This is the latest installment in the About Men Radio Fitness Challenge in which members of the AMR posse have pledged to eat better and adopt a healthier lifestyle in order to lose weight. Chris Mele has this update:
My moment of truth arrives on Monday.
I go back to see the doctor, who when I last visited, said she wanted me to drop 15 pounds.
So after doubling down on my workouts for the past two months (after being sidelined with an illness for a month), after cranking up the intensity of my exercise, curbing my sugar intake and tracking my calories with an online app, I stepped on the scale today and…
I GAINED two pounds.
To borrow a line from “Blazing Saddles”: “What in the Wide World of Sports is going on here?!”
I mean, c’mon!
I have extended my workouts to nearly an hour and six days a week.
I really have tried to keep track of my food, entering the calories on the conservative side and being honest about my unhealthy snacking, namely the Frisbee-sized cookies I get from the Jefferson Diner in New Jersey.
But there was the readout on the scale, unblinking: 203.7.
Of course, when I get to the doctor, her scale will say something worse because it always does.
I was aiming to lose 15 and gained two.
Once upon a time, 15 years ago, I dropped 40 pounds but I did it by eating scant calories (mostly carbs) and doing only industrial-strength cardio (cardio videos, running, biking, etc.)
The result though was I looked bony and unhealthy. Plus I was cold all the time.
I’ve been doing a bit more weight lifting and taking in more protein.
I do have to say I feel like I’m filling out a little bit (and not in a paunchy in the poochy kind of way either).
My wife says I have dents in my torso (I guess to match the ones in my head!) and my clothes do feel like they fit better.
So I guess I am doing something right.
Maybe weight is not the final arbiter of whether you’re healthy.
In this case, I feel like the doctor has put her thumb on the scale and made me more concerned with hitting a number than with how I’m doing overall.
Will see what she says on Monday.
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