How I Did It: And How I'm Going to Keep Doing It

When people are honest with themselves about their personal health they often have conflicts to resolve by way of goals to achieve. I didn’t. As I mentioned before I began to change the way I lived by acting on an impulse that I could probably tough out a couple of weeks of laying off the trans fats, lose a couple pounds, and return to life as normal $50 dollars richer with a bucket of Popeye’s spicy recipe under one arm and a peanut-butter chocolate pie under the other.

But I didn’t just lose a couple of pounds as it would turn out: wiser choices at my parents’ dinner table (when applicable) compounded with boot camp two to three nights a week conducted by a friend with just the right amount of apathy and 35 days later I was 30 lbs lighter.

Perhaps it was my body reacting in shock to an occlusion of Hot Wok lunch specials (seemingly designed to feed China’s PLA and America’s growing obesity rate) we ordered every Thursday at work or an abate in ice cream night caps or actually breaking a sweat a couple of times a week for the first time in nearly a decade but presumptions aside there is simply nothing sweeter than trying on a pair of shorts that barely fit in college, pulling them up to my waist – reaching for a belt – and having them fall to the ground.

So, 2006, I move into my own apartment and have sole control of what is allowed in my cupboards, freezer, and refrigerator. At first I only had my gut instinct (har-har, har-dee, har-har) to go by and on my first trip to the grocery store I did what I wish so many men and women who complain about their weight would do: exercise some common sense. Yes, it’s a crime that fresh foods cost as much as child support in this economy but even if you can’t afford them you know with some exceptions the difference between right and wrong.

Take breakfast for instance: Great Value sugar-free oatmeal is healthier (and cheaper) than a box of Pop Tarts and Honey Nut Cheerios don’t cost anymore than a box of Cap’n Crunch.

Over the course of the next year-and-a-half I set only one goal for myself with a notable escape clause: keep it real unless you are with friends or family. In other words: behave yourself throughout the work week – politely passing on offers to order out at work (which I continue to do to this day) and cut back on food day celebrations which are often little more than a sugar & salt orgy almost always headlined by Better Than Sex Cake (which, by the way, it is not – it doesn’t even top a mediocre blow…but I digress) and on the weekends indulge a bit while still exercising caution (one cheeseburger opposed to my usual two, etc.).

I also discovered you can exercise perennially for free if the elements aren’t a factor simply by moving your feet for extended periods of time. It’s called walking and contrary to an old wives’ tale you do not have to reach a predetermined speed to begin shedding calories. Yes, walking faster burns more calories and moving at a snail’s pace will obviously burn less but I’ve personally found maintaining a medium stroll for 60 minutes a night five nights a week and you will begin to enjoy this healthy augmentation to your diet in addition to the benefits it will eventually bring your heart, blood pressure – not to mention your soul (walking is excellent for meditation).

In 2008, David Zinczenko editor of Men’s Health magazine, released the first in an on-going series of Eat This, Not That books aimed to help people like you and me fine tune our diets (and in some cases drop significant amounts of weight) simply by making better choices at chain restaurants (including fast food behemoths like McDonald’s), grocery stores (even if it’s the lesser of two evils), and holidays as well as debunking specious health food products and re-evaluating foods ignorantly labeled unhealthy (often because of their fat gram count).

The original book, followed a year later by their timely Supermarket Survival Guide, evolved into something of a diet dogma for me so when that irresistible urge to dine on potato chips, oven pizza, and ice cream is simply too much to withstand…I can make a more reasonable choice like Kashi’s delicious Mediterranean pizza (meant to be devoured in two or even three sittings), Tostitos Baked Scoops that taste virtually identical to Frito’s version with half the fat, or The Skinny Cow ice cream products which I am still unconvinced a la the low-fat yogurt episode of “Seinfeld” are in fact this easy on the beltline with only 150 calories a sandwich almost half the count of its decidedly not-so-healthy competitors.

Has it been a long week? Do you need a couple of beers? The Supermarket Survival Guide even covers what to knock back and what to avoid (note: it may pain some to discover that you should try and avoid popular domestics such as Blue Moon and Bud Light as well as popular foreign labels like Killian’s Red, Guinness Extra Stroudt, Corona Extra, and Heineken…but dieting and changing your lifestyle often involves curbing bad habits if not outright sacrifice).

As 2009 drew to a close I arrived home from work one day and discovered a flyer in my mail box that might have otherwise been tossed until I realized it was for a local gym that had just opened and was significantly cheaper than other area fitness centers which in-part is why I avoided them up until this point. I thought how could it hurt to at least check it out and ended up meeting with a friendly personal trainer who promised as part of his pitch (in addition to the low fixed rate of $19.95 a month) that Cardinal Fitness also had a low douche bag/meathead ratio and I was sold.

To this day I go to Cardinal Fitness three to four times a week and enjoy running and working out on the gym’s wide array of equipment. One day I looked in the mirror while doing calisthenics and saw faint signs of definition – the pay-off for a lot of hard work over the trajectory of several months – and thought to myself I would have never believed any of this could ever be possible.

I am not an expert. I do not hold a degree in health or fitness. Weight loss and maintenance is not an exact science because we truly are snowflakes when it comes to our genetic make-up – no two are the same.

I only know how I did it and I hope my story will one day help inspire yours.