Numbers
A few brief thoughts on weight.
I have never been especially good at losing weight. And I don’t mean for lack of trying as even when I was training for a half marathon, I wasn’t losing weight.
At my lightest, I was 175ish. That was in 2006 after I had graduated. I stopped eating terribly (oh, Beloit College buffet lines) and became regularly active for the first time. I was mostly eating raw, low carb, calorie restricted food and I dropped 70 pounds.
I don’t think I was especially healthy. The few pictures I have from back then, I looked deflated. I didn’t have much muscle and still had weight around my midsection. I was certainly healthi_er_ but not great.
Subsequent to that, I added periodic weight training and more intense cardio to my routines. I’ve pretty consistently gained weight from then. I’m currently at 210, which is only 20 shy of my weight at graduation. I’m tying not to be worried about it but I still am, even with my last round of blood tests coming back with everything on the good ends of normal ranges.
Still. I’m getting older. I haven’t been able to maintain a strict low carb diet for a while and blah blah.
This wasn’t intended to be a spiral into self loathing. Rather, I’ve made a few choices based on the following: - I’m suddenly ableo maintain faster base running speeds without any serious running in the last year. - a feel really good when I combine weight training and cardio. - I gain muscle fast, like in the last month I’ve added about 50lbs if weight to most stacks - I feel better in general now than the last 6 months.
So: my goals are general health and mental well being.
If weight training and some regular running gives me both regular gains in both strength and speed and increases my overall level of happiness, I should keep doing it despite my weight.
I suspect that if I keep it up and keep low on the carbs, I’ll probably see a reduction in body composition - ostensibly my scale tracks it pretty well and it’s been on the decline.
In essence: do more of what makes you happy. And: lay off the gluten free nuggets.