“Overweight.”
“Make sure your weight doesn’t rise.”
That was the message I received yesterday when I worked out my body mass index.
13.1 stone is the ideal weight for a gentleman of my height (6ft), whereas I’ve ebbed away to a rather flabby and chubby 13.5. I actually thought I was like 12.7 or around that, so that was a little surprising.
Not the end of the world, I know - but turning a blind eye to being overweight (in medical terms) or to slimming and dieting is how I’ve become in such a state. Not addressing such a situation is how you worsen it. A relaxed attitude will only increase the margin between what is healthy and what is not.
The reason I was looking up my BMI is because I want to spend my free time this summer getting into shape. Not ripped or anything like that, just lose the flab - tighten up - run for longer than 15 minutes - lose the beer belly (which I’ve spent 3 years of uni working on). You know, the usual.
I want to be able to shake the tag of ‘lazy’ footballer, because I know its not so much laziness but a lack of fitness, which has essentially led to me becoming overweight and settling for the tag of lazy. Or perhaps preferring the word lazy to overweight.
Or fat.
I remember about 5 years ago when my dad decided he wanted to lose weight and he took up swimming, squash, cycling and jogging each week. Eating nothing but healthy sandwiches. And he shed so much weight it was remarkable.
I only need to shed half a stone to be ‘healthy’ - but in actual fact I want to lose much more. I want rid of the tire around my waste, and the love handles, and the turkey neck. I’m guessing there’s more than half a stone of excess skin there!
So, for the next month I will be exercising on a daily basis as an experiment to see just how much difference it will/can make. I say I will do it for the next month because if I kid myself that I can do it every day for the next year or so then I will no doubt give up straight away, deciding it will be too hard. If I can get through this month and see what the rewards are then who knows how I’ll feel? Or whether I’ll deem it worthwhile.
And when I say exercise - I mean serious exercise.
The schedule I’ve just put together includes swimming every weekday, visiting the gym twice a week (for running, cycling and rowing) and daily jogs every other week day. So that’s swimming and running (atleast) every day. I can’t kid myself that I can do exercise at weekends, because that is when I work mostly, so I will settle for weights at home, sit ups and a long walk each day for my weekend workout.
Added to this I’ve got notes up on my wall that says: ‘NO MORE FAST FOOD!’, ‘NO MORE TAKEAWAYS AFTER WORK!’, NO MORE MILKSHAKES AND POP/SODA!’. Instead, I will be mostly snacking on fruits, salads, healthy cereals, smoothies, veg and soup. Just reading that sentence makes me think that this is going to be a gruelling, but ultimately rewarding, process.
July is going to be a tricky month, but hopefully I can cut the amount of calories I’m taking in, and I can increase the amount of calories I’m shedding - so that I can go on holiday in August with my girlfriend and not look like Jabba the Hut on the beach.
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