Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Losing weight TZ style




I have not really shared much about this--but I have been doing the diet thing the past few months. Back in 2002, and after years of over-nourishment, I topped the scaled at 232 lbs, and joined Weight Watchers. I followed the diet to the letter (well mostly), and started running, and lost down to 150 where I earned Lifetime membership. I was told I could begin introducing "other foods" into my diet. Bring on the pie, pizza, and beer. I gradually gained about half of it back, but of course I never stopped running. A return to a sedentary lifestyle would have rocketed my weight back into the 200s, but I hovered between 180 and 190-something.

I jumped back into Weight Watchers and a few other diet plans, but nothing really worked all that well. I always thought since I ran, I could eat whatever. And you can, but losing weight won't happen if there is not a calorie deficit. Well, my friends Bobby and Susan joined the WW camp, and they have done AWESOME, and inspired me to get lean and mean--well, just lean. Doing well in this upcoming 100 was also a motivating factor.

So, after being a fraction over 200, I have lost 25 lbs, and am feeling fit, fast, and confident. I also am sure the scales will continue to go down. Weekly weigh-ins seem to entice me to do what it takes to produce smaller numbers. But getting smaller numbers is also achieved by trickery of a sort. There are no hard and fast rules on "what" you weigh in each week. I do not think the WW personnel cares if you do your first weigh-in with lead shoes and a pocket full of bricks. Certainly, there are heavier clothes and lighter clothes aka "weigh-in clothes." But after a while, you reach a point where you're have the lightest apparel possible. Where do you go from here? When I joined, I wore blue jeans, a long sleeved cotton race shirt of some kind, running shoes, socks, OH, and undies of course. And of course, I want to see the scale go DOWN every week, but some weeks due to consumption of sweets, beer, movie popcorn, etc, I had to resort to other tactics. My weigh-in is Sundays at 2:00 pm, and the usual routine is running ~4 hours Sunday morning. Run those lbs off!! Yeah yeah yeah, I know. It's water weight, but if you do that every week and the scales keep going down, something is working.

But there are other methods. The blue jeans were replaced by my Patagonia running shorts--weighing a mere 8.5 ounces. Tech shirts weigh less than cotton. My Minimus shoes weigh less than my other running shoes, and barefoot weighing is not prohibited. I'm embarrassed to say, that weighing in "commando" is also not forbidden, but I am sure it would probably be frowned upon. (What they don't know, won't hurt them!) I have taken the "big sweat-off" to a new level. Last Sunday, I ran 4.5 miles on the trailz, and then came home and put on sweat pants, a cotton t-shirt and a heavy sweatshirt and stocking hat, and mowed my grass in 93 degree heat and I did not use the self propel on the mower. I just KNEW I had whittled of enough to have a 1 lb loss, but was pleasantly surprised that it was 2.5 lbs!! I had sweat off a total of 6.5 lbs in around 6 hours.

This week, I am trying to eat right, and hope I don't have to crash-course it so hard this Sunday. But if I do, I have determined that removing ALL of my "unwanted" body hair would net about a four once loss!!

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