Five down, 80 to go

I weighed in this morning at 237.2, down five pounds from one week ago. Wouldn't it be great if I could lose five pounds every week? I've learned from experience that the number gets a lot smaller after the first week or two, so I don't expect it to continue at that rate.

I am still eating well, and I've been walking the dog every morning, but I'm having a hard time getting in more exercise. Thirty minutes of walking every morning is a good start, and may be great for maintenance, but I still have 80 pounds of fat to lose. And walking for 30 minutes a day isn't going to cut it.

Interestingly, most people don't believe that I have 80 pounds of fat to lose. They just see me as "big guy" who could stand to lose about 30 pounds. But, I'm not a "big guy." I only have about 140 pounds of lean body mass, which means I am carrying 97 pounds of fat. Obviously I can't lose every last pound of it, but there's no reason I should have to carry more than 10% of my bodyweight in fat. If I lose 80 more pounds of fat, and don't gain or lose any muscle in the process, I will weigh 157 pounds with 17 pounds of fat (just over 10%).

Of course, I hope to add about 10 pounds of muscle so that I hit 10% bodyfat at about 165. Ultimately, I would love to gain an additional 10-20 pounds of muscle and settle in at 175-185 (still with 10% bodyfat). But any way you look at it, the 97 pounds of fat I am carrying today is about 80 pounds more than I need (or want). So I still have 80 pounds of fat to lose.

If I could continue to lose five pounds a week, it would only take four months. With results like that, I'm sure I could stay motivated. However, it is more realistic to shoot for 8-10 pounds per month. At that rate, it will take me 8-10 months to reach my goal.

Logically, there is no reason I cannot do that. However, it has been very difficult for me to stay on track for that length of time in the past. In fact, I've only done it twice. In the 1998-99 school year (first year of law school), I worked out six days per week. My bench press went from 165 to 225. My weight dropped from over 200 to about 185. My lean body mass increased from about 140 to 155. But I was not eating clean. Had I been watching my eating, I could have reached my goal of 10% that year. As it was, I got down to 17%.

By spring of 2003, I had ballooned back up to 225. In May 2003, my Mom convinced my wife and I to follow the Weight Watcher's Points plan. We did not join the club, but we counted points for the next year or so. We each lost 40 pounds. But during that time, I was not doing any resistance training (though I did do a fair amount of cardio). Had I added resistance training, I probably could have had much better results.

This year is going to be my third success story. Only this time I will be eating clean and doing resistance training (cardio too). By putting them both together, I should be able to have better results than ever before. The only trick will be staying on track. That's why I need leverage. And I still haven't decided what that will be.