Weight loss

Since the middle of March, I’ve been making a concerted effort to lose a bit of weight. Not too many people would say I look overweight, and by technical definitions I’m not, but for a while now I’ve verged on the upper edge of what is considered the “normal” range of the Body Mass Index.

In mid-winter I started feeling a few twinges in my artificial hip, and although my regular visit to the surgeon for monitoring revealed all was fine, I figured that if I managed to take off some weight it could only be good for the hip (and my knees). Previous efforts to take off weight have not been very successful, but they’ve also been rather lackadaisical and not at all methodical. So this time I vowed I would DO IT!!

The main components missing from previous weight-loss attempts were more exercise and really paying attention to what I ate. I’d try to eat a bit less and drink more water and maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but it never amounted to much. So this time, while those two factors were also a part of the plan, I determined I WOULD get more exercise – and I would track how much I ate and pay more attention to calories.

Exercise had to be something easy. Not necessarily in terms of doing it, but easy in terms of convenience. It couldn’t be anything that would require special equipment or that I go any place special or take much, if any, of my morning or evening hours. My days are full enough already. So, my exercise component of choice was something that I could do easily, every day, right in my office building: climb stairs.

I set myself a three-part goal:
every day to beat or match my previous stair-climbing record;
if I coulnd’t manage that, then to match or exceed what I’d done the previous day (assuming it wasn’t my record); or
if I coulnd’t manage that, then to climb at least 20 flights a day.

I started on a Thursday. The first two days I surprised myself with how easily I managed to climb 24 flights both days. The following week I surprised myself yet again by climbing 42 flights on the Monday and 44 on Tuesday! Wednesday I had taken the day off, and it was likely a good thing, because on Tuesday evening I could feel my leg muscles and I was tired. But the one day rest was plenty, and the Thursday and Friday that week I did 45 and 48 flights, and started off the following Monday with … you’ll never believe it: not 50, not 60, but SEVENTY FLIGHTS!!! At that point I decided I should revise goal #3 to at least 30 flights, rather than 20.

In less than four weeks I reached 82 flights in one day, at which point I suffered a bit of a set-back. I’d been using my hands & arms to help “jerk” me up a little bit when stepping up with my right leg, which doesn’t bend as much as the left and so makes climbing a bit awkward. As a result my wrist and arm/shoulder were very sore. So for the rest of the week I gave myself a break – so to speak – by climbing “just” 60 flights each day. (At that point I revised goal #3 to 50 flights.)

By the following week I’d recovered enough that I managed to climb 100 flights on two of the five working days!! After that I revised my goal to a weekly one – to climb more stairs each week than I had the previous week, even if on any given day I didn’t exceed my previous record.

Up until we went on holidays I was keeping up an average of around 70 flights a day (and managed 100 flights on 7 occasions). When we got back – it was hot, muggy, and even inside our air-conditioned work buildings you can still feel the mugginess. So for a while the climbing slowed down significantly, but by the eight day back on the job I was feeling the lack of exercise – my leg muscles were aching from lack of use, the way they did when I first went back to work after adopting Button and spending my days on my butt instead of up and about with an active kid. That was the impetus to get going again, and since then I’ve been keeping it up, though not as intensely – I’ve averaged just 44 flights a day instead of 70, but that’s still pretty good!

On the eating front, my main strategy has been to limit what I eat at work, having just a very small lunch/snack in the middle of the day. Also, limit portions and avoid second helpings and snacks outside of meals.

So, what about the weight loss? It’s been coming along okay, although from mid-May to late June I was kind of stalled. But I’m now down to just over 110 lbs (a loss of almost 20 lbs and one pants size) and I’m aiming to lose another 5-10 by Hallowe’en if not sooner. That will give me room to gain a bit back and still be at a good, healthy weight. I don’t think I’ve seen those numbers on the scale since I was in my 20s!