Day 50... High five!!!

I weighed myself this morning and hastily wrote the new figure on my hand. Although my gains are huge (3.6 pounds in one week) I have been so conditioned to believe that such a figure is minuscule, and that I should be able to do a two hour work out and 45 minutes in the sauna and lose at least 5 pounds. I've been conditioned to think that way for many many years, starting from when I wrestled in high school, and losing 5 pounds of water weight was the norm. I was over weight then too, and I perspired more in comparison to others. On our daily weight chart we would weigh in before practice, weigh in after practice, and then write down the difference. I've always maintained the problem of being overweight and could not seem to get to where I ever wrestled anything under the unlimited weight class. Back then in high school anyone who weighed over 185 pounds wrestled at the 'unlimited' weight class. As a junior I had to eat and drink like I was at a thanksgiving dinner before our match, while most of my team mates had to wear rubber suits and do serious calisthenics in a hot shower to get down to wrestle at their competitive weight. I've even known guys who would suck on a sour candy or gum and 'spit' in a cup to lose the few extra ounces they needed to get down to their weight. I had the opposite problem then. I had to eat to make weight, so unfortunately I never had the blessing of working my way down to a more normal, athletic self. I was an eating machine back then.

In my senior year at high school I began to show signs of obesity and my coach fought back and made me lose some of that weight, but I no longer had the problem of not being heavy enough to wrestle. Now I was just another fat guy in the Unlimited category. Now my coach was making me do serious calisthenics. But it wasn't working out. Now the disease of obesity had taken a foothold in my life. Now the disaster had begun.

I always expected to lose 5 pounds during a practice, and often, if the exercise was more rigorous, I would lose seven pounds. So for me it is instinctual to be unimpressed by a difference of only 3.6 pounds in one week. In medicine, however, 2 pounds of weight loss per week is very impressive, and 3.6 pounds is pushing the limits. I should be very proud that I did it without starving or depriving myself of water. But I can't seem to get excited about it. In my mind, and in my body, I still feel impossibly fat and I'm limited as to what my physical activities and personal abilities might be. But the reality is that I have lost a lot of weight, and I am showing an impressive amount of improvement in my gym classes at the health club. I'm especially showing improvement in Taebo kickboxing. I'm kicking higher and harder than ever before and I'm keeping up with the rest of the class and getting lots of compliments. Unfortunately, it's not the same as our wrestling tradition at our high school. Our coach had the reputation for making championship teams, and it was often said that our two hours of training was a lot harder than what they do at Parris Island Marine Corps training. We didn't take any water breaks either, because the coach stipulated that wrestlers don't stop for water during a match, and that mental toughness must be nurtured by putting off water breaks until after practice.

It was not unheard of for me to lose seven pounds of sweat after a two hour practice, and a five pound loss was the norm. Practice was light if I lost weight at the three pound range. Today I shed about 2 pounds of water weight during a Kickboxing class. Wrestling did make me tough, but it warped my thinking. That's part of the reason why diets and exercise failed for me over all these years. The disease of obesity had set in at an early age for me, and that problem was exacerbated by an unrealistic view or belief in what exercise, diet and weight loss should be.

In my mind, I am looking for the scale to drop in increments of five pounds or more each day. I should be both happy and concerned when I lose that much weight in a week.

I shouldn't get ahead of myself.