24.82

Friday I got on the scale when I woke up, as I normally do. I was half-asleep, but my eyes popped open when it read 178.0 lbs. I re-zeroed the scale and tried again, and got the same reading. I went out to the local gym and tried their scale. Same reading. I re-zeroed their scale…

178.0 lbs.

It seems like an odd number to get so fixated on, but it’s pretty significant to me. What that number means is that my BMI is 24.82, which is in the “normal” range. I haven’t been classified as anything but overweight or obese since around 1998. That’s about 15 years for those of you keeping score at home. 15 years of lugging around a lot of excess weight that was slowly killing me.

After peaking at around 240lbs and a BMI of 33.5, I started riding a bike and dropped to 200lbs (BMI 27.9). I went from obese to overweight just by riding around. Then I started racing, and over the next few years my weight hovered around 185-190lbs, depending on the season. Still overweight, but I was feeling pretty good. My power levels were rising, and I was doing well enough in races that didn’t have any significant climbs.

Then I struggled through a hilly Tour of Anchorage, and I knew it was time to make a change. It just took me a while to get started, because I was too busy gaining weight during the holidays. On January 1^st, I started tracking calories and slowly modifying my diet to start stripping away what I could. My pie-in-the-sky goal was to get down to 175lbs by April 20^th, which is the first race of the season. I might have to adjust that goal a little. I never paid much attention to what or how much I was eating, which was the main reason I never lost the extra weight. As I adjusted to a lower caloric intake, my body started craving things that would sustain it at the new levels. I still don’t eat the best diet, but I have limited a lot of the things that made me fat in the first place. Moderation in all things, with the possible exception of bacon.

My approach has been pretty much a calories-in/calories-out thing, without getting too deep into the science of diets. I don’t pay much attention to the glycemic index of what I shove down my throat, because I think it takes all of the joy out of eating. I’m certainly not at the point where I see food purely as fuel, although I probably would see a quantum leap in performance if I took that approach. I’ve got to face facts and do the math- I’m not getting paid to ride my bike, and I likes me some food. Just dropping and keeping off the weight should provide a boost that I can ride for a couple years before I start wanting more.

When I reach my initial goal, I might go to the University of Alaska’s Human Performance Lab and get my body composition tested, just to get a more accurate estimate of my body composition and what my daily caloric needs are. At the very least, getting scanned in their “BOD POD” should be an interesting experience. Hopefully I won’t turn into an insect (or even worse, Jeff Goldblum) afterwards.

Where will this all end up? I have no idea. With my current mindset of a fat person, I can see how easy it would be to regain all of the weight. I don’t know how far I’ll go before I decide to stop losing and start maintaining (or regaining). I know from long experience that this sort of progress is unsustainable, so I’m taking it day by day. Hopefully I find a happy medium between my fantasies of being the next Fabian Cancellara and the realities of being middle-aged pack fodder.