As I’m only a week into this new health style choice (my coach Jeff still won’t let me call it a diet) there’s not a lot of change to report. But any good upgrade has to at least acknowledge the choices and conditions that led to the business case for the project, so here goes.
When I was younger I had, in the word of one dietition, “the metabolism of a hyperactive ferret on speed”. At my heaviest, I was about 130lbs but I said I was 150 (which would only have been true if I was soaking wet, wearing army boots, with rocks in my pockets). In college when I lived in the dorms and meal plans meant 3 all-you-can-eat sessions a day, I would still sometimes wake up famished at 2am. My solution was to walk up the street to McDonalds, eat a big mac, and go back to bed. (I went to school in NYC and they don’t call it the city that doesn’t sleep for nothing.)
What this meant that not only did I NOT learn good eating habits, I actively cultivated POOR eating habits. Carbs were my best friend, as was anything chocolate covered. Eating after 10pm was encouraged. And so on.
It turns out age was the kryptonite to my powers of super digestion. I hit 30 and everything slowed down. Of course, it wasn’t quite overnight, but in the course of about 2 years I was developing a paunch that was cute at first, but didn’t go away. At the same time, my career in IT (and the business itself) had transitioned from a largely active one running around a classroom all day or going cube to cube and floor to floor doing desktop support; to a desk based one (and even work-from-home. Now I didn’t even have the walk across the parking lot to keeping me moving).
By 40 the extra pounds were visibly adding up, and I added acid reflux to the mix. At this point, I realized I needed to take my eating habits seriously. Weight Watchers was already a thing in my house, so it was easy to fall in line. SOME of the pounds fell off, and that was good enough.
But, as 50 approached, the weight started creeping up again DESPITE the fact that I’d developed some relatively healthy habits. I was exercising fairly regularly, I was eating reasonably, but the pounds seemed to stick around no matter what I did.
And that’s what brought me to this point. There’s more to the story, but that’s a tale for another day.
And now to run the numbers. Here in week 1, I’m clocking in at:
- 5′ 8″ tall (YAY, I’m not shrinking!)
- 51 yrs old (it beats the alternative)
- 180 lbs
- 41″ belly
- 39″ waist