Calories In, Calories Out

I often tell the story of how quickly my weight of 205 pounds dropped once I started running more than four years ago.  

It was impressive I have to admit.  During the story I'll often gloat over how the pounds "just flew off" once I put my body into motion every day.  I forget to add the rest of the story.  And not that I mean to neglect the whole truth or to be willfully evasive, but I have subconsciously suppressed the pain and the bent-over-at-the-waist, red-faced gasping-for-air torture I put myself through to gain my fitness and lose all those pounds.  Runners pain is like that a woman experiences during childbirth, the mind somehow blocks it out so that she can do it all again later.  

But I did go through all those stages that a lump of goo must ascend on the road to fitness and health.  In addition to the trauma out on the road and track, I also spent my evenings shuffling, hunched over like an old man and embracing all the pains and debilitations as my body became that of a runner.  

There were countless nights, after a particularly grueling effort earlier in the day, when I could barely move across the floor.  Mornings were no better as I would wake so tight and "stove up", as my dad would say, that I had trouble walking to the next room just to brush my teeth.  

But becoming a runner was a beautiful thing and the pounds did come off.  I had dropped to about 182 pounds in two months.  Sometimes during my daily weigh ins, usually during marathon training, I would even lower into the upper 170's.  Many people told me NOT to lose any more weight.  But the non-runners just didn't understand.  I wasn't trying to lose weight.  I was either training for a race or I was base building and the weight just did it's own thing.  But I had to be careful how I talked to these friends.  Telling them that you I could eat as much as I liked just sounded cocky.

I wont take it granted ever again.  For reasons I explain in an earlier post titled simply "2008",  I stopped running and my weight went right back up to 205 pounds.  Pants that I had bought during the last few years had to be worn with the top button lose.  Driving in a car was disgusting as the lap belt accentuated my protruding belly bulge and felt awful.  When I was out of shape before my mass was more evenly distributed, but now it was all concentrated in one inconvenient location--my gut.

So when I got back out onto the road I expected the same result, lots of effort and miles would certainly be rewarded with rapid weight loss and a quick return to my lean and agile self. Just like before.  Unt!  Did not happen!  Take a look at the picture above, taken today, and after a full month of due diligence: 27 workouts and 132 miles later and I have lost only 5 freaking pounds!

But I'm not even close to being worried.  I'm just going to keep running and the I know the numbers will come down to my old racing weight. It's just calories in and calories out.  I just thought it would once again "fly off" and that hasn't happened.  But runners always have lots of stories and this time I'll have a different one to tell.