My buddy Khal recently posted an article about his phenomenally successful weight loss campaign. It’s impressive stuff, and testament to his good sense that he’s managed to lose so much weight in so little time while remaining fit and healthy. It’s inspired me to write about my ongoing attempts to get reasonably fit. It isn’t a success story in the same sense Khal’s is, but it’s certainly not a failure yet – which is something.
For about as long as I can remember I’ve been overweight. According to the BMI scale I should be about eighty kilos at most, and I’ve been between twenty and fifty kilos heavier than that since records began (about ten years ago). Interestingly, unlike many a perennial porker, I’ve never found my mass mysterious: I eat more and/or exercise less than my thinner friends, and eat less and/or exercise more than my fatter friends.
Last year I picked up a knee injury during a judo class and had to deal with two months of limited mobility. This period of forced inactivity segued nicely into a period of habitual inactivity, and I put on enough weight that I decided (not for the first time) to do something about it.
About six months ago I bought a bicycle with the intention of riding it at least three times a week. For a while I went out every day, then three times a week, then I started to lose track of how many rides I’d missed. Eventually I got discouraged with the whole thing and, while I was slightly less unfit than before, stopped bothering to go for a ride more than about once a week.
Over most of this July I mused on the matters of weight loss and getting fit, and gradually built a list of criteria. For the sake of clarity I should point out that I never wrote any of this down, but the following is a fair approximation of my thought process:
I wanted to lose weight to look better, be healthier and to relieve stress on my knee, which was (and is) still healing. But I also wanted to be able to enjoy sports like judo and climbing without collapsing in a wheezing mess, and I wanted to have more energy day-to-day, so the following went on the list:
- I want to get fit, not just lose weight
Which meant I needed to exercise substantially more. Historically, I’ve lacked cardiovascular fitness – which is exactly what you need for burning off fat quickly; but I’d need to be strong as well for any of my preferred activities. However, I definitely didn’t want to risk re-injuring my knee. So we get:
- I need cardiovascular exercise
- I need strength training
- Whatever exercise I do cannot be bad for my knees, or risk injuring them
Exercise is all very well and good, of course, but it’s safe to say I wouldn’t be forty kilos overweight without a fairly substantial tendency towards overeating. However, I’d need good enough nutrition to benefit from the extra exercise, so:
- I need to reduce my daily calorie intake
- I need to maintain correct nutrition
My bicycle experiment taught me that having short-term goals motivates me enormously, but that if I don’t make the effort to track them I become confused and, eventually, discouraged.
- I must make sure to include specific goals for all changes I make, to keep my motivation high
- I will track my adherence to these goals
I also decided that I didn’t want a repeat of my previous pattern of losing considerable weight, then putting it back on again as soon as I stopped paying attention or felt like using my time differently. So my plan had to be sustainable long term:
- The plan must be flexible, so that I can change specifics while still achieving my goals
- The plan must encourage good habits, so it becomes easier to follow over time, instead of harder
- The plan musn’t be so demanding that it can’t be maintained through busy periods, nor so intense that I can only bear it short-term
This is getting to be a fairly weighty post, so I’ll leave it here for now. Part two will have the plan I finally settled on, and how it’s going so far!
