I don’t fail often, but my attempt at the Community Weight Race was a spectacular disaster for me.
I entered in late January, along with 924 other people in Ministry Health Care’s fifth annual race, with a goal of losing 30 pounds. My hope was to get to a weight I had only been once in my adult life.
Previous to entering, I had lost 50 pounds over the course of 18 months, dropping from 310 to 260 pounds. I ran daily, I ate well and I made good choices. The race would motivate me to do these things better, so I thought.
Not so. The minute I entered a little voice in the back of my head told me to stop trying. “You don’t want to run today, and you want to eat that delicious donut,” it kept telling me. “Mmmm… donut,” I replied.
I’m not a competitive person, so the prizes Ministry was giving away to the people and teams who lost the most weight didn’t motivate me. I was doing this for myself, plain and simple.
“Myself” wanted other things, though, like the desire to bathe in laziness and the opportunity to eat cookies at every chance that came along. I partly blame the Girl Scouts and their annual sale.
I also blamed my graduate studies, and the guy taking my final weight last week, which was 10 pounds more than I started, said it should be a “free pass.” It’s tempting to take the pass, but the blame solely belongs to me. I wasn’t motivated and let other things take precedence.
Another member of my team did much better than me. Matthew Brown, an associate editor at The Gazette, lost 13 pounds during the contest, which was only three short of his 16-pound goal. He worked out, ate right and played a lot of indoor soccer during the duration of the race, noting the soccer was what allowed him to do well.
Overall, most people in the contest succeeded, with the average weight loss during the three-month race being 5.78-percent of body weight.
I have no idea how the other three members of my team did. At the halfway mark, I emailed them to see how they were doing, and none of them responded. Their lack of response indicated to me that they had either dropped out or they weren’t doing well.
It would be easy for me to not write about this, as I definitely would rather write about something else, but, as many of you know, the attempt to lose weight can often be a failure, such as my attempt.
Instead of ignoring it, though, I want people to know that failure does occur, and it should be used as motivation to succeed. I’m hoping my failure will be a catalyst to put me on the right track, especially since I know tomorrow will be a great day for a run.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, April 27, 2012.
Showing posts with label losing weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label losing weight. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Community Weight Race is good challenge for wannabe Oprahs and Jareds
Oprah and Jared better look out, as a new weight-loss guru is coming to town.
Actually it’s me, and I’m already in town and I’m definitely not a weight-loss guru. But I hope to be as I’m all registered for Ministry Health Care’s fifth annual Community Weight Race. I intend to tell people about my progress, as well as my team’s progress, throughout the four-month challenge, much like Oprah Winfrey used to talk about her own weight loss during the era of her daily show and Jared Fogle still talks about his weight loss by eating subs at Subway.
Weigh-in was held earlier this week, and I came in at 260 pounds with a 46.5-inch waist. I’ll admit I’m fat, but compared to me two years ago when I weighed 315 pounds, I’m in much better shape. In fact, for the past two years I have run and exercised regularly, and have no health problems except a head that is balding.
To put my stats in better perspective, I am 6’4” and have always been a bigger person. I weighed 280 pounds when I got married eight years ago, and throughout my first three years of college more than 15 years ago I hovered around 270.
The summer between my junior and senior year I decided I had had enough of being big. I watched everything I ate, refusing to put anything bad in my mouth, and I started running. Many of my friends in high school were cross country runners and I often listened to them talk about the freedom they felt when they were on roads and trails. I wanted to experience that freedom myself.
At first, I walked more than I ran as my lungs could only handle so much. Within a few weeks I was running more than walking and I began to understand the freedom my friends had talked about. By the middle of the summer, I could often get into the “zone,” a feeling runners can get in which the body forgets it’s running and the mind focuses on other things.
I shed the weight like water and soon was down to 217 pounds. I’d never get lower than that, as a busy senior year took some of my focus away from careful eating and regular exercise. I graduated from college weighing 230 pounds and maintained that weight for about a year. It gradually started going up again, and before I realized it, I was my old self again, someone whom I did not want to be.
And then I became a new person, someone even bigger and someone I definitely did not want to be. A busy family life and work schedule were excuses I used to keep the focus away from caring about myself. It wasn’t until my father-in-law told my wife that I seemed rather winded after doing some mildly involved tasks that I realized I was completely out of shape.
Losing weight has been much more difficult this time around than it was previously. I’m older so my metabolism isn’t the same, and I don’t have the time I had before to concentrate on the weight-loss task.
But it has been slowly coming off over the last two years. I started running again, and I try to make better choices on what I eat. My biggest problem is I like to eat. Food and I were meant to be together, and my stomach demands this. My issue then is making my stomach demand food that is healthy and better for me.
I plan on focusing on this during the Weight Race. While I’ll also look at exercising more and better during the challenge, I know I’ll benefit more by changing my dietary habits. This will mean less eating out, less snacks and smaller portions.
Presenting my progress to the public will motivate me to follow through on this endeavor. It will motivate me the same way I expect it to motivate my other team members (and whom I’m still finding) who I will also follow through a series of articles covering the Weight Race. These articles will start in next week’s issue. Oprah and Jared better watch out.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Jan. 13, 2012.
Actually it’s me, and I’m already in town and I’m definitely not a weight-loss guru. But I hope to be as I’m all registered for Ministry Health Care’s fifth annual Community Weight Race. I intend to tell people about my progress, as well as my team’s progress, throughout the four-month challenge, much like Oprah Winfrey used to talk about her own weight loss during the era of her daily show and Jared Fogle still talks about his weight loss by eating subs at Subway.
Weigh-in was held earlier this week, and I came in at 260 pounds with a 46.5-inch waist. I’ll admit I’m fat, but compared to me two years ago when I weighed 315 pounds, I’m in much better shape. In fact, for the past two years I have run and exercised regularly, and have no health problems except a head that is balding.
To put my stats in better perspective, I am 6’4” and have always been a bigger person. I weighed 280 pounds when I got married eight years ago, and throughout my first three years of college more than 15 years ago I hovered around 270.
The summer between my junior and senior year I decided I had had enough of being big. I watched everything I ate, refusing to put anything bad in my mouth, and I started running. Many of my friends in high school were cross country runners and I often listened to them talk about the freedom they felt when they were on roads and trails. I wanted to experience that freedom myself.
At first, I walked more than I ran as my lungs could only handle so much. Within a few weeks I was running more than walking and I began to understand the freedom my friends had talked about. By the middle of the summer, I could often get into the “zone,” a feeling runners can get in which the body forgets it’s running and the mind focuses on other things.
I shed the weight like water and soon was down to 217 pounds. I’d never get lower than that, as a busy senior year took some of my focus away from careful eating and regular exercise. I graduated from college weighing 230 pounds and maintained that weight for about a year. It gradually started going up again, and before I realized it, I was my old self again, someone whom I did not want to be.
And then I became a new person, someone even bigger and someone I definitely did not want to be. A busy family life and work schedule were excuses I used to keep the focus away from caring about myself. It wasn’t until my father-in-law told my wife that I seemed rather winded after doing some mildly involved tasks that I realized I was completely out of shape.
Losing weight has been much more difficult this time around than it was previously. I’m older so my metabolism isn’t the same, and I don’t have the time I had before to concentrate on the weight-loss task.
But it has been slowly coming off over the last two years. I started running again, and I try to make better choices on what I eat. My biggest problem is I like to eat. Food and I were meant to be together, and my stomach demands this. My issue then is making my stomach demand food that is healthy and better for me.
I plan on focusing on this during the Weight Race. While I’ll also look at exercising more and better during the challenge, I know I’ll benefit more by changing my dietary habits. This will mean less eating out, less snacks and smaller portions.
Presenting my progress to the public will motivate me to follow through on this endeavor. It will motivate me the same way I expect it to motivate my other team members (and whom I’m still finding) who I will also follow through a series of articles covering the Weight Race. These articles will start in next week’s issue. Oprah and Jared better watch out.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Jan. 13, 2012.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Fattening videogame systems can now help people lose weight
In January I wrote in this column that one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to lose weight, and I’m happy to report that one of the things that helped make me overweight is now one of the things that’s helping me to lose it.
Back in the early 1980s, my grandparents introduced me to my first videogame system when they purchased an Atari system for their home. My sister and I spent many hours there playing “Pac-Man,” “Space Invaders,” “Centipede,” “Lost Luggage” and even “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a game based on the film of the same name that is considered one of the biggest videogame flops in history because it sold only a fraction of the cartridges made for retail. The rest were buried in some pit in Arizona.
My grandparents were farmers, and the concept of them having something as technologically advanced as a videogame system was mind-blowing at the time. They probably bought it to keep us grandkids occupied when we came over, but my grandpa seemed to play it as much as I did, so he may have bought it for himself.
By the end of the decade, our home had its first videogame system, the Nintendo Entertainment System. My sister and I, along with our father, spent hours playing “Super Mario Brothers,” “The Legend of Zelda,” “Duck Hunt,” “Metroid” and a ton of other classics.
I spent so much time playing them I got fat. Whereas before getting the Nintendo I spent hours outside playing, as we didn’t have cable or air conditioning, after getting it my primary favorite location was on the chair or couch in front of the television playing videogames.
Videogames had some benefits – I learned all the rules to many sports I didn’t care about before, like football, baseball, hockey and even golf, and my hand and eye coordination improved greatly – the negatives greatly outweighed them, as my new videogame-playing body greatly outweighed my old one.
It’s a situation that only got worse as videogame companies came out with new systems and games. I bought them all: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo 64, the Sony Playstation and Playstation 2. For every dollar I invested in these systems and games, I probably gained an ounce or two of weight.
I lost the extra weight one summer when I put the videogames away and started running, but it came back within five years after I gave running up in favor of more videogames.
Last summer, having become bored with my Playstation 2, I purchased a current generation system, the Nintendo Wii, as well as a game for it, “Wii Fit,” with a goal of using it to help me lose weight, as this system and its games rely on motion activation to play. Players are required to get off their butts and actively move in order to use it, and with “Wii Fit” people can do everything from yoga to skiing.
The problem is most games can still be played by sitting on your butt and wiggling the controller, and “Wii Fit” is great for improving balance but not for actually working out.
It wasn’t until EA came out with “EA Sports Active” in May that I actually started using my videogame system to actually lose weight.
The game, which comes with a leg strap and resistance band, requires people to run, jump, lunge, crunch, lift, curl, shoot baskets, hit tennis balls, play volleyball, pitch baseballs, roller skate and even dance, through a wide variety of exercises.
The Wii controller, as well as its accompanying nunchuck, keeps track of your movements as you follow along to the game to make sure you are doing everything properly, and the resistance band adds an element that makes those movements a little more difficult.
It’s also Oprah Winfrey-approved, as her fitness guru, Bob Greene, puts people through a 30-day challenge in the game. He sets up a variety of exercises that require between 20 and 40 minutes a day to complete, and which burn between 120 and 250 calories a workout.
I completed the 30-day challenge this week, and although I only lost five pounds, I believe that’s because I gained 10 pounds in muscle mass during that time, which limited my actual weight loss. As I continue, I believe I’ll lose a lot more weight.
In addition to some great workouts, the game also has people keep track of their lifestyle habits, such as how much sleep you get, how much water you drink, how many fast food meals you eat, what your stress and energy levels are at, and how many vegetables you eat.
I discovered that by taking this survey every day I made sure I ate more vegetables, I ate a lot less fast food meals, I drank more water and I got more sleep. I felt guilty when I had to take the survey and didn’t meet the game’s expectations.
Now that videogames are helping me get in shape, I’m hoping someone will invent a game that can put hair back on my balding head.
Back in the early 1980s, my grandparents introduced me to my first videogame system when they purchased an Atari system for their home. My sister and I spent many hours there playing “Pac-Man,” “Space Invaders,” “Centipede,” “Lost Luggage” and even “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a game based on the film of the same name that is considered one of the biggest videogame flops in history because it sold only a fraction of the cartridges made for retail. The rest were buried in some pit in Arizona.
My grandparents were farmers, and the concept of them having something as technologically advanced as a videogame system was mind-blowing at the time. They probably bought it to keep us grandkids occupied when we came over, but my grandpa seemed to play it as much as I did, so he may have bought it for himself.
By the end of the decade, our home had its first videogame system, the Nintendo Entertainment System. My sister and I, along with our father, spent hours playing “Super Mario Brothers,” “The Legend of Zelda,” “Duck Hunt,” “Metroid” and a ton of other classics.
I spent so much time playing them I got fat. Whereas before getting the Nintendo I spent hours outside playing, as we didn’t have cable or air conditioning, after getting it my primary favorite location was on the chair or couch in front of the television playing videogames.
Videogames had some benefits – I learned all the rules to many sports I didn’t care about before, like football, baseball, hockey and even golf, and my hand and eye coordination improved greatly – the negatives greatly outweighed them, as my new videogame-playing body greatly outweighed my old one.
It’s a situation that only got worse as videogame companies came out with new systems and games. I bought them all: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo 64, the Sony Playstation and Playstation 2. For every dollar I invested in these systems and games, I probably gained an ounce or two of weight.
I lost the extra weight one summer when I put the videogames away and started running, but it came back within five years after I gave running up in favor of more videogames.
Last summer, having become bored with my Playstation 2, I purchased a current generation system, the Nintendo Wii, as well as a game for it, “Wii Fit,” with a goal of using it to help me lose weight, as this system and its games rely on motion activation to play. Players are required to get off their butts and actively move in order to use it, and with “Wii Fit” people can do everything from yoga to skiing.
The problem is most games can still be played by sitting on your butt and wiggling the controller, and “Wii Fit” is great for improving balance but not for actually working out.
It wasn’t until EA came out with “EA Sports Active” in May that I actually started using my videogame system to actually lose weight.
The game, which comes with a leg strap and resistance band, requires people to run, jump, lunge, crunch, lift, curl, shoot baskets, hit tennis balls, play volleyball, pitch baseballs, roller skate and even dance, through a wide variety of exercises.
The Wii controller, as well as its accompanying nunchuck, keeps track of your movements as you follow along to the game to make sure you are doing everything properly, and the resistance band adds an element that makes those movements a little more difficult.
It’s also Oprah Winfrey-approved, as her fitness guru, Bob Greene, puts people through a 30-day challenge in the game. He sets up a variety of exercises that require between 20 and 40 minutes a day to complete, and which burn between 120 and 250 calories a workout.
I completed the 30-day challenge this week, and although I only lost five pounds, I believe that’s because I gained 10 pounds in muscle mass during that time, which limited my actual weight loss. As I continue, I believe I’ll lose a lot more weight.
In addition to some great workouts, the game also has people keep track of their lifestyle habits, such as how much sleep you get, how much water you drink, how many fast food meals you eat, what your stress and energy levels are at, and how many vegetables you eat.
I discovered that by taking this survey every day I made sure I ate more vegetables, I ate a lot less fast food meals, I drank more water and I got more sleep. I felt guilty when I had to take the survey and didn’t meet the game’s expectations.
Now that videogames are helping me get in shape, I’m hoping someone will invent a game that can put hair back on my balding head.
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