Weight loss

Look--I know I have been needing to lose weight. I mentioned a few posts back that I had started walking in the mornings. It still feels good--I seem to have a lot more energy during the day after I walk, and I was really expecting to see the scale respond in an appropriate way.

Well . . .

The other night Emma and I were watching TV, and an ad for Xenadrine or some other weight loss pill came on. I looked up to see Emma glancing from me to the TV; finally she said, "For Christmas, that's what I want to get you, so you can be skinny like the rest of us."

Yes indeed.

So--time to get real serious about this. It's a significant health issue for me. My dad died prematurely due to complications from diabetes and hypertension that he chose not to address while he could. That is not the road I want to go down.

Exercise is only half the equation--in addition to increasing the number of calories you burn, you also have to decrease the amount of calories you ingest; this is something I have not done.

I've lost weight before, most successfully by actually counting every calorie that I put in my mouth (you would have thought I was training to run a marathon before I started to cut back). I found that with a little effort, I was able to comfortably keep my daily calories in the 1200-1500 range, so that from about March to July of last year, I lost about 30 pounds. I want to repeat that feat. I'd like to lose about 60 pounds this time, with my goal at about 10 pounds per month.

So--today is day one. I've actually been pretty hungry today, mainly because I haven't been gobbling handfuls of peanuts and crackers and chips all through the day. Hunger is good. I had a simple salad for lunch, and I carefully counted and weighed my meatballs and spaghetti supper--it looked pitifully small, but I made it work. For the day, I stoppped at about 1100 calories, and I don't feel like it was too hard.

I will do this, if only to keep Emma from having to buy me Xenadrine for Christmas.