A Whole New World

Posted by Troy

June 9, 2005

Beginning June 1st I decided to try and get out a little more. No, not partying and drinking (although … ) but rather getting some well-needed exercise. Skinny people who manage to stay so without vigorous effort can stop reading now.

For the past 10 years (or so) I have been relatively unhappy with my weight. In high school I was always the “skinny kid” even having to buy the “slim” jeans until age 12. Being tall for my age helped exaggerate this so I would come home fromschool, eat a 1/4 gallon of ice cream before dinner, etc etc. Then college hit. Suddenly there was no recess, no track, no planned activities whatsoever. My first year of college I coached basketball at Johnny Orr’s Basketball Camp (Iowa State University) and managed to gain 10-15 lbs over the course of 2 weeks. Having unlimited access to food in the dorms, along with pizza every night (and sometimes every morning) had a very big effect around the middle region.

Anyway, fast forward. I had tried some “diets” last year and did manage to lose a little weight, but not as much as I would have liked. On June 1st of this year I decided not to diet, but simply to go walking. I would rent a DVD from the library and have to walk from my apartment to the library to return it (about 1.8 miles round trip)

I thought I would be tired and grouchy when I got back, but the opposite happened - it gave me even more energy. It was this past week when I made the realization that may just give me the willpower necessary to finally lose the weight - all of it.

Weight loss is simple. It comes down to a matter of calories burned and calories eaten. I know, I know… all of the scientific peoples will tell me there’s more to it than that - but really that is the basics for any type of weight loss. With my sit-down job, I burn about 3000 calories a day without exercising. 1 pound of human fat is about 3500 calories. So, all I need to do to lose 1 lb a week is burn 3500 calories more than I take in. This can be done with walking, exercising, or in combination with dieting.

Simple.

I had always wanted to keep track of the calories I eat a day, but didn’t want to deal with “points” like weight watchers. What I found was a great site called “FitDay” that allows you to enter in the foods you eat and the activities you do a day, and it gives you all sorts of neat info and graphs.

I think I did myself a favor by starting an exercise program before I started watching the calories. Although I know my walk only burns about 300 calories each time, that is 2100 calories a week. Not too shabby.

So, I may be posting updates about my progress, and I may not. Some things are probably best left off blogs, but I do have to say I think this time it is really going to work. We’ll see.

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