No More Mister Fat Guy

New Year, New Body?

 

So all week long, the one between Christmas and New Year’s I’m talking about, the one I had off from work, the one where I was up in Vermont with my family, freezing, skiing, and, yes, eating out a lot, I had no idea what I weighed. And I found it liberating. Among the advantages of being up in Vermont cloistered away with the family foursome, plus the dog, was that there wasn’t a scale in sight—the house just doesn’t come with one. I was scaling back while on vacation you might say, which did make my post-Vermont weigh-in a little more meaningful once I did get back to Williamstown New Year’s Eve day, where those who have been following this blog know I have two scales, one that works only in the evenings, and one that is not digital and therefore hard to read.

 

To review further: It has now been almost a full month since I’ve embarked on this higher-protein, less-carbs eating strategy, hoping to lose ten pounds (188-178) and get back to a healthier Body Mass Index (BMI) range of under 25. The news was good: something seems to be working. After being somewhat stuck at 185, I did drop a couple more pounds, which means I weighed in at 183, meaning I’ve now lost five pounds this month, or, in other words, am half-way toward my weight-loss goal. After stalling out there for awhile, this seems like a good amount of weight to have dropped and the right amount of time to have done the dropping. With any luck, by February I should be down to 178 and a BMI of 24.9. No more Mister Fat Guy indeed!

 

I’ve now become a bit more liberal in what I’m eating, i.e. consuming fruits such as oranges and apples when I feel inclined, lower glycemic veggies, and even the occasional yogurt or sips from my daughter’s fruit smoothies, which she seems to consume by the gallon. I also did continue to exercise quite a bit, x-country skiing three days we were up in Vermont and on the other days when weather prohibited skiing, running on the treadmill, biking nowhere fast at the nearby gym, playing squash with my daughters when the gym FINALLY opened down in Williamstown, running outside one day, and walking the dog a bit on those days I was unable to do more.

 

I also did a fair amount of shoveling the walk, taking garbage out, and carrying skis to and from car to the garage, not to mention large suitcases to and from house to car—both my daughters packed up and went back to school this morning, and I do mean packed up. It wasn’t that they were too lazy to carry their suitcases from house to car, they simply weren’t able to. Which makes one wonder: does shedding tears while carrying overstuffed suitcases burn calories and lead to weight loss, or is it just a matter of having lost a little water weight and therefore doesn’t really count? [January 4, 2010]