambia. Two months before I left, I blew up from 187lbs to 205lbs thanks to quitting my workouts and eating everything I wanted before heading to Africa. The diet here is mostly carbs and fried greens. I dropped down to 190lbs my first year and a half, thanks to cycling - ~100km/week - and an involuntary vegetarian diet that consisted of "nshima" - extra-thick cornmeal porridge that doubles as an edible utensil and fried or boiled spinach-y greens, crackers, chips and cookies. Meat is a hard thing to come by and when it does come around, it's very gristly and tough. Oh and did I mention everything is fried? After the first 18 months, I received an extension position and a slightly higher stipend, plus an extra 13 months of added service on top of my original 27 months. Now everyone told me that people in the same position I took usually gained weight. I did alright for the first few months but now 4 months from wrapping up my service, I'm up to 210lbs, my highest ever. Life in the village and here in the town I live now, motivation was always a problem. The foreign nature of living in a third world nation threw me off and it was difficult to start up a training regimen. No internet (in the village) and no gyms (outside the capital city; 6+ hour hitchhike or bus ride) really made it tough. I would occasionally find myself doing "Rambo" type workouts but nothing ever lasted more than two months. Then would follow 3-5 months of relative inactivity. My goal is to quit smoking (habit I picked up here), improve my endurance, and lose weight before I go home because as soon as I arrive, I'll be taking a physical agility/strength test in order to get into a fire academy. I've acquired a set of dumbbells but have no suitable benches. We'll see what will happen. I'm thinking if I continue regular pushups, sit-ups, squats and pull-ups, plus start jogging and do Insanity, I should make some progress. Now that I have regular access to internet (though spotty and download speeds at sometimes under a KB/sec), I hope this website will remind me each day of my goals. Thanks for reading!