In 2005, my doctor tactfully asked what I thought was a reasonable length of time to lose 15 pounds.
"Five years," I said confidently. "See, if I can lose three pounds a year, I'm sure I can keep them off!"
He looked startled. "I was thinking more like six months," he said. Now I was startled. He quit the practice soon afterward, so the subject didn't come up again.
Well, it's five years later, and I haven't lost any of it -- or, rather, I've lost and gained countless pounds, but I'm still at the starting line.
I'm like a lot of Americans in their 50s: I eat like a starved kitten over the holiday season, feel guilty on January 2, resolve to do something about extra weight and befriend an exercise machine for about three weeks. But this year will be different, because my editors and countless unseen eyes (that would be you, readers) will make me feel guilty if I fail -- ummmm, I mean, will offer moral support in my quest.
I plan to do this in the "stubborn old guy" tradition: No trips to gyms, no special diets, no cutting back completely on sweets. (Oh Lord, not that.) I'm going to modify portions and climb on the treadmill in my home five days a week for 45 minutes a day. I'm going to exercise common sense and will power and enjoy balanced meals. And on January 2, 2012, I'll be 15 pounds lighter.
I'm giving myself twice as long as my doctor did to drop the weight, and I'm going to chronicle my progress and my backsliding in this blog. With luck, you'll see more of me on the page and less of me in the flesh this year.
-- Lawrence Toppman
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Send your nominations for doctor of the year
9 years ago
6 comments:
Good luck. Don't forget to take some "before" pictures.
um...will lawrence even be around in jan 2012....with the observer i mean.
Good for you, Lawrence - take it day by day! You can do this- your family and body will thank you for it. Looking forward to hearing about your journey.
Nearly anyone would get bored with the monotony of the treadmill.
Breakup your workouts. Diversify. Shoot some baskets. Get some upper body work in there.
Building muscle will raise your metabolic rate. You will burn more calories at rest.
That's the key to long term weight loss.
Get outta here...you're not serious! Fifteen pounds would be significant for a petite female; for a chunky male, fifteen pounds is nothing. You want to take a year to lose fifteen pounds?!? ("Why don't we chug on over to Namby-Pamby Land, where you might find some self-respect, you jackwagon!" ~grin~)
To put it in terms of calories (just one way to approach it), a diet of 1500 calories/day in a an active male with a bit of a chunky physique should drop him two pounds per week. Most men can handle a 1500 calorie diet and be pretty comfortable.
But, okay. You really don't have a lot of weight to lose and seem to want to glide gently into a lifestyle change rather than taking drastic action, which is fair enough. But on 2000 calories a day, you still should lose a pound a week, and we don't need a math wizard to predict you hitting your goal in fifteen weeks. But theory does not always play out in the real world so let's say twenty-six weeks to get there at 2,000 calories per day. This is so easy it hardly merits discussion among dieters. (You seem to me considerably more ambitious about the exercise part than about the dieting part.)
One thing that I am hot on at the moment is the need to live one's life everyday monitoring what one eats the way a diabetic watches his sugar. Whether it is calories, carb-counting, or some other system, anybody with a tendency to weight gain needs to stay on top of his intake data. I remember hearing Lance Armstrong confess once to Charlie Rose that he counted the calories in every potato chip he ever put in his mouth. Lance was looking forward to the end of his professional career so that he could lighten up a bit in this area. But I think that realizing what you are putting in your mouth and keeping a running tab is one of the keys to controlling weight.
Now, c'mon, man!
Okay, about 15 years ago I contributed to your negative eating habits by making a promise to bake brownies for you if you would come talk about your job to students in our after-school reading club. So as a way of saying thank you again, here are a few words of encouragement and/or support. Whatever you do, keep moving. Make it fun, write it down, do it alone and with others, talk about it, push yourself, forgive yourself, and when you mess up, start over....as many times has you have to.
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