Sunday, October 31, 2010

Getting there

It’s been almost 9 months that I’ve been out here now, and it’s the time for the doldrums of the deployment. One of the things that I’ve been doing to make the time go by is trying better myself. When I came out here to Afghanistan, I was the most out of shape I had been in my entire life. I hadn’t worked out in a while, had put weight on, and my body was in a general state of malaise. I don’t think I realized how bad it had gotten until I stepped on the scale after two weeks out here. 260 lbs…WOW. I went and had a body fat measurement to check and came in 5% over my allowable percentage. Gross. I was disgusted. (Still am, honestly. How could I let myself do that to myself?!?) Just to give you an idea of what that means to me, my high school weight was 185 lbs. In peak shape during swimming I had gotten down to 165 lbs. With age and a slowing down of my metabolism, I should be at around 200-210 lbs. I had come into the military at 235 lbs at 21 years old, which was too much. Over the course of the first 2 years in the military, I got it down to 191, and had been back and forth since then. Up to 225, down to 205, up to 220, down to 210…etc. I’ve always had to watch my weight, as I’ve been blessed with genetically enhanced love handles. It’s something I had become accustomed to dealing with. But it had gotten out of hand.

As many of you know, the military has physical fitness standards. On top of that, the military also has body fat percentage standards. What a lot of people do not know is that those aren’t there to make sure you stay in shape, but to make sure you look “right” in the uniform. They don’t care that you’re “fat”, as long as you don’t LOOK fat. Vanity is one of the benchmarks of military tradition. I don’t care if it’s broken; make it look like it’s not. Now, for body fat %, they don’t use a very accurate measuring system; just using a waist and neck measurement for males, use a formula and viola, you have your percentage. I used to complain about it, saying it wasn’t fair. But, over the years, I’ve realized the standard hasn’t changed. If they changed it, THEN it would be unfair.

One of the goals that I set for myself coming out here was to get back on track and get back in shape. There would be certain benchmarks that I would hit along the way. Well, today I hit one of those benchmarks I’ve set for myself. Just a small one, but any little bit counts. Now, I said up above that I weighed in at 260lbs two weeks after arriving. That was in just a t-shirt, shorts and socks. When you weigh in with your uniform and boots on, it adds about 6-9lbs on average, depending on what’s in your pockets and which boots you have on. Well, today I weighed in, in my uniform, and was pleasantly surprised to see the scale show 218lbs. If my uniform was 8 lbs, that would be a total weight loss over 9 months, (8 ½ to be exact), of 50 lbs! I had a body fat measurement last week and had lost 11% body fat from when I last had a measurement. I’m very pleased right now to know that the work that I’ve done out here for myself is paying off. It’s noticeable too. The uniform is starting to fall off of me. And I can see the difference in the mirror. I’m still not to my ultimate goal however. I would still like to lose another 20-25 lbs over the next 3 months to get back down to where I should be. I’m stepping up my work out routine to 2x’s a day, working out about 2-3 hours a day, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on what I’m doing. Now that I’ve lost this weight, now is time to start the body shaping process and try and work on those problem areas that have always been an issue for me. The fact that, at 33, my metabolism has slowed to a crawl means that I have to work that much harder during workouts, and be that much more disciplined in my dieting. But I’m confident that I’ll get to where I would like.

For those of you who are having problems, like me, with a decreased metabolic rate there is a very important part of your diet that you might be overlooking. That’s fiber. I’ve changed from a high protein diet to high fiber. That includes keeping breakfast, (when I eat it), to oatmeal with raisins and a sprinkle of brown sugar, fruit (mainly apples and grapefruit), and a fiber supplement. (My parents are going to give me so much stick for this it’s not even funny, they’ve been harping on this for years). I eat very little carbohydrates or candy, and have cut out soda and carbonated drinks almost entirely out of my diet. I’m drinking more hot tea, (both green and black), and stay away from sweets, (for the most part). My dinner is when I’ll have 90% of my protein for the day, and if I intake any carbohydrates, this is when I do so.

The next goal is going to be weigh-in under 210lbs (in uniform). From there, it’s 5lb increments until I get to my goal. Looking forward to getting back home and being forced to buy some new clothes cause the others are falling off…it’s a price I’ll gladly pay. The big benchmark is going to be when I can finally say I’m back under 200lbs. I’m close and can’t wait…

The first issue of PoolSynergy’s 2nd year will be released on the 15th. It’s a great topic too, so make sure you look out for it! As far as the rest of the trip out here for me, it’s coming up on 100 days left…hmm. That sounds like a great blog topic…100 days of agony…updated weekly. Yeah…sounds like a plan!

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