What I wouldn’t give for a pizza.
posted by Norm on May 31st, 2008 • filed under Biking, Health, LivingI’m trying to lose some weight.
That probably puts me in the same boat as thousands of other Americans – the primary difference being that I’m attempting to do so via lifestyle alterations rather than expensive surgeries or shady supplements. Of course, I have a semi-rare advantage in this area: I already did it once before so I know it can be done again.
During the seven or so months I spent living in Japan I managed to drop a significant amount of weight. This was entirely by accident and, if you can believe it, I actually recall being surprised when I caught a glance of myself in a mirror whilst touring China. The weight loss was the result of lifestyle changes that were made completely unconsciously and enforced by the culture I was living in and the circumstances in which I found myself (poor). Of course, upon my return to the States I gained most of that weight back within a year or so but eventually managed to reach equilibrium by removing soda from my diet in all its forms.
Since moving to Madison, though, old habits returned. Of course the blame really rests with my own lack of self-control but, in true American Spirit, I will instead blame the cooler at work. It is chock full of succulent free drinks – fruit juices, vitamin waters (how fucking stupid are they?) and sodas of all kinds. Their low cost and ready availability would be my demise, along with the general stress of being a working man in a new city. Getting home tired each day, the thought of actually preparing healthy foods generally lost to the ease of frozen French fries, boxed macaroni and cheese, hotdogs and Pizza Hut. Combined with the typical sedentary office life, these factors conspired to make me…well, kind of a fatass. Let’s not pull punches here.
Anyway, I decided something had to be done a few weeks ago and, thus, set out to change my lifestyle as best I can. The first two major changes: strictly enforcing a 1600 Calorie daily menu and riding my bike to and from work twice a day (in the morning, home and back for lunch, and home in the evening). The former started out very rocky. Having gotten used to eating way more than I should, I found myself almost constantly hungry. However, the thought that I’d certainly existed on a similar diet for half a year in Japan reminded me that if I could only get used to the smaller, healthier portions again things would get easier. And, I’m happy to say, they mostly have.
I’ve managed to stay pretty much on this program for an entire month so far, during which I’ve dropped around 6 pounds. In the past two weeks I’ve added a 22 mile bike around one of the local lakes to my Saturdays which should, hopefully, help me increase that rate. Having bought a fairly accurate bathroom scale was also a good idea. I was on the fence at the start. I knew I was overweight – that much was obvious just by looking – but it didn’t gel until I saw the dreaded number two in the hundreds column of that seven-segment display. I have never, at any point in my life up until now, weighed that much, and the realization of such galvanized my motivation.
The long-term goal is to get down to around 170, which should put me safely in the healthy weight range for my height. For now I’m just hoping to see 189 by the time I head to my little brother’s high school graduation party in July. That’s a pretty conservative target, I know, but I figure it’s better to aim low and surpass it so as to keep myself motivated.
The ability to convincingly lie to oneself is probably the single greatest success factor in weight loss.
del.icio.us | reddit | digg | permalink | comments (18)