Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Getting An Aspartame High?

Yesterday, Monday, May 1st, 2006, was more than just the national Day Without Immigrants. It happened to be the day that my waste measurement, taken in the morning, equaled exactly 1000 millimeters. Yep…that would be a waist measurement of exactly one meter or 39.37 inches.

I have always considered one of my personal measures for basic fitness to be, that my waist measurement should be less than, or equal to, my inseam measurement, which is 36 inches. I’ve never had to work too hard at maintaining that standard and on the rare occasions when I’ve drifted above it, I’ve had to do very little to get back under the mark.

Well, I’ve officially had enough. I was successful in the month of January in using the South Beach diet to drop fifteen pounds, but they’ve all come back. The pressures of a mayor’s race, with the accompanying diet of pizza and donuts, undermined the effort, so that I now find myself worse than when I started.

It wasn’t always like this. Before getting into office three years ago, I looked and felt six years younger. I weighed, to my recollection, about 185 pounds. Yesterday, I tipped the scales at a whopping 218.5! It’s not just the more than 30 pounds I put on that is of so much concern. Having lost the free time I used to have to go to the gym with regularity, I have lost at least fifteen pounds of muscle. Do the math. That means I’ve put on, since becoming a city councilor, nearly 50 pounds of fat.



Enough!

I recently saw a news magazine…I think it was 20/20…that showed the best way to diet is to make a very public declaration of your intention to lose. As such, I am declaring today that by this time next year…April 30th, 2007 to be exact…it is my intention to either lose thirty pounds in total weight (188.5 pounds) or to reduce my waist measurement from its current 39.37 inches, to 33.5 inches.

I am allowing myself the wiggle room with the waistline, because I recognize one of the traps to diet and exercise to be concentrating solely on pounds, and not recognizing that exercise adds healthy muscle. Being officially middle-aged, I know it will be tough to add back the fifteen pounds of muscle, but I’m hopeful.

For those of you who are my frequent critics, please consider this an open invitation, should I fail to achieve this goal, to view this as a determinant of my character. If I fail, flail away.

So there you have it. Check back periodically and see how I’m doing, and wish me Godspeed and lot’s of sugar-free treats.

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