It took well over a year but c’mon, I really didn’t get serious until I finally gave up and joined Planet Fitness (or Fatness as I call it for my condition). Getting down to this lower weight was my diehard objective before the end of the month. I should’ve known better with all the holiday snacking and drinking; we never got close to finishing the Advent Beer calendar from Costco. However, with a new year, you get a chance to have a new beginning! It’s what I love about New Year’s Eve/Day!
Now to bore you about how I am pulling or pulled it off after being a fat-ass for the last several years. I get up (obviously), hit the bike until I either complete this last:
- (Currently) 41 minutes of exercise
- Close the Red Activity Ring
- Close the Green Exercise Ring
- (Currently) 11 miles
- (Currently) Work off 540 active calories
It’s not always the same thing every day. Usually the rings get closed well before the other three. I bump up the active calories by 10 every week. Then comes the really hard part…NOT EATING that much! I think where I was going wrong in the recent past was continuing to eat enough to maintain my horrific weight plus what I might have burned off at the gym. Not a great strategy unless I’m Michael Phelps minus the weed. My other favorite activity of stairs only happen when I have more time and I’m not sick to my stomach; this worries me, because it’s how they described Darth Cheney’s heart attacks in Vice. Someone had one at a gym several years ago and it was so mild, the person didn’t know it was actually happening.
When I get home, I treat myself to a money-saving coffee-based concoction I figured out through shopping at Costco. Measuring it out helps too. It’s 200 ml of cold brew coffee (different brands until I find one I’m set on), 200 ml of Promised Land chocolate milk (there’s something in it, making the milk worth the price; I blame it on cows knowing their catechism), one teaspoon of Torn raspberry syrup and 400 ml of vanilla soy milk. I need to read the labels more thoroughly. I think all the protein in this is what’s helping.
Additional factors are wedge salads for lunch or dinner. Eating, more like swallowing quickly, avocados to cover for meat. I also drown them in dressing or lemon juice to cover the disgusting taste. Snacks of celery or carrots with some ranch.
The new goal is to keep my weight around 260 or a little lower for a while, then push for 255. I want to get their gradually, same as cleaning my house, to prevent a yo yo effect or blowback in the extreme. I would love to be well under 250 this year and then I could return to running on a treadmill as my doctors advised.