Dufisthenics

I noticed when I was reviewing my main blog post from last year on this date that I had allowed my weight to bounce up as high as 190 pounds.  I found it odd that this weight gain came while I was in the middle of doing the longest runs of my life as I trained for my first half marathon.

Well putting that number in print and the good natured ribbing of my friend regarding the number was enough to motivate me into action.

Sure it would have been easy to make excuses for the weight gain, shrugging my shoulders and attributing it to just “getting older” but deep down I knew better.  When I took an honest look at myself I realized I was using my extended amounts of endurance training as an excuse to eat poorly.  It’s a very common trap people fall into, rewarding themselves with food for exercise.  The problem arises when you wind up totally negating the benefits of the exercise by doing so.

I remember when I was young one of my baseball coaches was a very regular runner.  I always thought this was odd because despite his running routine he had a HUGE beer gut on him.  Later I realized it was because he drank like a fish and used his running as an enabler to justify even more consumption.

Anyway, when I saw the 190 pop up on the scale I decided I was going to take more responsibility for that number instead of blaming other things for it.  I started doing more conscious eating where you actually think about what you are sticking in your mouth instead of just slamming calories down the gullet mindlessly. “Hey I worked out, now I can EAT whatever I want!” just will not work for the vast majority of people.

I teamed up my cleaner diet with more diverse and intense exercise routines.  The end result has been my dropping 20 pounds, down to my lowest body weight as an adult and maintaining it for the last 5-6 months.

It is no coincidence that my slew of personal PR’s have occurred during that time period.