Total Weight Lost
49 pounds
How Long Did it Take?
9 months
Why I Wanted to Lose Weight
My job was out-sourced to India so I was laid off in August of 2008. I was forced into retirement. I know I had gained weight over the years but figured it was just part of getting older. I went to a wedding 1/2/2009. The morning of the wedding, I was getting dressed and realized that I couldn't close my suit-pants. It never occurred to me that they wouldn't fit. I pulled the belt as tight as I could stand it and went to the wedding. I was so uncomfortable at the wedding that I couldn't enjoy it. I started my diet the following Monday.
My Exercise and Diet Journey
My son is a trainer and suggested that I try cutting 500 calories a day from my current diet and exercise enough to burn another 500 each day. This translated to a pound a week. It seemed like something I could do. So I cut my nightly milk and cake, reduced my portion size and added more fruits and veggies. I have a treadmill that tells you calories burned so I'd walk on the treadmill until I hit the 500 mark. I found the treadmill boring so I headed outside to the local state park whenever the weather permitted. I found that as long as the wind stayed under 10 MPH I could just wear more clothes to keep warm. There's a boardwalk on the beach at the park that is 3/4 of a mile long. My goal initially was to walk 3 miles, just finish no matter how long it took. I'd get this cough that would tell me I'd wasn't in good enough shape to continue so I'd stop. I'd noticed other people would be doing this cough too and attributed it to poor conditioning. The pounds and inches started coming off. I went to a luncheon with some of the people I used to work with in March. They couldn't get over the weigh I'd lost in 3 months. I was encouraged and continued my diet. Over time I increased my distance to 5 miles, got bored with the boardwalk and started doing hills to increase the calories burned. By September I'd lost 49 pounds.
Lessons learned
- Music makes the exercise more enjoyable. Pick songs with a beat that matches the pace at which you are walking. Upbeat songs will make you walk faster. Listen to your body, it will tell you when you're doing more that you're conditioned for. If you hit a weight plateau, increase the length you walk or decrease the time it takes to walk it. Get good running shoes, don't go cheap. Get some weights and add some weigh training, it will help your walking and get rid of the flab in those arms. I'm an avid golfer and am playing better now that I've lost the weight.
