Family weight loss challenge update 3/7/2013:
I’ll be honest, the first two weeks of February were tough. With the Super Bowl, my busiest season at work, an out-of-town engagement party, and the first Carolina-Dook game, there were many reasons to both celebrate and drown my sorrows in food and beer (based on how I spelled Dook, you can deduce my reason for drinking that night). I ate terribly. The late night drive-thru lady at Wendy’s knew who was coming around the corner by my order (2 double stacks and a large Dr. Pepper? Oh, hey Alec!) I only made it to the gym once or twice each week. I started missing my weekly weigh-in checkpoints. Then, I started ignoring those check-in reminders I set in my phone altogether.
Fortunately, I was raised in the church and am all too familiar with guilt. I started to feel guilty for not keeping my word to myself and my family. I also could picture my brother just rolling around in my $500 if I didn’t make the June 1st weigh-in. As Lent approached I saw it as an opportunity to get back in the swing of things. For those unfamiliar with Lent, Christians observe Lent to commemorate the 40 days Jesus spent fasting and praying while being tempted by the Devil. In participating in Lent, we try to give up a vice in our daily lives. For me, my vices were easy to spot because their remnants were all over my car – fast food and Diet Sun Drop. (Before you judge me for using Lent as a diet fad, please remember that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins).
So, time to get back on the scale and re-assess where I was. I had reached the 1 month-check in and had only lost 8 pounds from the initial weigh-in (6 weeks earlier). NOT GOOD. So I started working out – A LOT. I was doing at least 2 workouts a day: a group fitness class in the morning and pick-up basketball in the afternoon; hit the treadmill in the morning and train with Liz in the evening. This was going well until I tweaked my left knee on a 3-workout day (group fitness, treadmill, and tennis). I couldn’t walk right. I couldn’t go up the stairs. I couldn’t push off of it. I was mad. I was more than mad – I was pissed off. I couldn’t believe how hard I was trying and then to have an injury derail me was unbelievably frustrating.
The next day, I was surfing the web when I came across a quote that UNC women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance shares with each recruit: “I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” I’m sure it’s a famous quote, but I had never heard it – and it hit me hard. Just when I was feeling sorry for myself, this was what I needed to read. So, knowing I couldn’t work out as much, I had to turn to my diet to keep this weight-loss train moving. In my experience of yo-yo’ing the scale, I have found that I eat terribly when I do not know what I am going to eat that day. My new goal became to find meals that are healthy and that I could eat every day without any guess work. This also meant it needed to be foods that I actually enjoy. So my new daily diet features vanilla greek yogurt and Kashi for breakfast, half a turkey sandwich for snack, spinach salad with boneless skinless chicken for lunch, the other half of the sandwich for snack, and another spinach salad for dinner. Of course, there are meals where this is not possible as life tends to get in the way occasionally. However, as long as I know the routine, I stick with it for 90% of the week, and that’s pretty damn good if I say so myself.
In addition to the new diet, I’m still able to work out. I’m not running on the treadmill anymore, I’m simply walking on a ridiculous incline. I still can’t do any single leg squats, but I can do standard squats. It has been really helpful to have the training sessions with Liz so she can adapt the things we were doing to accommodate my knee.
That said, as of today, I have lost 19 pounds. So, I’m still a little behind my check-ins, but I am gaining ground on them after my early February setback. That said, I have no room for error now as I have 31 pounds to lose in 3 months. So if you see me around town pounding beers or swinging through the Bojangles, I give you the right to slap me across the face and take it away from me.
