Pounding the Pounds - Republished from 4/28/06

Since my last blog entry touched on weight issues, I thought I’d go ahead and continue them in a separate document. I have had this written for a while and was saving it until I could get some photos downloaded to go with it, but I’ll add those later. PHOTOS ADDED 5/4/05 - Before and After - I'll add a "now" somewhere else!

For those of you that have known me for a long time, you are aware of my struggles with weight. I’m pretty sure I topped the scales at 200 pounds (+/-) at some point during, or right after, college. I stopped getting on the scales when it hit about 185 but I’m sure I got bigger. How could I not when I ate lunch at Wendy’s every day for a semester – well, we were on the quarter system so it was a tad bit shorter than a semester. I had a single with cheese (500? calories), large fries (350? calories) and, for good measure, a diet coke every day for ten weeks. This was in the 1980’s, pre-super sizing, but I certainly did not need to see the movie by the same name to know what eating fast food would do to me.

I feel certain the only way I made it through working at McDonald’s as a high school teenager without hitting that 200 pound level was by playing basketball all the time to burn it off. After college I eventually joined Weight Watchers for a month so that I could get the basic materials as well as an understanding of how the program worked. By continuing on their plan, all by my little old self, I was able to get down to about 130 – a whopping (not to be confused with a Burger King Whopper) 70 pounds lighter than what I’m sure I had been. People told me I looked emaciated at that size and I simply wasn’t able to maintain it – I didn’t last too long at that low weight.

Since losing that huge amount of weight, I’ve hovered somewhere in the middle. And even though I was probably considered "overweight" by the body mass index charts, I’ve felt generally overall healthy, I’ve developed a great routine of getting up and going to the gym in the mornings, and I still have plenty of my favorite foods and drinks.

But since turning 40, I’ve been ratcheting it up a notch. Ripley’s believe it or not, I’m not drinking as much as I used to. And as much as I like my beer, I’ve tried to switch to red wine at least some of the time. And would you believe I don’t always eat everything on my plate? What a novel idea. I try to drink more water than I used to as well. I'm closer to that low weight than I've been in a very long time.

But the real secrets: less stressful employment and yoga. The job change could not have been better for me. I’m done with proving to myself that I can do the corporate ladder climbing. I’ve also shown that I can, if I want to, actually do a great job of supervising people without wanting to either jump in front of or blow torch the next car that cut in front of me on Georgia 400. Okay, I would probably still want to have a cocktail every night but at least I wouldn’t be suicidal or homicidal! And I’ve also changed my perception of yoga. I always pictured it as a fru fru way of stretching and "exercising", but thanks to some wonderful teachers as well as my fellow yogis, I know it can be a true workout, not to mention a very grounding and centering activity. When Doc. B. first started doing yoga, and swearing by it, I really didn’t believe her. But now I’m sold. And now when people ask me what I’m doing to lose weight, and I respond with "yoga", they don’t believe me either. Anyone care to join me at my next yoga class and find out for yourself?