Numbers, numbers, numbers—a subject I generally loathe…

But these numbers have particular significance for me at the moment: The first set is how long I have until my half-century birthday;

The second number is how much I weighed when I stepped on the scale this morning!

Read on if you care to share my thoughts and excitement…

So, half a century. I’m not exactly excited about that fact, but I’m not fearful of it either. As I’m fond of saying, “Getting older is not for the faint of heart, but it’s certainly better than the alternative.”

It’s just a number. A largeish, significant number maybe, but still just a number. The way I feel is what counts, and I actually feel better than I have in  some time both physically and mentally. Life ain’t exactly perfect, but it could definitely be worse. And I’m particularly keen right now to continue to make it better. My one month “at liberty” is already more than half over and—as usual—I haven’t been as productive as I’d projected, but it has been great in other ways. I’m going to continue my efforts to sell things off to prepare for big changes, though I will have to find another full-time job to start up the first week of April. If I could only win the lottery…

But let’s talk about my weigh in, shall we? That’s far more exciting to me since it means I’m slowly getting back in shape and starting to feel good again. The last time I weighed less than 180  pounds, I blogged about it here—on September 6, 2008! This is hugely significant because I’m now back to where I was more than 4 1/2 years ago. And it was just last month, February 9, that I proudly announced I’d dipped below the 190 mark for the first time in years. I’m now all hyped-up to play the “how-low-can-I-go” game—definitely working on the 160 goal I’d set, but now actually thinking about shooting for my real secret goal of 150.

How did this happen? Well, I believe I mentioned in a previous post that in mid-January I set two simple rules: 1) always get my Fitbit-tracked 10,000 steps per day logged, and 2) stop eating complex carbs (i.e. bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, etc.) after lunch. I’ve done that every single day but one since January 20th. It’s pretty amazing that such simple things seem to have really done the trick.

Of course, it’s probably not just those two things. I’ve found myself walking even more than that, always trying to get in at least one walk of over 10-miles in each week (sometimes two or even three). 10k steps for me is just under 5 miles, but I’ve been consistently logging 5-7 per day. The eating thing has been getting better too, since I’m not eating out as much and have just one easy thing to remember in the “no carbs after lunch” mantra; I’ve been uncharacteristically filling myself up with fruits and veggies rather than bread or pasta. I also found an old, unopened bottle of Hydroxycut in my cabinet, so I started taking them and they’ve either helped with the weight loss as advertised, or at least contributed a placebo effect. And yes, there was also even the subconscious effect of me rediscovering my passion for High School wrestling.

But I know I’m going to have to step things up a bit more. For a variety of reasons, I still haven’t brought myself to actually start doing any other exercise, sports or working out yet. This will need to change and I’ve finally got to reach that tipping point somehow. I still want to learn how to swim properly for fitness purposes and want to start up with tennis again. Somehow I’ve got to find something akin to what spurred my last fitness binge—sprint triathlons—in order to make that happen. I doubt the same thing will work (remember the two knee surgeries and my bicycle being stolen?) so I’d appreciate any ideas!

Now, onward. Thanks for reading, thanks for the encouragement and thanks in advance for the suggestions. Next weigh-in blog post will be when I’m below 170, which—if I can keep up this pace—should arrive sometime in early- to mid-May. Maybe by then I’ll also have other interesting things to report! 🙂