I was always a skinny kid…..

Growing up I was always skinny. You know, one of those kids that could eat and eat and eat and still look like someone needed to give him a sandwich.
And I hated it. I felt self conscious about being so skinny. I was always in fairly good shape since as kids we actually went out and played all day instead of being inside with all the video games kids have now, but my friends were always bigger than I was.

In high school I swam, ran, biked, and skied but still remained skinny. As a matter of fact when I graduated high school, I was 6’1” and weighed 145lbs.
Even later when I got married, I was thin, I think I may have been up to 150lbs by then. This continued to be the case throughout my life.

Well, as life and career get busy, age creeps up and exercise takes a back seat, things change. As a result, at 40 I found myself at 210lbs and unable to even run a mile.
Still, once I got active again and started working out, the weight seemed to go away fairly easily. I got down to 185 and was able to keep it right around that by going to the gym at lunch a few times a week. I didn’t really have to try very hard to keep my weight down, it just sort of happened.

So, as you can imagine, I have no idea how to diet and have never even had to think about my weight. I ate as much as I wanted, whenever and whatever I wanted and never thought twice about it. Eating dessert just before bed, no problem. Eating a whole stack of pancakes with bacon and eggs for breakfast, no problem. Mid-day snacks of junk food and soda, no problem…..

Lately though, I notice things have changed…..drastically. I’m still pretty active. I work in the yard almost every weekend, I ride my bike a couple times a week and I generally try to watch what I eat. (I do have a weakness for pizza and beer though)
The problem is, its just not working anymore. I need to do something different….I may need to actually diet.

Now I don’t mean one of those cabbage soup, or carbohydrate only diets. And I don’t mean taking pills or anything drastic like that. I’m not going to be weighing my food and I’m not going to deprive myself….but I do need to get serious about losing some weight.

I thought about this for a while and think I’ve come up with the best way to do this. I’m going to have to set a goal, set up an accountability partner or two and actually focus on this instead of just increasing my exercise and hoping it works.
I’m going to post my weight daily on this blog (which isn’t a big deal since there aren’t many people that read it) really concentrate on not eating junk food and try to add in some different workouts other than just riding my bike.

So, since it’s a new year, I started on Friday and weighed 200.6 lbs. My goal is to be at 185 for the time the Solvang Century on March 14th. That's 15lbs which should be a very achievable goal.
I didn’t weigh myself over the weekend but yesterday I was 199.4 and today I’m 198.2. I’ve run once and ridden once this week but both were short since I’m a wuss and it’s been really cold….

I’m guessing Friday will be the biggest challenge since that’s traditionally pizza, beer and a video night at the Sims household….