12.28.07
Beautiful Loser
I started off 2006 with a significant amount of excess weight. By April, the majority of what I wanted to lose was gone. And by January of 2007 a good chunk of that was back. So, 2008’s ‘big’ resolution is the removal of the remainder.
Now, let me be honest here. I’m not, by any estimation, what anyone would call ‘fat’. Right now I’m hovering around 187-195, which is considered average for an American male of my age, but still a little high given my height. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, my Body Mass Index is (at the time of this writing) 27.3, which falls a little way into the “overweight” category. To put me into the “normal” category, I have to drop down to about 174. Not coincidentally, the 2006 endeavor ended with me moving from 215 to 175.
The interesting thing is that, despite the fact that I’ve eaten more since I’ve gone on the non-meat thing, I’ve maintained pretty much where I was. So, it’s really just a matter of recovering the discipline I had in both eating less and exercising more. The eating less is going to be easy– I just have to carry the itty bitty calorie book again, and possibly resuming my use of a specific diet shake plan which I did not continue with since arriving here in Pittsburgh (even though I really meant to, honest). The exercise… might be tricky.
2006 saw me doing daily walks in the morning and a weekend journey to the arcade for an hour or so of DDR. I’ll likely be resuming the weekly pilgrimages– I have a couple of arcades I can choose from, including one very close by and one a little further away that’s more fun– but the walks will have to be in the evening or will be replaced by stretches of home DDR or some other DVD workout. Fortunately, I’m smart enough to load the workout videos into KOS-MOS, so there’s no fussing with missing or damaged discs early in the morning.
The food is actually not going to be that big of a problem. I know a few very good recipes, and I’m quite capable of cooking for myself if I need to– and the fact that I just picked up “15-Minute Vegetarian Meals” helps my repertoire to an infinite degree. What will be the biggest problem (besides clearing away the positively enormous amount of Christmas food I wound up with) will be in not being lazy, and preparing varied and properly-sized meals ahead of time. I’m returning to the so-called “150-point” plan, so I have to be extremely conscious of my portion sizes and my choices of extras. In the past I quickly found myself in a rut as I would eat the same things day in and day out because they were known values, and the temptation to stray was very present. If I set aside some time Sundays to cook lunches for the week ahead, I’ll be in better shape with regards to mixing things up– both literally and figuratively.
The big hangup with that last paragraph is “not being lazy”, which is (I hope) going to go hand-in-hand with the discipline. We’ll see.
Anyway, tomorrow we’ll take a look at the state of the stories, and go over the current plan for the revision and publication of Harvesting Blueberries.