As football came to a close for me in 2005, I accepted the reality that I could either lose weight or become fat. I had seen plenty of former standout athletes fall off the bandwagon, continuing to eat, but neglecting to exercise. With equal parts fear and motivation, I set out to lose what I built to play football. Below is a recap of steps I took to lose 70lbs and transform my body.
- Accepting a Challenge: One of the first things I did was make a bet with my father. In October 2005, we constructed a gentleman's agreement to tackle our weight loss together, setting out to see who could reach 185lbs by Christmas. If you are competitive, a challenge may be what you need to seek motivation and consistency towards your weight loss. Notice, this challenge had three things; a measurable end result, a partner to add company along the journey, and an end date.
- Building upon Met Goals: As I stated within my last post on goal setting, working feverishly to attain a goal is foolish unless you move forward with another larger goal. After quickly whittling my frame down to 182lbs by Christmas, I needed another challenge to maintain my effort. Over the past months, I had lost weight through eating smarter, exercising in new ways (running, cycling, and lighter weight lifting), and limiting alcohol consumption. As I began to form a novice endurance base, I fell in love with running and cycling outdoors. For me, a longing for the outdoors was not a new discovery. From a very young age my parents instilled a sense of adventure in me, encouraging me to explore the dense forest surroundings in our backyard near Seattle and taking me on backpacking trips at a young age. Due to my new found interest in running, I registered for Grandma's Marathon in 2006, to keep my motivation consistent. Through the winter months, I established a routine of running regularly and eating properly to achieve my goals.
- Utilize Resources: Fast forward a year. I completed my first marathon and achieved my goal of running under a 4:00 hour time. This left me inspired and naturally intrigued to discover what my body was capable of. I knew with more work, I could run faster, I just didn't know where improvement would stop. At this time, I was hovering around 180lbs and felt like I could do more to improve my eating habits. I utilized two sources to gain an understanding of how to "eat for fueling a specific activity." Sports Nutrition for the Endurance Athlete, written by Monique Ryan, opened my eyes to fueling and hydrating properly for successful endurance endeavors. I have read this book a handful of times to improve upon my diet. More recently, cookbooks such as The Feed Zone, and Scott Jurek's Eat and Run, have provided new ideas and recipes that keep me interested in eating healthy. If running isn't your thing, other resources may provide useful along the journey. In the end, I have found that knowledge has taken me a step beyond where motivation would have left me as a runner.
- Defining Healthy Eating: Fueling for an endurance endeavor is an ever evolving process of personal experiments. What works for some, may never work for others. With that being said, simple logic goes a long ways. I have avoided eating overly-processed food in order to get down to a stable weight that I find optimal for running. Eating large quantities of fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc... has kept me lean and healthy. One of the largest steps I took to lose the last 10lbs was to give up red meat. This happened to be a personal choice, after I discovered that red meat and pork, among other things made my body feel terrible while exercising. I do consume chicken and fish, however it is on a more sparing basis then when I played football. Since this topic is vast and could be stretched into an entire series of posts, I will summarize the lessons I have learned in four bullets:
- Pay attention to what is in your food. Read packages and avoid ingredients that are unnatural (scientifically developed).
- Don't follow X athlete's or X nutritionist's advice. Build your own knowledge and then determine what works best for you personally!
- If it's raw, it can't be bad: consuming food in its natural form (i.e. fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc..) will go a long ways in improving any one's daily nutritional habits.
- Eating healthy doesn't need to break the bank. Sure, you can go to Whole Foods or a "natural" co-op and spend more than half of your living wage, but you don't need to! Utilizing avenues such as a local farmer's market or stocking up on certain items when they are "in-season" can prove to be affordable and provide the variety needed to keep eating interesting!
- Don't Get Discouraged: In the end, I have built my personal health over a 6 year period of constant education, experimentation, and consistency. If I subtracted one of these three key elements from the overall "process," I would not be where I am today. If you are setting out to achieve something large, recognize that you may fail, face resistance, and become delayed within the process. If you recognize this, the journey will be that much sweeter!
Follow me next week as I write about how to build a support network.