Getting fit

The other week, I watched a Jarvis Johnson video about losing 50 pounds.  For the zero people who've been following my blog for over ten years, you might know that I did something similar in 2007 and documented my progress here.  (Although, unlike Jarvis, I did do some exercise.  Not a lot, but some.)

I've actually been on a similar journey this year.  It's a little different this time, though, both to what I did ten years ago and to what Jarvis did.  This time, instead of just trying to "lose weight", my goal is to actually get healthier and improve my overall fitness.

Motivation

The last time I lost weight, the goal was just the traditional "to lose X pounds" or "get to X weight".  This time, the goal is more specific: to lose fat (not the same as "losing weight"), build lean muscle, and develop healthier eating habits.  Why?  Well, there are several reasons.  For one, I want to be in sufficiently good shape to play with my son until he's too old to think I'm cool.  I also want to stay strong and healthy long enough that when I one day (hopefully) have grandchildren, I'll still be able to run around and play with them too.  In fact, I'd like be able to stay healthy and mobile for as long as humanly possible - preferably until I die.  And the best way to ensure that is to start taking better care of myself and building better habits now.

But it's more than just that (as if that wasn't enough).  There's also a self-actualization aspect to it.  Part of living a fulfilling life is constantly trying to develop yourself and becoming better than you were before. There are many axes along which you can do that: social, intellectual, moral, spiritual, etc.  Well, I came to the realization that physical development is also a valid form of self-improvement.  We often forget that our physical and mental health are not independent - they directly impact each other.  Your mind is connected to your body, in a very literal sense.  So the healthier you are physically, the more mental energy and stamina you can muster, which in turn helps you grow in other areas.  Penn Jillette summed this aspect up nicely in his interview with Joe Rogan here:

Another important motivation is to serve as a role-model.  As I mentioned above, I have a young son and I want him to grow up to be a mentally and physically strong, healthy, confident, and independent adult.  He's still too young to appreciate the implications, but I want him to learn how to eat a healthy diet, exercise safely and productively, and develop the discipline to maintain the good habits he'll need to succeed in live.  We live in a society that doesn't encourage healthy living, in either the physical or emotional sense, so I can't count on him to pick this up on his own.  I figure if I can start living a healthy life-style myself, I can help him learn the skills he needs early and not have to figure it out later in life like me.

Inspiration

So, why bother to change?  Yes, I've given some good reasons above, but let's be honest - most people could give those same reasons.  And the fact is, most people don't act on them, as I didn't for many years.  So clearly I needed more than just motivation to change my lifestyle.  I needed inspiration.

It's kind of lame, but I'll be honest.  The truth is that I got inspired by allowing myself to be sucked down a YouTube rabbit-hole.  There, I said it.

It started with martial arts channels.  In particular, some of Ramsey Dewey's videos.  He had a video where he talked about training to be a fighter and gave this simple piece of advice - just do something to improve yourself every day.  It doesn't have to be a big, dramatic change - small things work too.  The key is to just do something, consistently, every day.  And if you keep at it and you will get better.  It might not happen fast, and your progress might not be even, but that's OK.  The important thing is to put in consistent effort towards your goal.

At that point, I felt like I'd like to be a little stronger (sitting behind a keyboard all day is not conducive to muscle development), so I decided to take Ramsey's advice and start doing some strength exercises every night.  Nothing fancy - just some push-ups and sit-ups before bed.  But it was something and I was doing it consistently.  And after a few weeks, I noticed that I was able to do more of them than when I started, so I was making progress.  That prompted me to start increasing the number of reps, trying different techniques, and adding some squats and other leg exercises.

Looking for more exercise ideas led me to the world of YouTube fitness, which, like the rest of the internet, has some great content as well as a whole lot of morons.  Fortunately, good channels aren't hard to find, so I quickly discovered Athlean-X and Calisthenicmovement.  Both offer lots of excellent exercise demonstrations, workout ideas, and lots of background information about nutrition, the bio-mechanics of various movements, and how they fit together.  From there, I branched out into channels that focus less on demonstrations and workout specifics and more on commentary and criticism, such as Every Damn Day Fitness and Shredded Sports Science, both of which offer humor combined with reality-checks intended to cut through the nonsense that permeates much of the fitness industry.

I think the main thing I took from these channels, and what inspired me to get into shape, was to really internalize the idea that your fitness is something that is within your control.  Quite often people think about fitness as something that happens to them - that either you're naturally thin and athletic, or you're not, and there's not really that much you can do about it either way.  But that's not the case.  Sure, there are people who have legitimate medical issues that impact their diet or ability to exercise, but the majority of over-weight or out-of-shape people do have the ability to change their body composition and fitness level.  And it's not a choice between "dad bod" and spending four hours a day in the gym, either.  Different people can have different goals in line with their lifestyle and other commitments, and there are different ways to achieve those goals.  It's not always easy, but it's certainly not impossible.

This sounds like a fairly obvious thing, and I think it's something I sort of knew on an intellectual level, but I didn't really "get it".  But after a while, I realized that, conceptually, getting in shape is no different than learning a new programming language or technology.  It requires hard work, and it's easier if you have a plan and someone to guide you, but it is achievable if you're willing to put in the time and effort.  There are no shortcuts, no silver bullets, no magic formula - just time and hard work.  And while it's true that this stuff comes easier to some people than to others, nobody is born into it - the limiting factors are time and energy, not genetics.

Taking Action

For me, internalizing this message and seeing a few good examples was enough to move me to action.  When you think about "getting in shape" in terms of "natural athletes" vs. "regular people", it's easy to write off the possibility of meaningful change.  But when you think of it in terms of "just putting in the work"...that's a different story.  At that point, I realized: I can do this.  I know how to work hard, maintain discipline, and follow and monitor a plan.  Heck, I do that in my work all the time.  This is something I can realistically achieve.  

So I started putting changes in place.  After a few months of doing the body-weight exercises I mentioned above, I decided to start adjusting my diet.  I didn't "go on a diet", but rather started trying to build healthier eating habits.  Basically, this meant moving towards a the kind of diet your grandmother always said you should be eating - cut down on the breads and sweets, cut down on between-meal snacks, and eat lots of vegetables.  In fact, for the first few months I completely cut out between meal snacks.  I also cut way down on my alcohol consumption.  I went from "a drink or two before bed" down to "one drink once in a while".

For my meals, I started making a point of having a sizable serving of green vegetables with every lunch and dinner and cutting down on the refined carbohydrates (breads, pasta, etc.).  To facilitate this, I started pre-cooking my lunches for the week.  On Sunday evening, I prepare four days worth of lunch (I still take advantage of "free lunch Friday" at the office) which I then portion out so that I can just grab them each morning before I leave.  As an example, last week I made turkey burgers and chicken breast (for alternate days), roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli sautéed with onions, and some chopped kale salad from Wegmans.  Lest this sound boring, I make liberal use of the spice cabinet to jazz things up.  We have a number of interesting spice mixes from Pennzey's that add a lot of flavor to the meat and veggies.

After about three months of this, I was down about 15 pounds (from 191 to around 175) and was feeling stronger from the strength training.  However, it was also becoming clear that I needed to be more organized about my training.  This whole "cobble together a workout from YouTube videos" think worked fine initially, but it was becoming clear that I didn't really know what I was doing.  I was starting to notice some strength imbalances and mobility issues and I didn't know how to address them or work around them.  So I decided to get myself on an organized training program.

I decided to go with the Athlean-X "AX-1 Training Camp" program.  I chose this partly because I was already familiar with the YouTube channel and trusted the quality of the material.  But the program had several other aspects that I found very appealing:

  1. It takes a "don't waste time" philosophy, which they sum up as "trading time for intensity".  The short version is that, unless you have difficulty executing one or more of the exercises (which did occasionally happen to me), the workouts shouldn't last more than 40 minutes (about 45 if you do the optional "six-pack shuffle" abdominal workouts that are included).  In fact, some of the conditioning workouts can take as little as ten minutes (just don't mistake "short" for "easy").
  2. The entire program can be accessed from your phone.  It's a mobile-friendly website that lets you access your workouts, watch the demo videos, and keep track of your weight and repetition numbers for each exercise.
  3. You can do the all the workouts from home with relatively little equipment.  I only had to buy a doorway pull-up bar, a physio ball, and a set of adjustable dumbbells.  Not only does it save money over a gym membership, it also saves time - no driving back and forth.  (Note that really do need an adjustable dumbbell set.  The program is based on lifting to failure in a certain range of repetitions, so you need to be able to move the weight up and down in fairly small increments, and the only way to do that is to have adjustable dumbbells or have a rack of a dozen dumbbells in five-pound increments, which is both costly and takes up a lot of space.)  In fact, the entire program has a "no excuses" philosophy to exercise, offering adaptations and substitutions you can make to the exercises.  One of the "extras" is a set of videos showing various ways to get an exercise in even if you don't have the "proper" equipment for it.  There are also plenty of options offered for the conditioning workouts, including ones that can be done indoors with zero equipment.

I've been really enjoying this program so far and would definitely recommend it.  The one thing to keep in mind is that when Athlean-X uses the tagline "if you want to look like an athlete, you have to train like an athlete," they aren't kidding.  Even though it's the "beginner-level" program, AX-1 is definitely challenging and requires dedication.  If you are extremely over-weight or if you haven't been exercising at all, then don't expect to have an easy time with it.  You might want to consider starting with something less demanding or be prepared in advance to repeat the first month several times.  (The program is structured around three one-month phases, each of which ends in a "challenge".  If you don't "pass" the challenge, you're supposed to repeat the current phase until you can pass.  You also repeat the challenges in later months, so you can track the changes in your performance.)

Results

Long story short: so far, my results have been very good.  

At this point, I'm down to about 168 pounds and in the best shape of my life by far.  I don't look like a fitness magazine model or anything, but I look better and feel stronger than I ever have and my energy and endurance levels, both physical and mental, are higher than before.  I'm also discovering bones and muscles that I didn't even know I had, which is cool but kinda weird at the same time.

In terms of lifestyle changes, things are going quite well.  I started the basic body-weight exercises last November, changed my diet in March, and switched over to doing AX-1 in June.  I'm currently maintaining a six-day training schedule (I'm on my second round of AX-1, this time including one of their "TNT" plugins, which adds an extra workout), doing my workouts first thing in the morning before work.  I am still pre-cooking my lunches and maintaining a healthy diet without too much difficulty or feeling of restriction.  I'm also being more mindful of my sleep schedule and getting to bed at a reasonable time.  While all of this does require some effort and discipline, I'm not finding it to be burdensome and I'm feeling really good, so the extra effort is definitely worth it.  At this point I can see myself maintaining this lifestyle for a very long time, which was exactly the point in the first place.

The goal approacheth: 183.0

My weight-loss goal creeps ever closer, even with the loosened summer diet. This morning I weighed in at 183.0. That means only 3 more pounds to go.

It also means it's time for me to go shopping. My pants size is now a 34 waist, down from a 38. That means that nothing I have fits anymore. And they don't just not fit, they kind of look funny. My dress slacks in particular look like "clown pants" according to my wife. (Which is too bad, because I got some of new dress clothes just last fall.) I actually had to go out and buy new clothes so that I could go to my cousin's wedding a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I didn't think of that until the same morning. But that at least meant I got the early-morning sale at J. C. Penny.

I'm also going to have to have my wedding ring resized. I've lost enough weight that it literally slides off my left ring finger. I was wearing it on my right hand for a while, but now my right ring finger is getting too small too. So now I'm starting to put it on the middle finger of my left hand.

The weird thing is that I"ve lost 50 pounds and I still have a lot more fat on my body than I thought I would. I guess that's not surprising, since I'm still overweight according to the BMI charts, but it still feels strange. I mean, those weights always seemed kind of low. After all, many people who are technically "overweight" don't look like they need to lose any weight. But I guess the BMI charts are just biased toward being very lean. It's all a matter of where you draw the line on what's acceptable.

Down to the last 5: 184.6

After succesfully forgetting to weigh myself in the morning for several days, I finally managed to get a couple of readings in a row last week. For a while, I had been hovering around 187, but last Friday, I got a consistent reading of 184.6. That puts me at a total loss of 49 pounds and within 5 pounds of my goal of 180.

I've actually been loosening up on the diet lately. Partly it's because it's summer time, which means it's time for ice cream and cooking burgers on the grill. I've been careful not to over-do it, though - only 1 ice cream cone a week and mostly chicken and turkey on the grill.)

The bigger problem is that we've been very busy lately. I think we've been out of town four or five weekends in the last two months, which generally means we eat out. (Plus my cousin's wedding - he got married across town, but we still ate out for that.) Most of the other weekends we've spent most of the day working on the house or in the garden, and after that we often just don't feel like cooking. But so far, it doesn't seem to be a problem. Even when we eat out, I'm trying to choose the healthier foods and stick to sensible portions. (Translation: no, you don't have to eat that whole plate of fries!) At the very least, I'm not seeing any negative effects yet.

I think learning proper portion control has been a big help to me so far. I've learned to try to eat slowly and not force myself to finish an overly large serving. Most of us are used to the gigantic portions they give you at chain restaurants like Applebee's or Chili's, but the truth is that they normally give you enough food to feed two people. It was a big step for me just to realize how much food it takes to fill me up and stop there. Since it typically takes longer for my body to send the "full" message than it does for me to overeat, I've found that eating slowly helps to narrow the gap and keep me to a sane amount.

Fatblogging again: 189.0

Well, I'm back to fatblogging. The last couple of weeks have been kind of busy, so I hadn't gotten to it. Actually, what happened is that I was getting wierd weight readings. I'd be 194 in Thursday morning, 190 in the afternoon, 193 Friday morning, and so forth. My plan was to average out the readings over a few days and post on the weekend. But then I was busy on the weekend and kept forgetting to weigh myself. Hence I never got around to posting about it.

Anyway, I this morning's reading was 189 even. That makes a grand total of 44.2 pounds so far and only 9 pounds left to my original goal weight. Yay!

Gamercise-induced writer's block

I have gamercise-induced writer's block. That's my term for being unable to think of anything good to blog about because I'm tired from playing high-impact video games.

Aside: Boy, "high-impact video game" is kind of a tortured phrase, isn't it? It sounds like the force-feedback controller is going to leave bruises and knock things off your shelves. Actually, it remindes me of one gamer I heard refer to "high-stakes games." Doesn't that give you images of the computer electrocuting you if you lose?

The reason I'm tired is because Sarah ordered herself a copy of Dance Dance Revolution for the PlayStation 2 the other week. I didn't have any interest in it, but she wanted something fun to do for exercise. It also had the side benefits of being relatively cheap and actually putting my PS2 to use.

However, when I watched Sarah actually playing, it looked like a lot of fun. I always thought it looked kind of silly, but when I tried it, it really was a lot of fun. And I can't even dance! In fact, not only am I not very good, Sarah tells me I look like a spastic chimpanzee while I'm playing. But I don't case, because it's still a lot of fun.

I'm kind of enjoying this whole physical video game thing. It's a lot of fun and it actually does get your pulse up. In fact, it would be nice to get the PS2 in a room other than our bedroom. That way, I could play Dance Dance Revolution for my morning exercise rather than just doing half an hour on the eliptical machine. I wouldn't be able to read at the same time, but it sure would be more exciting.

And while I'm at it, maybe I should get a Wii. Those look like they'd be great fun too....

Last week's weigh-in: 192.6

I'm calling last week's weight 192.6. That puts me down another pound from last week for a grand total of 40.6 pounds to date. Only 12.6 more to hit my goal. Although I may change that goal and just go for "technically no longer overweight."

It's strange how your weight can fluctuate from day to do. When I weighed myself on Thursday morning, the scale read 194.6, which was up a pound from the previous week. When I tried again Thursday night, it was down to 191.0. On Friday, I got 192.0 and later 192.6.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You can easily gain or lose a pound or two due to (de)hydration, not having gone to the bathroom, having a full stomach, and so forth. I suppose the lesson is simply to average out the readings and not put too much stock in any particular number.

Weighing in at 193.6

This weeks official weigh-in result is 193.6 pounds. That's down 1.2 pounds from last week and 39.6 total.

Now that the weather is turning nice, the carb counting is really starting to suck. We've got to watch the pasta salad, buns for burgers and hot dogs, and worst of all, no ice cream. It just doesn't seem the same without the traditional summer food. At least we can cheat a couple of days a month without breaking the diet.

Averaging out to 194.8

We'll call this week's weigh-in result 194.8. The scale said 195.8 on Thursday, but 193.8 on Friday, so I'm going to just split the difference this week. That puts me down two more pounds from last week for a grand total of 38.4 pounds to date.

While it's great to be making progress this fast, I'm currently in kind of an uncomfortable spot. See, none of my clothes fit right anymore. I'm basically walking around looking funny all the time. But since I've got another 15 pounds to go, there's no point in buying new clothes, because I'd just have to replace them again in a few months.

Not that I'm complaining. If that's the biggest problem I'm having, then I guess all is going well. Though I do really miss Chinese food....

Down to 196.8

Well, this at week's weigh-in I was down to 196.8. That's down 2.4 pounds from last week and puts me down a grand total of 36.4 pounds.

Now at 199.2

This week I finally got below 200 pounds: 199.2 to be precise. That's the first time I've seen that since my first year of college. And just in time to blow it all on Easter dinner too....

201.2...or 202.6

I weighed myself twice this week - yesterday and today. The Thursday number was 202.6, down 0.6 pounds from last week. I wasn't sure I trusted that number, though, because I weighed myself later in the day than usual and had been swilling ungodly amounts of water all morning. The Friday measurement of 201.2, down 2.0 pounds from last week, seems a little more in line with what I expected.

I was actually expecting to be down more than average this week because I spent most of it on a time-honored weight-loss system known as "the flu." I actually registered fevers of over 101 degrees on both Sunday and Thursday, with a brief reprive on Tuesday. It's the sickest I've been in a long time. This was probably canceled out by the fact that I didn't really feel up to doing any real exercise most of the week.

On the up side, I discovered that a cup of low-sodium Progresso chicken noodle soup only has 12g of carbohydrates and 1g of fiber. My other two primary foods, diet ginger ale and Advil, were zero in both.

203.2

The scale varied a bit again this morning, but it looks like the most reliable reading is 203.2. That's another three pounds from last week. That's considerably less that the 4.8 pounds from the previous week, which I found a little alarming. Hopfully, I'm moving back toward a more constant rate.

Side effects of diet

While the diet is progressing nicely, there is one side-effect that I hadn't expected: I've completely lost my tolerance for alcohol. I had one glass of wine tonight and I'm light-headed. What the heck is that!?! It used to take at about three before I started to feel it. I guess that's not a bad thing...just weird.

Down to 206.2

It's Thursday again - that means weigh-in day. It looks like I'm down 4.8 pounds from last week. That makes a total of 27.4 pounds in the last 8 weeks.

This diet is progressing much faster than I expected. In fact, I'm afraid it might be going a little too fast. My rate of weight loss has been increasing in the last three weeks. In fact, of those 27.4 pound, 12.4 has been in the last three weeks. I'm supposed to be averaging about 2 pounds per week on the second phase of the diet, so I've been losing twice what I was expecting. I'm not sure why, though. My eating habits haven't changed appreciably in the last three weeks. Maybe my metabolism is up?

Really? 211.0?

I've been losing more weight than I expected the last two week. This morning, the highest number I got on the scale was 211.0, which puts me down a total of 22.6 pounds. That's after seven weeks on the diet. That seems like an awful lot.

Come to think of it, that's four pounds since last week, assuming the number I picked for last week was accurate. And last week I was down 3.6 pounds from the week before. That seems like an awful lot. In fact, it seems like too much. I haven't changed my diet from the previous weeks, so I don't know why my weight loss would be accelerating.

Speaking of my eating habits, I figured this week would be a good time to talk about them. Diet or not, I tend to eat pretty much the same thing every day on week-days. This is mostly because I bring my breakfast and lunch to work with me every day. This is because 1) it's cheaper than eating out and 2) there aren't any good restaurants in the town where I work.

The recommended breakfast on the F-Factor diet is a high-fiber cereal and yogurt. I eat a half-cup or Fiber One and a container of Dannon Crave Control yogurt. It's actually surprisingly filling for a relatively small volume of food. I also have my coffee, but since the diet recommends limiting yourself to a single caffeinated beverage a day, I've had to switch to decaf. Well, less-than-half-caff, actually. This was actually quite the change, as I'm a pretty heavy coffee drinker. In fact, I'm actually drinking more of it now, since having too much decaf doesn't make me jittery.

For lunch, I've been having a turkey sandwich on two slices of that Weight-Watchers bread I mentioned last time, accompanied by a serving of carrot sticks and a piece of string cheese.

My afternoon snack is pretty much a repeat of lunch, with some deli-sliced ham and Laughing Cow brand spreadable cheese on some bran crispbread and another string cheese. Depending on when dinner is, I may supplement this with some veggies or another couple of crackers after I get home.

Dinner is the only part that I usually vary. We normally have a large spinach salad to start and finish with our serving of fresh fruit. I like raspberries for this - with a bit of the diet Cool-Whip added, they really feels like dessert. For the main course, it's some kind of meat and a side of rice, veggies, or whatever we have room for on our carb allowance.

And the scale says...215.0

The diet is progressing well, although I'm still having trouble with the scale. As I mentioned last week, I seem to be getting incosistent weights depending on where I put the scale and how I stand on it. Today, the highest weight I could get to come up was 215.0. I'm going by that one because the other options were 211 and 210, which can't possibly be right.

One nifty note: it seems the support aspect of fatblogging is working for me. Yesterday I found this comment on my last entry, from none other than Tanya Zuckerbrot, author of The F-Factor Diet, the book I'm following. Now that's service, huh? Thanks for the support Tanya!

So today I thought I'd talk a little about what I'm actually eating on this diet. The nice thing about it is that, if you're careful about what you choos, you can eat pretty much any kind of food. Some of it doesn't even feel like diet food.

The trick, of course, is to read labels. For example, I've been having turkey sandwiches for lunch. Normally, the two slices of bread would use up two of the three extra servings of carbs I'm allowed on phase 2. However, I've been getting the Weight Watchers whole-wheat bread, which has 17g of carbs and 4g of fiber in 2 slices.

Another good example is dessert. I've occasionally been using a serving of carbs to have some chocolate for dessert. Of course, things like Hershey bars and those oh-so-tasty Cadbury cream eggs are out of the question. However, a few dark chocolate products that are actually pretty good on the carb count. My favorite is probably the Guylian assorted chocolates. A 6 square serving only has 12g of carbs, 4g of fiber, and 160 calories. Another good one is the endangered species bars, several of which have 15g of carbs and 5g of fiber in a half-bar serving. They're not quite as good on fat or calories, but they're awfuly tasty.

Another week, another couple pounds: 218.6

Weigh-in day again. I'm down two more pounds from last week (that's 15 total) to 218.6 today. Or 214.0, depending on whether I put the scale in the bathroon or the hall. What a pain. At least I know which number is more likely to be right.

Last time, I said I'd talk a little about the diet I'm on, the F-Factor diet. It's a high-fiber, carb-counting diet. The idea is that you limit your carbohydrate intake, because carbs are really easy to overeat, and increase your fiber intake. The extra fiber, combined with protein, keeps you feeling full longer, and limiting your carbs helps keep your calorie count down.

The actual implementation isn't that difficult. Basically, you write down everything you eat and keep track of the carbs and fiber in it. You don't have to count fats or proteins (the carbs in non-starchy vegetables don't count either), but you're supposed to stick mostly to lean protein and go easy on the fats. You're allowed a certain number of 15 gram servings of carbs, depending on what phase of the diet you're on, but you have to fit 30 to 35 grams of fiber into those.

So far, it's working quite well. The only time I've been hungry on this diet is when I miss a meal. And judging from the numbers, it's obviously working. In fact, this week I had to move to the fifth hole in my belt. I've been going back and forth between the the third and fourth holes for years, but I've never been able to get to the fifth.

Diet progress: 220.6

Apparently there's a new meme sweeping the blogosphere. Or, at least, Jason Calacanis's blog. Jason calls it fatblogging, and the idea is for sedentary, overweight techno-geeks to support eachother in their attempts to lose weight.

It's actually not a bad idea. Having a record of your progress is always a good way to provide motivation. And what with all this wonderful technology, why not use it to build support systems? So, seeing how I've been on a diet for the last month, I think I'll get in on this too. I was planning to blog about it anyway, so why not? (However, I'm not going to follow Jason's format exactly and blog about it every day. I'm only weighing myself once a week, and even if I wasn't, I just can't be bothered to write about my daily routine. "I lost another 4 ounces doing exactly what I did yesterday!" Not exactly compelling reading.)

When I started my diet on January 18, I weighed in at around 233.6 pounds. At my weekly weigh-in yesterday, I was down to 220.6, for a total of 13 lbs. in 4 weeks. My goal weight, which the BMI charts still say is overweight for my height, is 180 lbs. For reference, that's actually ten pounds less than I weighed when I started college.

My weight-loss method so far has adding an actual organized diet to my usual light exercise regimen of doing 20 or 30 minutes on the elliptical machine every morning before work. I picked up a copy of "The F-Factor Diet" by Tanya Zuckerbrot in Bares & Noble and have been following that. It's a carb-counting, high-fiber diet and it's actually not that difficult to follow. But that's a post for another day....