As some of you know, starting just after NECon 29 I came to the conclusion that I had to get control of my weight and general fitness. On July 19, I stepped on my home scale and it tipped to 228.1 pounds. This was 43 pounds heavier than I’d been in December 2007 (185 pounds) when I’d taken over as executive director at an animal rescue league. Just walking around, I felt big, lazy, and generally unhealthy.
Deciding to get healthy and actually committing to the process are two different things. I went through several stages of fooling myself into thinking I could continue several bad habits and that adding a bit of exercise would make all the difference in the world. In case you’re curious, if you go to the gym 2-3 nights per week, and order out Chinese food 4-5 nights per week, you’re not going to make a lot of progress in terms of losing weight. It’s sort of like bailing out a sinking frigate with a thimble.
So, the first new reality that got through my thick Irish skull is that I had to hit the gym more often. I’m going about 5-6 days per week now. Once I reach my fitness goals, I’ll look at cutting back to 4-5 nights per week, but for now I need this level of consistency to reach my goals. The real challenge here has been learning to assign my workouts with a higher priority. It’s always easy to say, “I’ll skip tonight’s workout to get ahead on X,Y, and Z.” That said, it’s somewhat easier for me as I’m both single and I have no kids. So, I have fewer external pressures than a lot of guys my age.
Once I upped my workout frequency, I also knew that the diet had to change as well. The food side of the equation was somewhat easy. I’ve never been addicted to fast food and I needed to cut back on take-out anyway to save money. I’m eating more protein, veggies, good carbs, and a lot less processed foods. MUCH harder was curtailing my love for any beer that resembles old motor oil. Yeah, if you’ve noticed stock in Guinness taking a bit of a dip lately, I’m the reason why. The good news is that I’ve done it, but boy did that take a fair amount of willpower.
Even better news is that it’s really starting to pay off on the scales. As I mentioned before, in late July I came in at 228.1 pounds. This morning’s weigh in put me at 210.6 pounds*. So, I’ve lost 17.5 pounds in a bit over a month. I’m happy with that. My goal is to reach and maintain 185 – 190 pounds.
I’m also happy that my consistency at the gym is starting to pay off noticeably. While I’m not nearly at my goal, the amounts of weight I can lift across most exercises has been rising steadily and I’m feeling stronger. It’s nice NOT being the fat guy struggling with dumbbells that look like cocktail wieners on toothpicks.
On a more amusing front, I also believe that I’ve “arrived” in the eyes of the other guys at the gym. I’ve noticed that several of the big, fit, “usual suspects” at the gym now greet me with that slight, wordless, gladiator head-nod that I think means they approve of my presence. There’s whole papers and stories that could be written around the odd rituals and sociology that occurs in your average gym.
So anyway, there’s my progress so far. A little over 17 pounds lost; about 25 pounds to go. I’m looking forward to reaching my goal.
Cheers!
* Those of you on Facebook know that I’m also involved in a “Biggest Loser” contest at work. The weights I listed in paragraph five don’t match with what I’ve posted from the contest. There’s two reasons for that. The first is simple: different scales. The second is that the weigh-ins I do at home are in the morning, pre-breakfast, and wearing not a lot of clothing. The weigh-ins at work are post-meal and fully-clothed. As a result, this adds about 5-7 pounds when I weigh in at work. So, my post-NECon weight at 228.1 pounds means that my “walking around” weight at that time was in the low 230s.
