10 pounds in 12 weeks

The scale told me that I was 177 pounds this morning. I’ve gained weight in the past couple of weeks. My goal weight for the Chicago Marathon is under 170. Starting today, I’m going to loose 10 pounds before the marathon. That is less than .833 pounds per week. I need to burn 2915.5 calories more than I take in per week. That’s 419.5 calories per day. That’s doesn’t sound too bad.

Food that could be about 400 calories; 1 cup of ice cream, 3.5 cans of soda, an extra serving of spaghetti, 1/2 cup of almonds, 4 cookies. It’s not hard to find 400 calories to remove from my diet. The alternative is to exercise another 400 calories per day. That’s a little over 3 miles of running. Or I could do a combination of eating fewer calories and going for a mile or two walk in the evening, taking the stairs or riding my bike to baseball games.

The point is weight loss is not really hard. The necessary ingredients are the desire, a goal and a plan. My desire is to run a fast marathon. My goal is 10 pounds in 12 weeks. My plan is to remove second helpings from my meals and leave a little bit of food on my plate at every meal.

What is your desire? Set a goal and make a plan. Go do it!