my original weight loss

hroush

Starting the summer of 2005, I was 280 lbs. A friend of mine got my starting playing water polo (not a league by any means), but it was fun. I was playing at the YMCA on my campus, but since I wasn't taking classes over the summer, I had to pay for it. Due to my frugality, I decided I was going to get the most out of it by working out for an hour Mon - Thurs. This started me on the road of losing 2lbs. a week with no diet change other than cutting out pop to exclusively water. In the fall I joined a cycling class and continued to lose 2lbs. a week until January when I weighed 210.

When I moved on to my undergrad, I couldn't keep the workout schedule. I tried watching what I ate, but that didn't seem to help either, so that by the time I left there I was up to 225 and increasing. I am now teaching a cycling class, but still at 220, trying to get myself to run once or twice a week, and trying to behave in my eating habits, but eating out still kills me.

What I have learned:
-Take what you normally eat and cut it in half. You will still get full, but you automatically cut out half of the calories eating what you normally do.
- don't buy snack foods. If they are in the house, I will eat them. if they are not, I don't crave them, it's that simple. What is not so simple is when my wife wants and craves snack foods and I end up eating at least half of them.
-cut out pop. I drank 4-5 cans of coke or pepsi a day and was able to stop cold turkey with it still in the house (it took my mom a month to figure out that i wasn't drinking it anymore). I know quite a few people have a caffeine addiction, but I never had any side effects. Additional bonus, think of all that money you save!
-find a workout you like and stick with it. I absolutely love cycling. I have always loved bicycling, but always tear up my bike riding too fast over curbs. In a spin class I get to work out with people, listen to great music, and get a great work out at the same time. This was one of the easiest things I ever did, went to class and hopped on the scale once a week to discover I lost another 2 lbs.
-set goals. When I started working out, I hated running, but I knew that if I wanted to lose weight I needed to. When I started I could barely make it a half mile, but by the end of the summer I weighed 255 lbs. and could run a mile in 7 minutes easily.