Before & After

I recently got caught up in a 2009 weight loss goal thread on the Marathon Race Training forum at Runnersworld.com (one of my main internet haunts). I watched this thread grow from it’s inception and was amazed at the amount of people who had weight loss goals, especially considering how many of these people are very fast marathoners. The thread evolved into “Before and After” pictures of people showing the effects of how marathoning had impacted their weight loss. I didn’t think I had any good “Before” pictures, but I looked around anyway to see if I could contribute to the thread. I found a good one. Actually I found the perfect one. I don’t know how many people here view the RunnersWorld forums, but I know there are people here with weight loss goals, so I figured I would post this. All I can say is yikes – avert your eyes if your stomach gets upset easily:

Progman – August 2006, @ 240 lbs

Progman – May 2008 (NJ Marathon) , @ 190 lbs

The funny thing is I never really considered myself as having weight issues, even when I was peaking around 240 lbs. I was playing tennis like crazy and going to the gym, so I considered myself perfectly healthy. It wasn’t until I started sucking wind on the tennis court that I started to think about taking the running a little more seriously. Thank god – I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I was completely sedentary, I guess I can see how things can quickly get out of hand if you’re not careful.

So in the weight loss thread I originally committed to dropping another 6 pounds. Now I am starting to think about trying to shave another 6 – 10 lbs, primarily because I want to dramatically improve my marathon time in 2009. I am currently holding fast at 186 lbs, so that means I am shooting for “sub-180”. Hopefully between increasing mileage and making some minor adjustments in the diet this is a doable goal.

I welcome anyone else to take the “Before & After” challenge and throw up some pics. It seems that with the New Year right around the corner this is the perfect time to do it (plus I don’t want to be the only one with an ugly fatty picture up on the web).