Permanent weight loss requires major change
The waist is a terrible thing to mind.
Remember that little twist on the United Negro College Fund campaign slogan?
How about the Special K pinch-an-inch test? Those old television commercials from the 1970s showed people who would be obscenely skinny by today’s standards pinching an inch around their waists. Nowadays, if you can grab some flab…
Believe it or not, there was once a time when I could not even pinch an inch on my now-rotund frame. I was a three-sport athlete (i.e. benchwarmer) in high school and was very active in intramural sports and swimming in college. The day I was handed my high school diploma, I weighed in just shy of 150 pounds dripping wet.
I ballooned to 170 pounds by the end of college and managed to stay in the 180-190 range throughout most of the 1990s. I had to give up health club memberships about the time my first marriage ended in the late ’90s. I tried jogging, but bad shins put an end to that.
Enter the 21st century and a decade of no regular exercise, a sedentary occupation and an addiction to the Internet and I found my 5-foot, 10-inch frame hoisting 260 pounds of pure bulk. A couple years ago I volunteered for a medical study which had me very carefully counting and recording my calorie consumption. In three months I lost 30 pounds. Then my part of the program ended. Since then, I have put about half of that back on.
You may ask why my weight weighs so heavy on my mind. Apparently the obesity epidemic is weighing on a lot of people. Everywhere you turn there is some kind of reminder about ways to lose weight or stories about childhood obesity. Recent events have put this problem on the forefront of our lives in the Southern household.
Of the six of us, three are obese, two are normal weight and one is underweight. That is about to change. Our diets are about to undergo a radical transformation. My wife, who has hypoglycemia, has always had to watch her sugar intake. She recently had to have her gallbladder removed and must now avoid fat in her food. When you throw in my middle son who has Celiac’s disease – an intolerance to wheat – and you have a dining nightmare.
In order to accommodate everyone, we will be making a radical lifestyle change at the dinner table. I also plan to start counting calories again, at least for a while. Most importantly, however, I intend to increase our level of activity. Eating less and exercising more are the only surefire and natural ways of controlling your weight. Pills, surgery and other methods only attack the symptoms of obesity, not the problem. Simply put, it requires a change in lifestyle and habit.
Growing up in the days before personal computers and home video, we spent a most of our free time outside playing. My brothers, neighbors and I rode our bikes everywhere. We jumped on our trampoline for endless hours at a time. We ran around the neighborhood playing some wicked games of hide-and-go-seek, kick the can and ghost in the graveyard. We played little league baseball, fished in a nearby stream and pond and went swimming whenever we could talk Mom into taking us to the pool. We were always on the move. It was great. We felt good and had fun.
Today, my kids give their thumbs the biggest workout as they manipulate video game controls. In the last 10 years, they’ve seen more movies and watched more hours of television than I did in the first 20 years of my life. I became content to let them vegetate in front of a screen so I could have time to explore the Internet and email friends. It’s sad that I have more face time with a computer screen than I do with my own children.
I’m just taking a guess here, but I bet this is typical for most parents my age. It’s time to say enough. It’s time to take back our lives. No longer will I be a slave to Facebook and the almighty donut. I am committed to spending more time with my family than I do on my home computer. (Unfortunately I can’t eliminate my work computer.)
We will watch what we eat and make sure to get moving outdoors (sorry kids, the Wii doesn’t count) at least a little bit each day. I want this change to become a permanent habit. After all, the waist is a terrible thing to mind.
Remember that little twist on the United Negro College Fund campaign slogan?
How about the Special K pinch-an-inch test? Those old television commercials from the 1970s showed people who would be obscenely skinny by today’s standards pinching an inch around their waists. Nowadays, if you can grab some flab…
Believe it or not, there was once a time when I could not even pinch an inch on my now-rotund frame. I was a three-sport athlete (i.e. benchwarmer) in high school and was very active in intramural sports and swimming in college. The day I was handed my high school diploma, I weighed in just shy of 150 pounds dripping wet.
I ballooned to 170 pounds by the end of college and managed to stay in the 180-190 range throughout most of the 1990s. I had to give up health club memberships about the time my first marriage ended in the late ’90s. I tried jogging, but bad shins put an end to that.
Enter the 21st century and a decade of no regular exercise, a sedentary occupation and an addiction to the Internet and I found my 5-foot, 10-inch frame hoisting 260 pounds of pure bulk. A couple years ago I volunteered for a medical study which had me very carefully counting and recording my calorie consumption. In three months I lost 30 pounds. Then my part of the program ended. Since then, I have put about half of that back on.
You may ask why my weight weighs so heavy on my mind. Apparently the obesity epidemic is weighing on a lot of people. Everywhere you turn there is some kind of reminder about ways to lose weight or stories about childhood obesity. Recent events have put this problem on the forefront of our lives in the Southern household.
Of the six of us, three are obese, two are normal weight and one is underweight. That is about to change. Our diets are about to undergo a radical transformation. My wife, who has hypoglycemia, has always had to watch her sugar intake. She recently had to have her gallbladder removed and must now avoid fat in her food. When you throw in my middle son who has Celiac’s disease – an intolerance to wheat – and you have a dining nightmare.
In order to accommodate everyone, we will be making a radical lifestyle change at the dinner table. I also plan to start counting calories again, at least for a while. Most importantly, however, I intend to increase our level of activity. Eating less and exercising more are the only surefire and natural ways of controlling your weight. Pills, surgery and other methods only attack the symptoms of obesity, not the problem. Simply put, it requires a change in lifestyle and habit.
Growing up in the days before personal computers and home video, we spent a most of our free time outside playing. My brothers, neighbors and I rode our bikes everywhere. We jumped on our trampoline for endless hours at a time. We ran around the neighborhood playing some wicked games of hide-and-go-seek, kick the can and ghost in the graveyard. We played little league baseball, fished in a nearby stream and pond and went swimming whenever we could talk Mom into taking us to the pool. We were always on the move. It was great. We felt good and had fun.
Today, my kids give their thumbs the biggest workout as they manipulate video game controls. In the last 10 years, they’ve seen more movies and watched more hours of television than I did in the first 20 years of my life. I became content to let them vegetate in front of a screen so I could have time to explore the Internet and email friends. It’s sad that I have more face time with a computer screen than I do with my own children.
I’m just taking a guess here, but I bet this is typical for most parents my age. It’s time to say enough. It’s time to take back our lives. No longer will I be a slave to Facebook and the almighty donut. I am committed to spending more time with my family than I do on my home computer. (Unfortunately I can’t eliminate my work computer.)
We will watch what we eat and make sure to get moving outdoors (sorry kids, the Wii doesn’t count) at least a little bit each day. I want this change to become a permanent habit. After all, the waist is a terrible thing to mind.
posted by Joe Southern | 8:53 AM
1 Comments:
Joe -- best of luck as you take on this challenge. I find that it's easier to make healthier choices about the little meals that you eat on the run - especially breakfast and lunch on work days. Eat healthy things at those meals - then you can eat more satisfying things at dinner or other special occasions and not feel like you're punishing yourself.
TT
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