Heavy

In the past, I bowled, rode my bike nearly year round, and played softball. As my health grew worse, I slowly gave up on these activities due to the stress and pain they caused me. What I didn't realize was that when I was still doing at least one of them regularly, it was enough exercise often enough to counterbalance the appetite stimulation (caused by the medications I take) and my caloric intake. However, I have been primarily sedentary with little exercise for the last five years, while still having the appetite stimulation from the meds, and my weight has crept up. A sedentary life plus constant appetite stimulation has turned out to be a bad combination!

My wife has turned me on to a site called "My Fitness Pal" online. It allows you to track your calories and exercise per day to help you realize your intake and output so you can manage your weight loss goals. You can feed the results to your Facebook and Twitter, if you wish, and you can have friends on the site who get posted your results for the day (ostensibly so they can encourage or admonish you to stay on target).

While I want to lose weight, I started using it primarily to get a rough idea of how many calories I take in during the day. So I've been tracking my normal intake without concern for how it will affect any weight loss goals I have. As it turns out, I am almost always under a 2000 calorie intake for the day, and often I am under/around 1500 calories due to my natural ebbs and flows in eating.

For the weight loss goal I entered, My Fitness Pal recommended a 1500 calories per day -- which, as I said, is already right in line with my usual consumption habits, but I have done nothing but gain weight. So it is obviously going to take more than simply lowering caloric intake in order to lose the weight. My wife and I have turned to a "paleo-like" diet, where we are trying to increase the "real foods" we eat, sticking with fruits, vegetables, and unprocessed meats, and lowering our intake of overly-processed foods. We have also cut down on eating out and have started a weekly meal planner system.

In addition, I have been weaning myself off of colas for the last six months or so. I have achieved the point where brown sodas (Pepsi, Coke, etc.) don't taste very good. I am now tackling the other sodas in an attempt to wean myself off of them, too. I am down to having the occasional soda once or twice a week, rather than per day, and those are slowly starting to taste bad to me also.

However, this has increased my milk consumption manifold. While not empty calories, per se, and imbued with many vitamins and minerals and a good dose of protein, milk still has a bunch of sugar in it unless you can stomach it straight from the cow. I drink the 2% milkfat version, but that still is about 180 calories per 12 ounce drink. Which, actually, is more calories per 12 ounces than drinking the sodas (about 150 per 12 ounces)!

At this point, most people I speak with say, "Just drink water." The problem is, and many people simply cannot fathom this, I HATE water. I don't like the flavor of it (and, yes, there IS a flavor to water). Water never quenches my thirst, even on a hot day or after exercise. Water never even tries to make me feel full or even "less empty." I am trying to increase my water intake with the hopes that, just like I have stopped liking the flavor of sodas, I will gradually come to at least be neutral toward water, but so far no luck.

I am tackling my sedentary life through the purchase and use of an exercise bike. I also have a real bike for when/if I can get my level of exercise high enough that I can actually ride the thing on the road without dying. Right now, my stamina is so bad that I can barely ride the stationary bike for more than 15 minutes at a moderate pace, but I am improving. My goal right now is to get to 20 minutes three times a week. My long-term goal is to get back to being able to ride around at least the neighborhood (which is pretty hilly) without difficulty.

The My Fitness Pal site is a great tool for tracking both your exercise and your caloric intake. It has been extremely educational to enter the calories for the foods I eat regularly and see just how much that PBJ, that glass of milk, that handful of chips actually is, and how it adds up through the day. With diligence, this tool may help me to lose some of the weight and prompt me toward my exercise goals. We'll see.