The Weight

Yesterday morning I woke up and, as per my daily ritual, stepped on the scale.  I took a deep breath and looked down expecting to see a good number, and there it was:  212.  Weight is all relative to how one looks at it in terms of their personal situation and goals.  On this day, 212 was a good number for me.

A little over a year ago, I had been pushing nearly 280 pounds before I made my lifestyle change.  On the morning of the NYC Marathon this past November, I was down to 212 pounds.  That was a very proud day for me, and afterwards I celebrated heartily.

And I celebrated the day after that, and the day after that.

I had been advised to take about three weeks off before beginning training workouts again after the marathon, and though I did do a few light cardio sessions, it wasn't anything that would give me significant calorie burn.  And I ate, too.  After 11 months of dieting and achieving success, I decided to spend the holidays eating what I wanted to eat.  That doesn't necessarily mean that I gorged myself, but the occasional bad choices were certainly made and if dinner tasted good on some nights, I wouldn't shy away from going for seconds.  I felt as though it was well-deserved and I wasn't going to sweat it.

But New Year’s came along and I hadn’t been on a scale in a while, so I decided to hop on and see how I had fared.  I wasn’t completely shocked when it said “228,” but it was a bit more than I had expected.  It was truly a sign of how much control I have over my weight when I’m not paying attention to it.  Those two months are somewhat of a microcosm of the past 5 years for me (before I started losing the weight).  I don’t THINK my diet is that bad, but when I analyze it the truth comes out.  If left to my own devices, I will slowly eat my way to 280 every time.

And now, with the Ft. Lauderdale Marathon coming in mid-February, I knew I had to do something about it. 

When it comes to running distance, weight is certainly important.  I get obsessed with my weight at times because I know that I will run faster at 212 than I would at 228.  An article I once read suggested that every pound of weight that you add when running a marathon can cost you between 1-2 minutes at the finish.  Running Ft. Lauderdale at 228 pounds was not an option.

So I made the obligatory New Year’s Resolution (which I wholeheartedly believe in, by the way), and got to work.

One of the things that made my weight loss a little more manageable last year was the use of a fitbit.  I used it often and took advantage of a lot of its options – setting goals for steps-in-a-day and carefully monitoring my calorie deficit by paying close attention to the amount I was burning versus the amount I was eating.  It taught me so much about the kind of exercise that needs to be done to offset the calories you ingest.  It taught me a lot about the calorie content of the foods I was eating, and even though pretzels may be a better option than cookies, you still cannot eat a full bag of them and expect to lose weight.

So this year I started a food and exercise journal.  I monitor my weight daily and I add up every calorie I eat, and then subtract it from every calorie I burn to get my daily calorie deficit.  Fitbit says on average, a 3500 calorie deficit would be the equivalent of losing one pound.  I don’t know that I have necessarily found that to be a hard rule, but it does offer a good perspective as to the amount of sacrifice you need to put in, be it through the workout or diet.  The journal keeps me honest.  And yes, I have days where I blow through my calorie allotment.  But forcing myself to keep the journal at least puts me back on track shortly thereafter.

I ran the Ft. Lauderdale Marathon at 215 pounds.  So, while I lost most of the weight I had gained, I wasn’t able to lose it all.  Losing 13 pounds in a month and a half was certainly a fine achievement in itself, and it took until this morning for me to lose the remaining three pounds to reach this weight-loss cycle’s previous low of 212.  And with momentum on my side and my journal in hand, I expect to continue down the weight loss path and hope that by the time I find myself on the starting line at the Marine Corps Marathon in October, I’ll be at a significantly lower weight.

I need to break 5 hours.  There is no excuse for me not to, and in order to give myself the best chance, I need to continue to lose weight.  It's a moral imperative.