Wait Weight Wait

When I was 39 years old, I vowed not to hit 40 overweight. I knew that the birthday would bring a health check and I didn’t want to disappoint myself, never mind the person completing it.

When I hit that health check – post birthday – I did so with flying colours. I went from about 220 pounds to about 170. The nurse who took my weight and blood pressure seemed highly impressed by the change. I’d gone from being obese and facing the prospect of weight-related side issues, so a healthy weight.

Post health check, my weight continued to drop. A bit like the slow braking at the end of a period of acceleration, it kept falling away. At one point, I hit 156 pounds – slightly over 11 stone. Then I sort of lingered in that spot, drawing comments that I could probably do with putting a little weight back on.

Well, it would seem that such has come to pass. Three years later, I have steadily crawled my way back to 175 pounds. I don’t really like it. I found on the way down that you need to change your clothing every 10 pounds or so. Certainly every stone. Trousers get loose. Shirts get baggy. Now I’m going back up again, I don’t want to start messing around with finding the clothes I stowed away or gave to charity.

That means going back on a diet again and trying to get back into the rhythm of exercising regularly. Right now, I do a daily walk of 30 minutes at lunch time and manage to exercise about twice week for 40 minutes in the evening. When I lost all that weight, I exercised at least 5 times a week, for up to an hour.

I also consumed a lot less than I had done in my 30s. I don’t feel I have fallen off that bandwagon too heavily, but I do need to get back to journalling my consumption. I found that only by recording food consumed could I really guarantee control. If you leave it to honesty, you find yourself being untruthful to yourself. You portions get a little bigger. You snack a little too often.

For the moment, I aim to get back down to 170 pounds and then we’ll go from there. Ideally, I’d like to get down into the 160 – 165-pound range. Keeping to the lower end of that range would be a perfect sweet spot for me. I feel I owe to myself to stay fit and healthy.


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