The “Lose 25 lbs Before Camping” Plan
Ed. Note: Welcome to AlmostFit. This is a personal entry on my plans to lose 25 pounds this summer. The diet choices I’m describing are my own, and are not recommended for everyone – in other words, consult a doctor before you make any significant dietary changes.
Summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest, and it certainly was a long time in coming this year. Between a worn out pair of shoes with holes in the soles letting my socks get soaked daily from record rainfall, some pretty big bouts with seasonal depression, and some employment ambiguity, it has been a rough spring. But with 75-degree temperatures and mostly sunny skies, a new pair of hole-free shoes, and the kids out of school for the summer, things are looking up.
An Opportunity in the Making
One of the summer activities we have planned is to go camping with my wife’s extended family in mid-August. Her family has an annual family camping reunion each summer, and it generally involves lots of activities during the day, a fair bit of lounging and visiting, and not just a little food and drink. We always have an absolute blast, but I remember last year how it really would have been so much nicer to be a little thinner when we’re hiking around the mountains or swimming in the rivers.
With all of that on the roadmap, it occurred to me that this is one of those golden opportunities to use an imminent event to my weight loss advantage. Some folks will recall that I lost about 20 lbs at the beginning of the year using a combination of intermittent fasting (IF), whole foods, and reasonable indulgences. But the biggest motivator? An event – a weekend getaway trip with my wife to central California. I used that event as a focal point to lose weight, and it worked. Couple the food plan with exercise, and I was able to lose that weight pretty quickly.
Once the event was over, I wondered how well I would do with keeping the weight off. And to my surprise, I have kept most of it off since then. I say surprise because a) I wasn’t sure whether the quick loss of 20 lbs with IF would be a permanent thing, and b) I’ve taken my eye off the ball exercise and moderation-wise for the last few months. I think what is saving me here is that I’ve developed better food habits over the last couple of years, so my default foods are now whole foods rather than the junk I ate when I was younger. I have crept back up on the scale between 3 or 4 pounds from my low this year, but I can guarantee that its a direct result of a few too many craft beers combined with a lack of an exercise plan, and a whole lot of stress (stress and boredom eaters of the world, unite!).
But that ended earlier this week, with a conscious decision to make some changes to meet my family camping trip goal.
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