Weighing In

Five weeks ago, I hopped on the scale and discovered that I had gained 8 pounds. I was pissed. I had gained nearly a pound for every week that I was injured and unable to run my usual mileage. Yikes!

I assumed the weight would fall right off as soon as I was able to increase my mileage but just to be safe, I eliminated second breakfast and second lunch, which left me with only three meals per day. Hey, we all have to make sacrifices.

Here we are five weeks later and I've managed to drop 11 pounds. Nice. I'm already at my race weight. I'd love to lose another 10 pounds before race day but we'll see. I don't want to lose so much that I end up getting weaker. Which is what happened many, many years ago when I was a high school wrestler. I weighed around 155 and dropped 10 pounds so that I could wrestle in the 145 pound weight class. But the coaches thought we would be a stronger team if I could get down to 138 and knock off the kid who was currently wrestling at that weight. I tried to drop the additional 7 but when I hit around 140 my body said that's enough. So we'll see what my body says this time. But I definitely still have the pounds available to shed.

Anyway, this weight loss got me thinking about all of the dieting scams where people lose some weight briefly but then end up getting heavier than before they started. The only people who gain from these plans are the authors of the books and the publishers.

I have a very effective and guaranteed way to lose weight. It's not sexy and it won't sell books but here it is: Burn more calories than you consume on a daily basis.

There you have it, a guaranteed way to lose weight. In fact, it's the ONLY way to lose weight. Don't go starving your body of carbs and hope to lose weight. Your body NEEDS carbs. Carbs are your body's fuel. Fuel up, exercise, be happy.