Richard Ha writes:

I’m over 200 lbs., just barely.

Today’s weight: 200.3 lbs.
This week’s target weight was 197.6 lbs.
I am 2.7 lbs. behind schedule.
But I weigh 6.1 lbs. less than when we got back from the mainland Wednesday evening.

Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs. 
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs. 
Since 5/23, I have lost 14.3 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute. 
Today’s resting heart rate: 54 beats per minute. *

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

My goals: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks, and to get my resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute.

***

I didn’t report my weight this past Sunday because we were in Carmel for the annual Tomato Fest and I did not have easy access to a scale. My mission there? To taste test all the heirloom tomatoes I could, as well as all the tomato dishes served up by 60 of the area’s top chefs. I was not going to hold back on the samplings. I expected that I would gain a lot of weight.

And I did.

We arrived back in Hilo on Wednesday afternoon and went to dinner at the Sunlight Cafe, where I had rack of lamb. The minute we got home I went straight to our accurate-to-one-tenth-of-a-pound scale to weigh myself.

Vacations, especially eating vacations, are hard on the weight loss program. I was “scheduled” to be at 197.6 lbs. but I weighed in at 206.4 lbs. I calculated that I was 30,800 calories behind!

I was surprised, but not as horrified as you might think. I’d been expecting the worse, and had simply made up my mind ahead of time that I’d catch up back home by using a combination of training and portion control.

I’m starting to realize that it is not as simple as one pound equaling 3,500 calories. It appears that months of exercising have increased my metabolism. It seems easier to lose weight now, as long as I am willing to cut back on calorie intake—food.

By resuming my exercise schedule, and cutting back on portion size at every meal, I lost 6.1 lbs. When I first weighed myself back home, it was right after the rack of lamb dinner at the Sunlight Café. This is the time of day that I expect to weigh the most; normally I weigh myself early in the mornings. So I think that adjusted for time, I might have actually lost four pounds in three days.

Since I knew that I was not starved for nutrition, I skipped breakfast on Friday and then had a Quaker Oats “Weight Control” instant oatmeal breakfast for lunch. I notice it fills you up more than regular oatmeal.

For dinner I ate a large lettuce, tomato, Japanese cucumber and sweet onion salad with crumbled blue cheese, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. On Saturday, I had the Weight Control oatmeal for breakfast and then a large salad with oil and vinegar dressing for lunch.

For dinner Saturday, we went to Rodrigo and Charlotte’s house. I had a beer and ate everything, including flan for dessert. It was made from Rodrigo’s mom’s recipe and was delicious. Flan is sort of like custard, only better.

I’m eating everything, but in moderation.

As for exercise: On Friday, I exercised for 25 minutes at a heart rate of 128 and another ten minutes at 138. This is aerobic and as far as I want to push it; I’m being careful not to over train. On Saturday, I spent 40 minutes on the elliptical at a heart rate of 112 or so. I’m very conscious that this is supposed to be active rest.

Weighing in on Sunday morning, I’m down to 200.3 lbs.

I plan to do active rest for 40 minutes, at 112 heart rate, for the next couple days. When I feel ready, I’ll do an interval session. The plan is to reduce calorie intake—food—and do two interval training sessions per week and then active rest for the other days.

Together with reducing calorie intake, I’m pretty sure the pounds will melt away.