A Little Lighter, A Little Faster

Posted Mar 30, 2006 by jriley

Updated Mar 31, 2006 at 08:31 AM

OK, let me get this out front right off the bat: my personal challenge is probably not going to be as interesting or dramatic as that of my fellow participants. I’m in this thing to drop another 10-11 lbs., and my motivation is not driven by how I’ll look in a couple of months down the road, but how I’ll feel. More accurately, how I’ll feel in the water. Some people manifest their mid-life crisis by buying red sports cars; others might take up sculpting or write a novel. As I approach the big 5-0, my chosen outlet is through competition, and my sport of choice is swimming.

Here’s the deal: if I get a little lighter, I’ll get a little faster. I guess it would be a bonus if I lost a couple of chins along the way, or maybe actually saw faint muscle definition on my belly, but aesthetics are definitely not my main focus. I’ve lugged around 10-15 pounds of excess weight throughout most of my forties…despite a fairly routine workout schedule and pretty good eating habits. Despite the extra weight, I managed to eek out a couple of national championships along the way. Now, I’m at the older end of my competitive age group, and I’m looking for an edge. So now it’s time to walk the walk, lose some ballast, and haul a** at some big national and international meets coming up this season.

I actually started in earnest at the beginning of this year, when I weighed in at 209. In mid-February, I took a resting metabolic analyzer test to determine my baseline daily caloric intake (1,987 calories) and got my body composition measured with a BodPod (http://www.bodpod.com). It’s a new machine that measures body fat using the same principals as the water displacement test. It’s extremely accurate (much more precise than skin fold calipers). The NFL used it during the Combine in Indy (hmmm…wonder if Vince Young’s body fat percentage was higher than his Wonderlic intelligence test score?) My score depressingly came in at 23.8%, in the same general category as the Arctic Walrus. Would be nice to get that down to 15-17%.

So, how the heck am I going to accomplish my goals? Step up my workouts? A gallon of water a day?  Hummus paste and daisy petals for lunch? Or…please say it ain’t so…LAY OFF THE BEER?? I’ll leave that up to Erin (our trainer), and will share with everyone out there what she recommends. I’ll be the flag bearer for the legions of people in the Tampa Bay area who really want to lose those last 10 pounds, for whatever reason. These are the people that are already working out, the people that generally eat (and drink) sensibly, the people that can’t shake those last few pounds. We are…. the “Plateau People”. Stay tuned!