Last year, around Easter, I went to the Grand Canyon – my first ever visit to this wonderful place. We went down about 2 km. This was not a problem, although the view is somewhat scary, regardless of the fact that the road is built in the rocks, and is supposed to be safe. However, on the way up I felt awful. I was breathing heavily, and had to stop every once in a while. The reason? I was too heavy. Long were gone the days when I was hiking on the Vitosha mountain by Sofia.
I scaled myself once I was back home. It was a disaster: almost 100 kg body weight (215 pounds), XXL shirts and pants size 54 European, or 36 US. After some time spent in thinking, I talked to my wife, and asked for help. I needed to take immediate measures. I am 1.83 (6 feet).
The help came in the form of one page paper with a special diet (details about it – upon request:-). For the next two months I was to be on a strict food diet. But that alone was not enough. I joined the Aerospace NYC gym club.
July 1st marked the end of my strict food diet, but I was already converted into the gym. The place turned out to be not one of the best, but THE best in New York city. Which probably means it’s the best anywhere (I will blog separately about it).
Since then I am no more on a diet, I just watch what I eat, and if I eat too much ice cream today, I will measure what kind of food I will eat tomorrow.
The results: today I am 165 pounds (74 kg), size M for shirts, and 46 Eu (32 US) for pants. In terms of weight I am where I was back in 1986, as you can see from the pictures below. But in terms of quality of that weight I’ve never been where I am today. Even during my army years, I’ve never been so fit. Here are some numbers: I jump on the rope 150 times per minute. When I started, the number was 100 per hour. I can do hundreds of push-ups, sit-ups or crunches. I have muscles on places where I never knew muscles could be formed 🙂
And I feel quite happy, as you can tell by the pictures, too. And talking about them… I just noticed – I’ve changed the way I comb my hair – today it’s like it was 20 years ago. And I don’t wear anymore all black clothes.
See for yourself (click to see the picture in real size):
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P.S. Update from Feb. 24: My friend Joichi Ito wrote also about his diet / sports. Check it out.
UPDATE from April 11, 2008: I blogged more about the gym here.
Let me congratulate you. What you achieved is really impressive. Going from 100 kg to 74 is not an easy task. I hope it is not to hard to keep motivated and stay at this level.
Did you by the way take some slimming supplements besides your special diet ? What was it ?
No< i wasn't using any supplements.