Roller Coaster Club

I have dropped twenty pounds since the beginning of the year. Like many of us, I am in the Roller Coaster Club. I'll have my weight under control, and then a few months later, my pants are too tight. I'll lose weight again, get cocky, and then let go of the habits that helped me stay smaller.

About a year ago, maybe longer, I was feeling pretty good about my weight. It wasn't as low as it was when I had lost 120 pounds running and dieting, but I was getting there. Then something switched in my brain. I don't even know what triggered it, but I started eating unhealthy foods again. I probably snuck a pint of Ben and Jerry's or something, and it all went downhill from there. You can live in denial for only so long, but your pants don't lie. By early December, there were three shirts and one pair of dress pants in my closet that still fit. I realized that I could either start buying bigger clothes, or I could make some changes so that I could fit into my smaller pants again.

For me, the most painful part of any new weight loss endeavor is dusting off the bathroom scale and weighing myself. Oddly enough, once I've recorded that first weigh-in, I immediately feel better. I don't feel good about the number, but the mystery and suspense are gone. Once I step on the scale, I have a clear goal, and I can proceed.

Fortunately, I don't have to drop 120 pounds this time, but I still have a lot of weight to shed. Once I set my mind to it, I'm really good at losing weight – I've done it so often! I've been losing the pounds pretty steadily.

How am I dropping weight? There's no magic involved. It's simply a matter of diet and exercise. Even when I'm heavy, I enjoy exercising. I wouldn't say I love my stationary bike as much as I loved running, but it's pleasant enough to break a sweat while watching Netflix or reading a book.

With my exercise routine already in place, I just needed to tighten up my diet. I'm not on an overly strict diet. All I'm doing is keeping track what I eat. I write down each meal and snack in a pocket sized notebook. That's really about it. I don't count calories. I'm not on any particular diet plan. I just write down what I eat, I eat smaller portions, and I make better food choices in general. For example, instead of a sandwich, I'll order a wrap. Instead of taking home a pint of Ben and Jerry's, I'll buy a box of fruit juice popsicles.

In the past, I've become lax when I've reached my goal weight. I figure that I'm skinny and exercising a lot, so I can eat what I want. Wrong! This was wrong in my 20s, and it's certainly wrong as I begin to approach 50 and my metabolism slows.

The reason I had problems maintaining weight in the past was that I didn't have an end game. This time is different. I already know what I'm going to do. When I get to that point, here's the plan for maintaining:

• Continue to exercise
• Continue recording my meals and snacks
• Continue weighing in every 2-3 days
• Gradually begin adding more calories to my diet until I find an equilibrium

If I can follow those simple steps, I think I'll finally be able to quit the Roller Coaster Club.

2014 Goals

In my last blog article, I outlined my goals for the next 10 years. In support of those long range goals, here are my goals for 2014. I have some other, smaller goals, but these are the main ones.

Weigh 195 pounds. I feel like my weight is finally (finally!) under control. I've been maintaining about the same weight since September. This year, I plan to make a final push and get it down to a healthy 195 pounds. My strength is improving, my resting heart rate is nice and low (in the 50s), and I feel good in general. While I am feeling quite healthy, I would like to actually look like I work out. I've been going to the gym regularly to add strength training to my cardio work. I'll continue to do that, and I'll tighten up my diet a bit.

Establish the NWUUC band and children's choir as regularly anticipated parts of Sunday services. This is in support of my goal of eventually building the job from a 15 hour per week position to a 20 hour per week position. The adult choir is a well established, cherished part of the music program. My hours increased this past year from 10 to 15 hours. I'm spending most of the additional hours on building the children's program and the church band. Those two new programs are keeping me busy, but once they are well established, I'll be ready to add more to NWUUC's music by either adding another program or by expanding the band and the children's choir.

Maintain a roster of at least 20 guitar or ukulele students. My long range goal is to have 30 students, but if I added so many students all at once, I wouldn't be able to handle the schedule and still juggle my other responsibilities. I have 13 students now, so I need to add 7 more to meet my goal. I generally add only one student each month, but I have a pretty good retention rate. I'll just keep building my roster slowly.

Add another event planner to my list of regular clients. I finally managed to get my foot in the door with a good event planner. I'm hoping that having one major event planner as a client will make me more attractive to others.

Become more comfortable with unaccompanied guitar improvisation. One of my long range goals is to improvise comfortably in the style of Joe Pass. I've been improving in this area, but I have a long way to go. I've been approaching this skill haphazardly, improvising unaccompanied on random songs. This year, I'm going to focus on a handful of songs and get really comfortable with them. Through my lessons with Dave Frackenpohl, I've learned that I can make good progress on improvisation in general if I focus intensely on one or two songs at a time.

Getting Close

As of this morning, I'm pleased to announce that I've lost 50 pounds and have 16 to go. There's no magic formula for this, no special diet, no pills. It's simply a matter of math and consistency.

The math part is that if you expend more calories than you're consuming, you will lose weight. This is where the MyFitnessPal app has been so useful. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a simple, straightforward way to keep track of their eating habits. You start off by inputting your age, your general activity level, how much you weigh, how much you want to weigh, and how much weight you'd like to lose every week. (It caps off at 2 pounds per week, and you can also set it for weight maintenance or weight gain.) It starts off each new day by letting you know how many calories you can consume. You add your meals and snacks as you go, and it also factors in your exercise. Once I've factored in an hour of cranking away on the stationary bike, it's satisfying to see 700 more calories added to my daily intake!

For me, using MyFitnessPal isn't so much about the exact numbers as it is about monitoring my own eating habits. As long as I'm eating healthy foods and staying in the ballpark, I'm losing weight.

Consistency is king! MyFitnessPal helps a lot with my food consumption, but I also have to make sure that I exercise on a regular basis. I hop on my stationary bike 6 times a week. I usually pedal an hour a day (yay for Netflix), but if I don't have the time, I'll settle for as few as 30 minutes. As long as I'm doing something 6 days a week, I'm making progress. In addition to the cardio, I'm also doing some basic strength training every other day…nothing fancy…crunches, planks, push-ups, curls, and lateral dumbbell raises. My legs get plenty of workout on the bike. I've added strength training partly out of vanity and partly for its extra calorie burning effects. Vanity…When I've melted away my excess fat, I'd like to have a few manly muscles to show for it. Calorie burning…Having extra muscle boosts your metabolism. Your body requires extra calories to maintain muscle mass, and simply carrying around more muscle is a big help in maintaining a healthy body weight.

As I get closer to my target weight, I'm gradually slowing down the weight loss. I've already begun to allow a few more calories each day. When I have about 10 more pounds to go, I'll allow a few more. I'm trying to come in for a soft landing. I've lost significant amounts of weight before, but one mistake I made was that once I hit my target weight, I convinced myself that I could eat whatever I wanted since I was exercising so much. Wrong! This time, I'm gradually increasing my food intake so that, by the time I've reached my goal, I'll already be consuming my calories at a normal, sustainable level. There won't be any sudden switch from weight loss to maintenance mode. That's the plan, anyway. As I've stated before, I want this to be the LAST time I ever have to lose such a significant amount of weight. After this go round, I want to keep it on an even keel.

Halfway Home

As of this morning, I've lost 33 pounds, and I'm halfway to my goal of weighing 200 or less. Using higher math skills, you can probably figure out what I weigh right now.

This has been a relatively painless process. Steady effort has been the key. I've been exercising regularly, but not intensely. I'm not training for a half-marathon or trying to push my limits. I simply hop on the stationary bike every morning and pedal at a moderate rate for 60 minutes. When I'm tempted to start pushing myself by increasing the resistance, I remind myself that I'm going to be doing this again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next. I'm exercising at a level that I can maintain over a long period of time.

The same goes with my diet. No crash diets for me. Using the MyFitnessPal app, I keep track of my eating habits. There are some days when I'm hungry, but it's usually a craving rather than true hunger. Using the app to monitor my caloric intake is helping me learn the difference between wanting food and needing food. Just as with the exercise, my diet is a steady effort, and it's sustainable, because I'm still eating foods that I like.

I've always been good at losing weight in the past, but I've been terrible at maintaining a healthy weight once I've reached my goal. This time, it feels different. This time, once I reach my weight, I'll keep exercising steadily without pushing too hard, and I'll continue to monitor my eating habits with MyFitnessPal. Above all, this has to be the last time I lose this much weight! I have better things to worry about.

The Plan

As most of my friends can tell you, I'm an obsessive maker and checker-offer of lists. I'm using this minor obsession to help stay motivated and on track with my weight loss.

This is my overall plan, in list form, of course.

• I started at 266 pounds. It's not the 324 I weighed a few years ago, but it's not exactly dainty, either. As a matter of fact, this is the exactly what I weighed when I began losing pounds to qualify for the Air Force. My goal is to weigh 190-200 pounds, which is where my weight hovered in my Air Force days.
• The first phase was to simply ride the stationary bike and keep track of my calories with MyFitnessPal…best app ever for monitoring exercise and food intake. The stationary bike and MyFitnessPal will be the two most important parts of this whole process.
• After hitting 240, add crunches. (This is where I am right now. I just hit 239. I began adding crunches yesterday, and I sure can feel it.)
• After hitting 230, add planks. Not only is the plank a good overall exercise, but it will prepare my upper body for the next phase.
• After hitting 220, add pushups and curls. Also, somewhere around the 220 mark, I should be able to wear almost all the shirts in my closet again. Once I've reached this point, I have two giant white shirts and a giant black shirt that I can't wait to get rid of. There will be no going back!
• After hitting 210, add pull-ups. I'll be happy if I can do just one pull-up for starters!
• After hitting 200, slow down the weight loss. I'm currently losing 2-3 pounds a week. At 200 pounds, I'll want to ease up and lose 1 pound a week as I transition from losing weight to maintaining weight. I don't know what my weight will be, but it should eventually settle to somewhere around 195.
• Maintenance. For me, this will be the most challenging part. I will continue to exercise regularly, and I can't get lax with my eating habits. I'll be able to indulge more often than I do now, but it'll be imperative that I continue to monitor my eating habits. That's where I have always slacked off. Fortunately, the MyFitnessPal app has different settings…weight loss, weight gain, and maintenance. I'll just set it up to maintain my weight and continue to monitor myself.

Why do this in phases? Why not start off doing all of these exercises at once? Because I want to build up gradually. If I try to do everything at once, I know from past experience that I'll overdo it, become frustrated, and then stop. If I gradually add these exercises, it won't be such a shock, and it'll feel more like a routine than self torture.

This might seem way too analytical for some, but it works for me. It's helpful to have goals and milestones to keep me going.

Slow and Unsteady

Weight loss at my age can be a challenge. When I was younger, losing weight was pretty easy. Once I put my mind to it, I could count on weighing less every couple days. Now, at the ripe old age of almost 47, my body fights to hold onto every ounce of fat.

Every day, I complete the same workout, and I eat nearly the same foods all the time. With a steady, predictable routine, you'd think that I would enjoy steady, predictable weight loss, but you would be wrong! For example, I had been stuck on the same weight for a week, and then suddenly I dropped 2.5 pounds between yesterday and today. This has been my new norm since getting back on the weight control bandwagon.

It's easy to feel frustrated when the bathroom scale is stuck on the same number for days and days. During these periods, I have to remind myself that this is all a numbers game. As long as I am careful with my diet and relentless with my exercise, I'll get rid of the weight that I want to lose – just not as steadily as I would like!

Eating Out and Losing Weight

About 20 years ago, I won an audition to play trombone in an Air Force band. I was overweight, and so I lost 60 pounds in two months to qualify for Air Force basic training. Yes, I literally lost a pound a day over the course of two months! There were several factors in my favor. First and foremost was a job waiting for me as soon as I met the physical requirements. In addition, I was playing in the Ohio Light Opera. The Ohio Light Opera is a summer lyric theater festival that houses and pays its musicians. After an initially heavy rehearsal schedule, the workload is pretty light. With food and housing taken care of, my only responsibility was to show up for rehearsals and shows. That left a LOT of free time. I walked 8 miles and worked out every morning, practiced the trombone, played shows, and spent a lot of time being hungry. Looking back, I can see that my circumstances were absolutely perfect for someone motivated to lose a lot of weight. It was surreal to step on the scale every morning and watch that number go down every morning.

I also had the benefit of a 26 year old's metabolism.

These days, as I lose weight once again, I don't have any of the benefits I enjoyed that summer with the Ohio Light Opera. My schedule is erratic as I juggle gigs, rehearsals, music engraving, lessons, and a church music job.

The biggest challenge is trying to lose weight while eating out. It's tricky, but it can be done. I eat mostly at home, but I often eat out when gigging, teaching, and working at the church. The key for me is to plan ahead so that I make good choices.

When you play gigs, particularly restaurant gigs, you usually get fed. Since a meal is often part of the payment agreement, you sometimes feel like you want get your money's worth. It's not that different from the mindset most of us have when we pay for a buffet. We want to load up that plate! Instead of searching the menu for a hefty meal, I'll go for a salad and a low calorie appetizer.

There are a couple restaurants that I visit regularly: a local Mexican place across the street from where I teach lessons, and a Blimpie near my church. The Mexican place is fairly inexpensive, and I used to order three tacos, rice, and refried beans. (And then I would leave, feeling like I'd eaten a bowling ball.)  Now, I just order a couple fish tacos. My meals at Blimpie have always been healthy…except for the cookies I always ordered. Now, I skip the cookies.

So far, in spite of a crazy schedule with a lot of eating out, I've managed to lose 19 pounds. My biggest challenge this summer will be the UUMN conference in Dallas. I'll be eating on the road, staying at a hotel for four days, and meeting lots of other musicians and music directors. There will be an enormous temptation to indulge. Just as I do at home, I'll have to plan ahead, seek out restaurants with healthy foods, and be vigilant.

Keeping Track

Ah, the joys of weight control. Despite regular exercise, I've managed to put on some unwanted weight…nothing like the 325 pounds I used to weigh, but enough to make me cringe when I look in the mirror.

I've been pedaling my stationary bike regularly, but I have low impulse control when it comes to food. Exercise is easy. I enjoy it, but I have to work to keep my diet under control. I already know what to eat and what not to eat. I just need to control how much I eat.

I wish I could be one of those people who seems to know when they've had enough. They can have half a plate of food in front of them and still put the fork down because they realize they are full. I'm not one of those people. Like many compulsive overeaters, I look at that plate or a full bag of chips as a challenge. The eating isn't over until the food is gone.

I've started keeping a food diary to curb my tendency to overindulge. (This isn't a brilliant new idea by any means.) I don't write down every single calorie. I just write down what I eat and when I eat it. The end of the day is when I feel the strongest temptation. When I look at the list of foods I've eaten during the day, it helps me realize that I'm not starving, and that a small dinner is all I need.

Interestingly enough, the one day I forgot to keep track last week was the day I overate. Go figure.

As difficult as it can be for someone who has been overweight almost all of his adult life, I'm trying not to beat myself up over this. I just write down my meals and keep track without judging myself.

If you are like me and have already educated yourself about what to eat, but you have trouble controlling how much you eat, you might try keeping a food diary to help yourself keep track.

To Run or Not to Run

Around this time last year, I ran my first half marathon. About a month after the race, I developed an overuse knee injury. It was a classic case of too much, too soon. I had to stop running for a while. I walked for a couple months, tried running again, found that my knee still hurt, and then had to stop walking, too. I stopped exercising and starting bingeing again. By the time the holidays were over, I had gained 58 pounds. I've currently lost 33 of those 58 pounds, and I'm well on my way to reaching a healthy weight again. I've been pedaling a stationary bike, and lately I've been walking 2-3 times per week.

The main thing that triggered my weight gain (or my main excuse, at least) was being unable to run. I had become obsessed with running, and no other exercise would do. When I had to stop, it felt like the bottom dropped out. Rather than turn to another exercise, something flipped in my brain. Throughout most of my life, I've turned to food when stressed or depressed, and that's exactly what I did after I injured myself.

I still plan to run again, but I'm going to wait until I've reached my target weight before giving it another shot. This will allow extra time for my knee to recover, and running at a healthy weight will reduce stress on my joints. Rather than run 4-5 times a week like before, I plan on running 3 times a week, cycling 3 times a week, and resting one day. When I run, I'll mix walking and running.

There's a social website called Daily Mile, which was created for fitness buffs. It provides useful tools for keeping track of your workouts, and just like other social websites, you can find friends for mutual support. Unlike most of my Facebook friends, my friends on Daily Mile are actually interested in my workouts.

I'm a little disturbed by the number of runners on Daily Mile who are pushing through injuries. I see myself in them…amateur runners who are doing too much, too soon. While I understand their desire to run, I wish some of them would take it easy, build their distance more gradually, avoid obsessing about their pace, and cross train. I want to stress that there's nothing wrong with running, but if you overdo it, you're going to pay the price. I still have aspirations to run a marathon one day, and possibly even an ultramarathon. I'm one of those oddballs who loves propelling himself for long distances, but I have finally accepted the fact that this is something that I have to build up gradually.

If, despite all my precautions, I continue to have difficulty with my knee, then I'm prepared to discontinue running. I'll bike, walk, and work out with weights. Although I truly love running, my main goal is to be as healthy as I can be. If that means never running another step, I'll be okay with that…as long as I can fit into my skinny jeans!

Steady On

So far, my weight "re-loss" is going well. I'm losing pounds steadily, and I'm on track to meet my weight goal in June. That won't be the end of the process. As I've discovered the hard way, maintaining weight can be more challenging than losing it in the first place. I'll deal with that issue when the time comes.

For the most part, my weight loss this time around has been very steady. Except for the first week, when I lost 9 pounds of mostly water, I've been losing a steady 3 pounds a week.

Last week, despite a careful diet and plenty of exercise, my body stubbornly held on to the same weight for 5 days. Even though logic dictated that I was doing everything right, I was still frustrated. For a while, I considered cutting back on food, but that would have been a mistake. I'm already very careful about both the quantity and quality of my food, and I'm certain that eating any less could begin to pose a health risk.

Instead of freaking out about the situation, I simply continued doing what I've been doing all along: pedaling my stationary bike, walking, and eating healthy foods. On the sixth day, I suddenly dropped three pounds, which was a relief. There's no way I dropped three pounds of fat in a day. My guess is that I ate too much sodium earlier in the week and was retaining water. Whatever the cause was, I'm once again dropping pounds at a steadier pace.

If you are fighting your own battle of the bulge, there will be times when you doubt yourself or your routine. Sometimes the weight will seem to melt off. Other times, it'll feel like you're fighting for every ounce. When this happens, it's tempting to start changing things – eating too little or exercising too much. Remember, you've been successfully losing weight with whatever plan you're following. Just because the scale doesn't budge for a few days doesn't mean that you're suddenly off track. You may be retaining water. You may have gained some muscle. If you keep doing what you've been doing, chances are that you'll soon be back to your "losing weighs."

I'm glad I didn't change anything based on a few unsatisfying weigh-ins. I just kept reminding myself that this is a numbers game. If I burn more calories than I consume, the weight comes off. I stuck with my routine, kept eating the same foods, and eventually began shedding pounds again. So for now, it's steady on, and I'll continue to keep my head the next time there's a bump in the road.

The Saga Continues

Around this time last year, I was nearing my weight loss goal. I was running and following a strict but sensible diet. Around March of last year, I finally met my goal and weighed under 200 pounds. Not longer after that, I developed an overuse injury from running.

Over the past several months, I've gained a lot weight again. It happened in increments.

Long distance running is a big calorie burner, and I was able to eat quite a bit and still lose weight. Once I stopped running, I began to lose my focus, but not my appetite. Despite walking and pedaling quite a bit, I gained some weight. Late last summer, I was hired as the music director at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation. It suddenly seemed like I didn't have time to exercise. The job was only a 10 hour per week commitment, but that's almost the exact amount of time I had been spending exercising. In what was an already busy schedule, my exercise time was directly replaced with the music director job.

Over Thanksgiving, I decided to straighten out my priorities, start exercising again, and tighten up my diet. After some false starts, I began hitting my stride around Christmas time. I didn't have the nerve to step on the scale until last Sunday. I thought that I had maybe gained 30 pounds, so I was bracing myself for somewhere around 230. Imagine my shock when the scale read 258. Shit!

That was the jolt I needed. You can fool yourself into thinking you don't look too bad, but there's no fooling the scale. It will never lie.

I'm motivated first and foremost by the bathroom scale. Also, several people have told me that I helped motivate them to lose weight, and I don't want to disappoint them. Finally, I bought a lot of new clothes when I hit 200 pounds, and I refuse to spend money on a "big boy" wardrobe when that money could be better spent on guitars and gear!

So, the weight loss saga continues. I'm down 9 pounds since my last weigh-in and back on track.

New Year, New Goals

At the end of each year, I like to sit down and make a list of goals for the new year. I have a list of overall goals that I'd like to meet by 2016, which will mark my 10th year of playing guitar. Each of those goals is broken up into smaller yearly goals.

I didn't do as well at meeting my goals in 2011 as I would have liked. Circumstances changed that made it nearly impossible to meet a long list of goals that was already challenging. Fortunately, these were positive developments. One was becoming the regular guitarist for Act3 Productions, and the other was becoming Director of Music at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

Some of the goals I did not meet included recruiting 20 guitar students, memorizing 50 vocals, recording several backing tracks, and arranging several guitar solos. I found that I simply didn't have the time or energy to meet those goals. The music director job is only a quarter time position, but when I added it to an already busy schedule, my time was stretched pretty thin. It looks like I'll be playing 3-4 musicals a year for Act3 Productions. At my current skill level, it takes a while to learn an entire guitar book for these musicals. In the couple months before a musical, I'll often spend 2-3 hours a day learning my part, so I don't have those 2-3 hours to spend arranging or recording. On the other hand, my guitar playing continues to improve, partially as a result of learning those musicals. I'm finding that it's gradually taking less and less time to prepare for musicals, which gradually allows for more and more time to focus on my own repertoire.

As far as guitar students, I enjoy teaching, but my schedule is filled with music engraving, the church job, practicing, and gigging. If I hadn't landed the church job, I would almost certainly have my 20 students, but I'm not advertising as a teacher these days. If a student approaches me about lessons, I'll teach, but for now, I'm not actively recruiting. If the church job went away, or if music engraving suddenly dried up, I would start looking for students again.

On the plus side, I met my weight goal, I've improved at solo improv without accompaniment, I've written a few arrangements (just not as many as planned), and I've finally become comfortable standing and playing guitar. In fact, now I prefer standing over sitting, unless it's a background music gig.

I'm not making excuses for not meeting some goals. It's just that life happens, things change, and you have to adapt.

In past years, my goals have been centered around guitar or fitness. I'm really enjoying the music director job at NWUUC, which factors into my 2012 goals. Here's my list of goals for 2012:

1. Improve my fingerstyle playing. I started out mainly as a fingerstyle player. Lately, I've been playing mostly with a pick, but I've been watching a lot of Tommy Emmanuel and Martin Taylor videos, and I'd like to get start getting more creative with my fingerstyle playing.
2. Weigh 185 pounds. I've gained weight over the holidays, and I'm not very happy with that. I've been good about exercising, but it's time to get my diet back on track. At least I don't have to lose over 100 pounds this time.
3. Attend a choral conducting workshop. I feel that I'm doing well as a choir director, but my formal training was almost exclusively for band and orchestra. I've spent the first few months of the job getting my bearings, but to be a better music director, I feel it's important to start participating in workshops and clinics.
4. Start piano lessons. Last year, when I almost won a job at another church, I considered taking piano lessons. When I didn't get the job, I dropped the idea. Now that I do have a music director job, I would like to start developing some piano skills.
5. Find one more steady music engraving client. A few years ago, I dropped a few clients so I would have more time to focus on guitar. Unfortunately, I went overboard. One more steady client won't affect my overall schedule that much, and I'll be in a better financial position. As a guitarist, I'm still a little fish in a very big sea. As a music engraver, I'm a shark! In my ideal world, I would spend all my time practicing and gigging while money rains down from the sky. For now, most of my money will still be coming in from music engraving, and I'm fine with that.

Balancing Act

Last month I blogged about relapsing back to my old dietary ways, snuggling up at night with some chips and my two best friends, Ben and Jerry. After some recent struggle, I feel like I'm getting my weight under control again.

These last couple months have been about regaining balance. This past summer, I was exercising a lot, and I mean a lot! Pedaling the stationary bike for up to two hours some days, and walking 10-12 miles, I had it in my head that I would try ultra-marathoning at some point. (Frankly, this still sounds like a cool idea.) The problem was that when I took a church music director job, I didn't have time for this amount of exercise when you also factor in music engraving, practicing, and hustling up gigs.

Suddenly, I felt like I didn't have time to exercise at all. The music director job is only a 10 hour per week commitment, but that's about how much time I was exercising each week. In many respects, I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. Sometimes that plays to my advantage, but this time it got me in trouble. I just stopped exercising, thinking somewhere in my all or nothing brain that if I couldn't exercise for hours at a time, I couldn't exercise at all.

This was wrong, of course, and I've finally found my balance. I may not have time to plop on the stationary bike and pedal for two hours, but I have 30-40 minutes. If I have time to mess around on Facebook or write a blog, I have time to exercise. I can't eat as much as I did when I was working out 90-120 minutes at a time, which is a crying shame, so I've had to regain my balance there, too. It was hard to give up the Ben and Jerry's (again!), but I feel a lot better now that all the sugar is out of my system.

At this point, my newest "skinny clothes" are too tight, but give me a couple months and I'll be wearing them in style again!

Relapse

I haven't written about fitness and exercise for a while. Since my leg has been bothering me, I haven't been able to run. Instead, I've been riding the stationary bike while watching NetFlix. While every run offered potential adventure, there's really not much to say about pedaling in place and watching episodes of Lost.

While I like to write when good things happen on the fitness front, it's not always rosy. I'm a compulsive overeater, and I've relapsed the last few weeks. When I was running 5-10 miles at a time, I could eat a little extra and still maintain weight. Not so with the stationary bike. When I went for a test walk a couple weeks ago, only to discover that both my left hip and knee (especially the knee) hurt too much to run, I became depressed. Depression is a major trigger for my compulsion to overeat. We all have our issues. Some of you who read this may wonder how someone could have issues over food. Why can't I just push the plate away? I don't know why I have food issues, and I don't feel like spending a lot of money on a therapist to find out. Some people drown themselves in alcohol. I've got Ben and Jerry to keep me company.

Mood swings of any kind, not just depression, are a trigger for me to grab a bag of chips. When I landed the new music director job, I gave in to my first impulse, which was to treat myself to some extra food. There's nothing wrong with celebrating, but that, plus the overeating from the earlier depression, snowballed into some major caloric intake!

The worst thing about constant overeating is the cycle of self pity. I start to feel worse overall, which unfortunately makes me crave food even more. My sleep is disrupted, I'm tired all the time, and I don't feel like exercising, which makes me gain weight more quickly.

Today I put a stop to all that. I hopped back on the stationary bike, and I feel better already. I've lost well over 100 pounds, and I truly don't want to gain all that weight back. I've gained weight over the past few weeks. I can still fit into my new clothes, but let's just say my pants are a little too snug to be comfortable. It's time for the pity party to end. I won't be running for a long time, so it's time to deal with that and make a daily appointment with my stationary bike. I know exactly which foods to eat to get back down to a healthier weight, and it's time to put that knowledge back in practice.

If you've lost weight recently, or if you're still losing it, please don't let this discourage you. Just take it as a word of advice from someone who's lost 100+ pounds but is still fighting the fight. Once you take the weight off, congratulations are in order, but be on your guard. The next challenge is finding an equilibrium. If you can figure out how to do that, then please tell me your secret!

Test Run

For nearly three months, I've been out of action with an overuse injury. While I've remained active by working on a stationary bike, I've really missed running. I took a test run this morning. I didn't set any speed records, and I probably won't make the 2012 Olympic team. I ran 1.3 miles in 19 minutes. I didn't run the entire way. I alternated running and walking at 1 minute intervals. Overall, my leg didn't feel too bad. I began to feel a little twinge in my knee toward the end, which worries me a little. Still, to travel over a mile is a big improvement over not being able to last even a quarter mile.

Plan A assumes I am able to continue running. The plan is to go out three times a week and run one mile. I'll continue to workout long and hard on the stationary bike to keep up my fitness. If my leg feels okay, I'll VERY gradually add distance – probably a half mile at a time. I'll also use the run/walk approach. The macho side of me wants to gut it out and run the entire time. The practical side of me knows that a run/walk approach will allow me to travel longer distances, and it'll also allow me to continuing running longer as I get older. Also, I have it in my head that I would like to run an ultramarathon one day. Even the top ultra runners use a run/walk approach, so I may as well get used to it now.

If I'm unable to continue running, I'll reluctantly move to Plan B, where I'll stop running for a year, continue my long stationary bike workouts, and step up my strength training. Back in the day, I was very much into weight training and even had some manly muscles to show for it. I enjoy weight training, but I've been training lightly these days. If I'm unable to run, I'll very likely start hitting the weights a little harder. I have no plans to throw around a lot of weight like I did before. Instead, I would use light to medium weights and do a lot of circuit training.

So I have a plan, and I have a backup plan. If I have to, I'll switch to Plan B, but I love running, so I'm hoping I can stick with Plan A.