Case Study 1 Part 1

I was not what you would call overweight, but I was unhealthy. I was, by my doctor's standards, about 40 pounds over my goal weight. This 40 pounds equated to approximately 20% of my body weight was in excess. When you consider that I really need my lungs, kidneys, brain, limbs, etc which weigh a good bit, 20% seems like a lot in that context. It was my first physical as a true adult (over 25) and I wasn't expecting it. Not to go too much on a tangent, but I went in because my wrist was killing me. I am thinking carpel tunnel for too many years behind a keyboard. The doctor wanted to forward me to a specialist because he agreed. However, while I am there... To make a long story short, rubber glove time. I told him I had no idea that "my wrist hurts" was the keywords in his office for rectal exam and to tell me I am fat and unhealthy. With that said though, I will take his advice seriously. And I did...

The issue is, and why I think this is important to reiterate at this point, that in order to lose weight, I needed to work out. The catch 22 is that I can't work out for long because I get exhausted in about 10 minutes flat. So I had to first get to a point where I could work out for an hour without passing out and peeing myself. I am not saying this is required for everyone, but this is where I decided to start. I started South Beach "Phase 1", and started looking at gym memberships.

I joined Gold's Gym and began walking on the treadmill 5 days a week. Knowing my goal was to stay upright for one hour, that is what I worked on. I didn't try and see what I could do in that time, the goal was just to last for that time. So the first week I walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes. If I wasn't tired, I didn't continue, I stopped, and went home, small mission accomplished in the larger goal. By the end of the first week, I felt good that I made it to the gym everyday that I planned to, again, small step, but important.

For the next series of weeks, I continued to walk for 40 minutes, then 60 minutes. Once I hit 60 minutes, for the next few weeks after that I began to step it up, every 15 minutes I would jog for 5 minutes. So over an hour that is walking 45 minutes and jogging 15 minutes. I continued to do this until I was jogging for 15 minutes and walking for 5 minutes (again over an hour jogging 45 minutes and walking 15 minutes). I started to notice I was burning in between 500-750 calories each visit. That is approximately 25% of the total average intake a person is supposed to have in a day, wow!

From there I wanted to change it up a bit. My new goal was set to burn 1000 calories each visit no matter how long it took me. The first few tries it took over an hour, until it dawned on me, not rocket science here, that if I ran harder at times, the calories would add up faster and I was home quicker. After about 3 months, I was down 20 pounds and was feeling very energized. Also at that time I was drinking at least 8-12 glasses of water per day.

I had met my first goal of being able to last for an hour. I can only mention now the weight from retrospect, but that was the secondary result. Your goals should be very defined and not geared on weight. Weight varies some much throughout the day, week, month and therefore should not be part of your goal. Trust that weight loss will just happen – your goal is remain alive and healthy. Time is a good standard to set goals by. Distance and longevity are other good criteria for goals. For example, if you are a runner, being able to run 5 miles as opposed to a mile is progress, simply weighing 5 pounds less is not. I can't stress that enough in refocusing your priorities because once you have met your goal weight, does that mean it is no longer a need to stay healthy, of course not. So why set your goals according to weight loss?

Remember also, that you are taking in a lot of water. Water will be retained and released from your body constantly throwing off your scale. If you must use a scale to keep your spirits high, try to weigh yourself on the same scale and at approximately the same time everyday.

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