*provided you can find what works for you and stick to it, which is the real lesson in all of this!
I started 2012 staring down my 48thbirthday in April, carrying over 200 pounds of body weight, and feeling generally complacent and self-satisfied. I had my first physical in nearly a decade at the beginning of March, and although my heart was perfectly healthy (the heart of someone ten years younger, my doctor commented) and my cholesterol levels were all normal, I weighed in at 202 pounds. According to the chart on the Health Check Systems website, I would be twenty-two (22!) pounds overweight if I had a large frame. Let me assure you, I do not have a large frame.
Moosh and Zeus, partners in crime.
Around the same time, we acquired a new puppy to keep Moosh, my wife’s Shar-Pei, company during the day while we were both at work and the kids were in school. I don’t want to go on record as saying this was a mistake, because I love Zeus (or as my wife refers to him, “Your Dog”), but you have to realize that the Shar-Pei is traditionally a solitary dog that does well with single owner households. In fact, I have often suspected that “Her Dog” is actually a cat in a big, wrinkly dog suit. He is perfectly content to lie in his corner of the breakfast nook and sleep the day and night away, only rising to noisily slurp some water from the cat’s bowl or sniff around under the kitchen counter to see what food the kids have dropped lately.
Chewed up mat, one of Zeus' many, many victims.
Zeus, on the other hand, is a Labrador/Rottweiler mix, and even at ten months, he is 100% puppy. He goes and goes until he can’t go anymore, then collapses where he is for a quick nap, then is on the go again. And he digs. And he chews. In fact, after we’d had him a few weeks, I wanted to change his name to “Chewie,” but was voted down by the other four voting members of the household.
Our once fine back yard had become a field of crops circles where Zeus has dug concentric rings for varying purposes. His top three reasons for doing this are (in no particular order) to make a bed of the cooler ground under the lawn, to bury various bits of bone, bread and toys he’s accumulated, and to cause general destruction – at least that’s my assumption.
But I digress. You’ve read this far hoping to learn my secret(s) for losing 25 pounds in 75 days, and I shall not disappoint you, so long as you understand that this is what worked for me. You can save yourself a bit more reading if you just head the advice in the italicized bit at the top. However, my motto being “why use ten words when a hundred will do,” I’ll go into more detail of exactly what I did to lose the weight.
My regimen consisted of three major changes to my existing lifestyle. The first consisted of what my wife called “taking the edge off your damn puppy so he’ll leave my dog alone.” But how to do that, I wondered?
My home away from home most mornings...
There is a park that is about a mile from our house that has a three mile jogging trail ringing it, and so I started taking Zeus over there in the evenings and walking him around the trail. This, however, resulted in some very long days where I didn’t get to see much of my family, so I decided to set the alarm, drag my lazy self out of bed and take him in the mornings instead.
This worked like a charm, on many levels. First, it got me up and going in the morning. Also, it DID take the edge of “My Dog,” at least for a few hours in the morning. And finally, it was the catalyst that helped me start losing weight, because after a very short time, walking the three mile trail became too easy, and we started running portions of it together. The trail is marked every quarter mile, so it was a simple thing to keep track of. In the beginning, we’d walk a half-mile, jog a quarter-mile, rinse and repeat. Pretty quickly, we got to the point where we were running most of the track. We even made it as far as walking the full three miles and then running a second three mile lap. Currently we’ve settled into walking the first half mile and then running the remaining two and a half miles during the week, and doing the full six mile run/walk thing on the weekends, with a couple of days of rest thrown in arbitrarily when I feel my legs starting to complain about all the work I’m making them do.
Goodbye, diet sodas - I don't miss you a bit!
The second and third major changes were to my diet, but are really not so much major changes as they were common sense.
First, I removed all carbonated beverages from my diet. I drink (way too much) coffee in the mornings, and occasionally throughout the morning when the early rising starts to get the better of me, and water or Glaceau Vitamin Water Zero (can’t beat the lemonade flavor!) throughout the rest of the day, finishing off with a couple of Bud 55’s or Mich 64’s when the mood strikes. One of the unintended benefits of doing this (and I’m no doctor or nutritionist, so I’m making assumptions here) is that I no longer have to take antacids to combat acid reflux. As part of my whole cleaning-the-system-out harebrained ideas, I decided to stop taking Prilosec every other day around the same time as I quit drinking diet sodas. After a rough couple of days, the acid reflux stopped and I haven’t had to take any antacid of any sort in over a month. So there’s that as well.
God's Gift To Convenience Stores
The only thing better than fresh-picked blueberries...
...are fresh-picked blackberries!
Second, and I assume the single biggest factor in my initial weight loss success, was eating a healthy breakfast. Prior to beginning my morning running regimen, I would stop at a) McDonald’s or b) a donut shop or c) a convenience store (in my area, the convenience store of choice is QuikTrip, or as I like to call it, “God’s Gift To Convenient Stores”) for a quick snack consisting of a few hundred empty calories. And then suddenly I was spending an hour and a half at the running trail, then going home to get ready for work. I needed something that I could throw together and eat after my shower while I was doing what I normally did when I had more time in the morning (checking emails, catching up on the news, watching reruns of Phineas And Ferb, etc.). I initially started having a bowl of bran flakes with a banana, but then two things happened: the family went berry picking, and I discovered soy yogurt. Perfect storm! Two fruit flavored soy yogurt (to combat my lactose intolerance), a half cup of walnut pieces, and a cup or so of fresh blueberries or blackberries (or both when we had them!) and BAM! I was good until it was time to eat lunch.
It’s important to note that I’ve made no other dietary changes, at least not intentionally. I still eat garbage (not literally!) for lunch and my wife has always cooked healthy dinners. I snack significantly less between breakfast and lunch due to my breakfast choices. I try to make sure I have a piece of fruit handy for afternoon snacking, but don’t sweat it if I’m “forced” to eat a package of cookies or a bag of chips to get me through until dinner.
So there you have MY plan for losing 25 pounds in 75 days – find an exercise regimen that you can stick to, eliminate carbonated beverages from your diet, and make wise dietary choices early in the day to get you started on the right track. This may work for you, and it may not, but you won’t know unless you try.
And most importantly, don’t be afraid to fail. As a good friend once told me, “La vida siempre te ofrecerá una segunda oportunidad - se llama ‘mañana’” – “Life will offer you a second chance – it is called ‘morning’.”
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