Getting Started

Originally this was intended to chronicle my life as it pertained to physics and astronomy. Things have changed a bit. I’m still in pursuit of a Ph.D. in Astrophysics and I’m doing that at Indiana University. I feel that this “blog” would be better geared toward my new passion: Being healthy.

A little more than a year before now, I had weighed 272 pounds and decided to do something about it. I dieted (i.e. ate less) and after a few months made it all the way down to 226 pounds. I felt great. Then over the past year, I slowly ballooned back up to around 250. Then I moved from Geneseo, NY to Bloomington, IN for grad school. I now lived alone and that kind of got to me. Instead of trying to get my weight down, like I had done the previous summer, I just gave up and ate whatever I felt like. That’s how in the span of a month and a half I gained around 10 pounds.

On June 27th, I came across the Clydesdale subforum at Bike Forums. The people there are an inspiration for all. Reading all of those posts and also getting involved in some of the discussion made me want to get more serious into biking. At that point, I would only commute to work, which is only 2.5 miles away. Sometimes if I was real ambitious I would even ride to Taco Bell, instead of drive, since it’s a little less than a mile away. My weight on that day was 260.5 pounds. Through the Clydesdale forum, I found hope that biking and diet could really work for me like it had for so many others. It was around payday, so I shopped around and bought a good new bike from a local bike shop. The one that I had bought only three weeks before wasn’t really going to cut it for those longer rides, since it was basically a mountain bike. I sold the bad bike, and brought the new one home. It was a Trek 7.2FX. What a beautiful bike it was too. Riding a nice bike really made me feel good and like I could really do this.

I knew that riding alone wasn’t going to get the weight down, especially since at the time a 5 mile ride was killer for me. I had read a few things and heard a few more things about eating smaller portions throughout the day and just eating more times. I started on a 5-meal a day kick. I would have oatmeal for breakfast around 10, and only one packet unlike the two or more I would have before. Then, as soon as I got to the lab around 11-11:30 I would have a granola bar just to get enough sugars into my body for it to recover for my (at the time) long ride to work. I would have a small lunch (usually a hummus sandwich or some small portion of a Thai dish that I had made at home) around 2. Then, I would have another granola bar or maybe a yogurt at 5-6 when I got home from the lab. Dinner was around 9, and it consisted of much smaller portions that I was used to.

I have been vegetarian for a little over two years now, so my problem wasn’t eating healthy enough (although Taco Bell sometimes killed the whole healthy food thing); my problem was portion size. That Thai dish that I would make used to last me about a day. I would eat half of it right after I cooked it and the other half would disappear within the day, if not after I went back for seconds. Each of these portions would completely cover a big plate too. After working on my portions, I decided to first measure out enough to fill a 16 oz can that I would use in making the dish, and then transfer that to ziploc bags. After all was said and done, I was now getting SIX meals out of the same thing that used to give me two, or only one. I’ve also portioned off my cereal that I sometimes have for breakfast too. As soon as the box of Raisin Bran comes home (which is really the only cereal I’ve liked since I was a little kid), I’ll open the box up and put 1 cup of cereal in ziploc bags until the box is empty. Marsh had a sale on Raisin Bran (and other cereals) last week, so right now I have about 15-20 ziploc baggies with Raisin Bran in my cupboard.

Actually, just this diet would have probably been enough to see significant weight loss. I didn’t just want weight loss though, I wanted to be healthy for the first time that I can remember. I knew that I had to exercise as well. So I started pushing myself on my bike. That first day I rode four times. Two commute rides, and then a 5 and 3 mile ride. I was absolutely exhausted. I started to feel that burning muscle pain though, and I loved it. It means that I was working very hard and gaining muscle and losing fat.

Let’s jump to this Sunday, 18 days later: on my single Sunday ride I went 19 miles and felt great afterwords. I was tired (which was to be expected) but I could still function. I could have probably done a few more miles even. I was hardly dragging at the end. The scale that day also clocked in at 247.5.

That’s my story for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with this and tell lots more good weight loss stories like this.