By last January, I was feeling pretty overweight — in fact, I was heavier than I’d been in years. So I set a goal to lose 25 lbs in the first six months of 2008. Unless I lose an arm in the next few days, I won’t make that goal, but I extra have lost, to date, exactly 20 lbs, and I feel a whole lot better, even if I am still a good 15 lbs too heavy. As far as I’m concerned, that counts as a win! (If there’s one thing I’m not, its a perfectionist. Or someone who is too hard on himself. Or great at sticking to a single subject.)
I noticed that after an initial, fairly quick, weight loss, I started to level out, until just the past few weeks, when I moved into my new apartment. Which is kind of odd, because I’ve only been to the gym a few times since then, and I’ve hardly gone jogging at all. But I have been walking or biking to and from work almost every day, and eating at home more. The trick, you see, is to only ever keep the Blessed Trinity of salad, coffee and tuna in the house. Happy side-effect: I can blaze through grocery shopping in about 8 minutes a week!
I was also planning to use this as an excuse to try various wacky diet and exercise plans, but to be honest, I got kind of nervous that they would detract from my slow but effective plan of eating better and getting more regular exercise. Which I know, is a whole lot more boring than trying the Shangri-La Diet (it’s gotta be good, because it was invented by a Scientist! plus, all the flax oil you can drink!). But hey, maybe in the second half of this year I’ll lose all respect for the deliciousness that is the food-eating experience. (Mmmmm… I want some laksa from Hawker’s Delight right… now.)
Tomorrow, the lovely Janelle arrives from Australia for a visit. I expect a lot more dining out and even less gym time for a while, so this will be an interesting experiment in just how well light regular exercise like the 4K walk to work holds back the really, truly fat man trapped in my only-kinda-fat man’s body. Particularly in the face of my goal of trying every restaurant on Main Street. I predict… not as well as I would like. Take that, constant struggle against obesity!