A Liteness of Being

I sat up yesterday with a shock. Since the end of November last year I have ramped up my efforts to lose my belly fat and to drop 14 kg permanently. Having read Peter Fitzsimons “The Great Aussie Bloke Slim Down” and taken the message on board, I have removed 99% of processed sugars from my diet and eat little, if any fruit. I have also hit the exercise hard and now row, cycle, climb, lift weights and do yoga & Pilates on a regular basis. The kilo’s have been almost shed (I’m down 6 kg) and a distinctly positive outcome has been the reappearance of muscles I haven’t seen in decades.

I also feel incredibly lite. I have energy in ways I haven’t had in decades. When I was obese I was continuously tired. Now I can cycle for 30 km, climb for 3 hours and then still have the energy to cook dinner and help care for my kids. This morning I woke with the understanding of why I have so much energy and such a deep sense of liteness. The reason is simple: Being obese is identical to being in a workout that never ends. Ten years ago when I was 25 kg heavier I was carrying around the biggest weight I have in my gym. Even earlier than that when I was 140 kg…almost 50% heavier than I am now, and the weight my wife was when we met…every time I moved, I was moving the equivalent of my current weight and that of another person. You don’t have to be a physicist to see that every time I moved, every time I took a crap, walked up stairs, and even got my abundant arse in and out of a chair, my cardiovascular system was working at full throttle.

In losing the weight I have, I have freed up the energy I was previously using just to exist. The strain on my cardiovascular system has gone from being a constant to being a variable. I can raise and lower the amount of energy I use to get through the day. The strain on my joints is down as well.

With the free energy I now have, there is the ability to create a feedback loop: the more I eat properly and exercise and more body fat I lose, the more energy I have to eat properly and to exercise and lose body fat. Success breeds success. The more weight I lose, the more weight I want to lose and because I know that permanent weight loss isn’t a myth, I have the confidence to pursue the number goal that I want to.

 

Seeing in the mirror the results of eating properly and caring for my body by exercising regularly empowers me to choose this as the preferred expression of who I am as a person. Which brings us to a common theme: eating properly, exercising regularly and achieving healthy weights and percentages of body fat is an expression of our love for ourselves and those we hold dear. Love really is capable of changing everything…including the lies you think your bathroom scales are telling you.