How I Ran a 5k: Extreme Weight-loss Edition

At the beginning of this year I decided to sign up for a weight-loss challenge at work. The prizes were kind of crappy, especially since I think the winner the year before got a TV or something, but that wasn't the point. I knew that it was a good chance to force me to eat a little healthier and stick with working out.

I figured I could be successful because I had previously lost large amounts of weight before in the past. After my freshman year of college, I weighed in somewhere over 230 pounds. I don't think it was the "freshman 15," because I probably weighed close to that after high school even though I never weighed myself. During that summer, I started playing Dance Dance Revolution every day for about 45 minutes. I didn't make huge changes to my diet, with the possible exception that that was the time I decided that eating a full frozen pizza for one meal was not a good idea.

Anyway, by doing an exercise that I found fun, I lost about 30 pounds and for the first time in years, the weight on my driver's license was accurate. Through the rest of college I regained a few pounds, but was lighter than my freshman self. After that, I really put on the weight again. Towards the end of my first year of law school, I had ballooned to 240 pounds. Partially because I was getting married soon in the summer after my first year of law school and partially because I started having acid reflux problems around that time, I again resolved to lose some weight. Fortunately, because of the mentioned acid reflux problem, junk food was making me feel like crap if I ate too much, I had an easier time eating somewhat healthier. I also started lifting weights and playing DDR again.

Oh yeah, let me get back to talking about the weight-loss challenge at the beginning of this year. My weight has ballooned back and forth the last couple years, and most of last year it stayed pretty stable at about 215 pounds. I decided it was time to try to get back to 200 and try to lose even more weight than that, since even at my best 200 pounds seemed to be my plateau.

Of course, it wasn't just about the weight. It was also about shutting up a nagging little voice. No not some voice in my head (I'm not that crazy). I'm talking about the Balance Board mascot thing in Wii Fit. I would use Wii Fit as my scale and everyday, even after it congratulated me for losing weight, it would smugly say, "That's overweight". That's because my Body Mass Index was still somewhere around 26, putting me in the overweight category. To get to the "normal" category, I would have to get below 190 pounds, something Iassumed was impossible. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

On April 12, 2011, I achieved my goal of being "normal".

Of course, I just realized I didn't tell you how this happened, although I'm sure you can figure out that training to run a 5k had something to do with it.

I guess I'll just have to go into that next time, since this post went longer than I expected, and didn't really say anything.