Walking Off Winter Weight with Walking Off the Big Apple

I'm bored by the weight loss and fitness stories we're forced to read at this time of year. Exercise more, eat less, park your car at the far end of the parking lot, take the stairs, drink more water, la la la la la. Look at pictures of people in the gym in sweatshirts. Boring. So boring, I think I'll go see what's in the refrigerator and go back to sleep.

These preachy features often joylessly separate mind from body and tend to favor the goal over the process. They suck all the fun out of life. Walk for 30 minutes, yes, but where am I going and what will I see along the way? Where do I want to go, and what's the scenic route? Do I feel like walking in a park today or strolling along an avenue? What do I want to "walk off' (emotional and mental, in addition to baked goods with icing)?

Here's the deal. I want to lose 1.5 pounds per week between now and the vernal equinox on March 20, but I have to make the weight loss a happy incidental by-product of a journey instead of a boring chore. Otherwise I will fail.

Here's what I plan to do. It works for me: Find some fun place to walk that would require walking for 30 minutes, get a grip on what and how much food and drink is consumed, and maintain a journal. Weigh every day, and don't lie. Don't step up on the scale three times in one minute and hope it will go down. Write down the weight in the journal along with other thoughts and ideas, perhaps commentary on Mike Huckabee's weight fluctuations and why former Arkansas governors, irrespective of political party, have weight issues. Make the journal attractive. Journals, by definition, require commentary DU JOUR.

Watch out for those New York foods! Time to pull out THE CHART (walking off what you ate)! Read it and weep!

Slice pepperoni pizza (200 cal) = 1.9 miles
Cafe latte grande (260 cal) = 2.5 miles
Bagel (320 cal) = 3 miles
Chocolate croissant (340 cal) = 3.25 miles
Pad thai (380 cal) = 3.5 miles
Black and white cookie (430 cal) = 4 miles
NY cheesecake (480 cal) = 4.5 miles
Pastrami sandwich (1010 cal) = 9.5 miles

Scary! It's OK! Another thing I like to walk off is FEAR.

My favorite 2-mile walks in New York City.

Image: Springtime in New York eye candy.

The Post-Holiday Diet Starts Early and A Blank Chart O' Progress for December

Flipping over the pages of all my dog calendars to December (the golden retriever wearing Santa's hat, don't you know), and noting that it's still in the early stages of holiday merriment, I have decided this very morn' that I need to lose six pounds this month, come hell or high water, before the new year.

A little alarmed about the lingering effects of Thanksgiving, and, frankly, anxious about my walking future through sleet and snow and, thusly, the ability to make metaphorical the lessons of Gotham's streets, I have taken up the task once again of puritanical chart-making.

Walking for exercise and weight loss, the raison d'être of Walking Off the Big Apple in her infancy as a website, low, just these four-and-a-half months ago, eventually gave way, as loyal readers know, to discussions cultural, economical, and philosophical. Art reviews and descriptions of New York's neighborhoods, new and old, pushed out posts on walking off slabs of beef. Diatribes about Wall Street and the Bowery took precedent over late-night confessions in chat rooms devoted to the overweight. Flâneurie replaced Câlorie.

I blame it on Greta Garbo.

When the New Year arrives in a month, and with it the endless and tedious feature stories we're all forced to read on post-holiday weight loss, I want to be able to skip all that and move on to worthy commentaries with a lot of meat.

So, here I go. I'm happy to share my chart-making je-ne-sais-quoi with anyone who wants to play along. You want to be WOTBA's diet friend, oui ou non?

Image: the first 14 days of WOTBA's December game plan.

Walking Off Thanksgiving Dinner: Prepare For a Day Hike

If you enjoyed a large traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner yesterday, a feast of 2800 calories, give or take a 1,000, you may want to walk it off today. So, here's how to keep those extra pounds off. Lace up some sturdy hiking boots, walk out the front door, commence walking, and then return home 7 hours later.

Sorry about this. Depending on individual weight, walking speed, and terrain, walking burns an average of 100 calories per mile. That's not much. So, consuming even a few more hundred calories a day would necessitate a few more hours of daily walking in order to keep extra pounds from piling on.

I need to visualize what my walk would look like if I want to seriously contain holiday overeating, so I've plotted a 15-mile course through Manhattan. Just to walk off HALF of the calories I probably consumed yesterday, I would need to start in Washington Square Park at the arch, walk up Fifth Avenue all the way to 110 St. turn left, walk back down the west side of the park, take Broadway all the way down to Battery Park, turn north on Church, and then make my way through Tribeca and SoHo back to Greenwich Village.

This fantasy day hike, of course, seems overwhelming right now. But I can make amends for at least part of the Thanksgiving feast by choosing to walk 2 or 3 miles at a moderate pace of 15 minutes per mile. Some fast window shopping along Fifth Avenue or Broadway may be just the ticket.

Friends Making Other Friends Skinnier?

The recent report that researchers have found a link between social networks and obesity implies that the opposite can hold true - that weight loss among a group of friends can cause a happy little epidemic of skinniness. I think this happened to me. I started losing weight because my best friend came to visit, and she had lost 12 pounds. She look great and had great bone structure, and because I was overweight I didn't think we matched. I wanted to see my cheekbones and neck, so I started this diet and exercise thing you see in front of you. I have two additional guy friends who have lost a ton of weight as well.

Do you have anecdotal evidence to suggest that you or some of your friends are getting thinner because your friends and their friends are getting thinner? If you understand this question, please feel free to comment by writing walkbigapple@yahoo.com.

I am in Think Coffee right now, and almost everyone is thin. Maybe all I have to do is stay here.

• Obesity spreads to friends, study concludes (International Herald Tribune)
  

A Diet Should Last as Long As The Major League Baseball Season

As I indicated by my previous post on Alex Rodriguez, I enjoy baseball and the New York Yankees in particular. Because I want to lose weight at a reasonable pace and keep it off, I have decided to steer clear of any annoying quick weight loss plan. In addition I do not personally care for any diet that tells me that I can't eat anything fun for the first two weeks.
Therefore, I am happy to lose at the rate of 1 to 2 pounds a week, the pace I'm on now. I figure this should take me through the World Series in October.
And after that, I may have more to lose. I'll need to maintain the weight by walking and watching what I eat. New York in the fall and winter, after all, is a big weight trap.

Journaling

I maintain an elaborate, pumped up illustrated diet and exercise journal. For me journaling has from the outset been an essential part of the overall strategy. I have often kept a daily journal, some with illustrations, but creating a new journal on my walks, my observations of life in New York City, and my weight loss progress has allowed me to integrate diet and exercise into la vie quotidienne.

On most days, after I walk to where I need to go, I sit down, take some notes and then sketch. My small backpack can get a little heavy as it contains a sketchbook, a pencil holder with about 50 colored pencils and a few pens, a bottle of water, and walking and subway maps of New York.

MY WEIGHT LOSS PROCLAMATION

The Vacuum

I am not kidding. I have noticed that over the last 10 weeks that on the day after I vacuum and do a lot of housework, I have lost weight.

MY WEIGHT LOSS PROCLAMATION

A Healthy Diet

During the first few weeks of my diet and exercise strategy, I had to radically change the way I ate. I rediscovered fruits and vegetables and now make these the most important part of my diet.
Breakfast is important, and I eat a piece of fruit, a half a bagel or cereal or a low fat waffle. I drink coffee, often with soy milk. For lunch I often eat a bowl of yogurt with fruit and some granola-like topping, and for dinner, I tend to eat of small portion of protein along with a large salad and a vegetable. I drink a glass or two of wine with dinner, and I eat chocolate every day.
I do not believe in deprivation, as I tend toward the spoiled side of the human equation, and if I thought I was on a restricted diet I would hate it and quit.
You'll never get any preachy puritanical diet mandates on this site. I'm the bad girl you'd like to invite to happy hour for margaritas, not a diet guru.

MY WEIGHT LOSS PROCLAMATION

MY WEIGHT LOSS PROCLAMATION

Fellow Citizens!

Whereas I have liberated myself of 18.5 pounds over the last 10 weeks as of this very day, and whereas I continue to lose weight at a steady pace, I heretofore announceth my overall diet and exercise tippes for the continued pursuit of happiness.

I can't lose weight for ye, if that is something ye wish, so I shall speaketh for myself.

• WALK. I have taken a brisk walk most every day for at least 30 minutes without interruption.
• HEALTHY DIET. Instead of a fad diet, I decided to make diet changes for the long run.
• STRENGTH. Needing to firm up and build muscle, as I am not 18. 5 years of age, I engage in some form of strength exercises several times a week.
• COUNT CALORIES. I try to consume around 1500 calories a day, no more and no less, and when I blow it, I take an extra walk.
• VACUUM. Vigorous vacuuming provides an additional effective calorie burn.
• JOURNAL. I maintain an elaborate, pumped up illustrated diet and exercise journal. You are reading it.

I do hereby authorize, enjoin and require all readers to payeth attention to these pronouncements and to all subsequent decrees.

Chart O' Progress June 2007

My first month of walking and counting calories paid off, as the chart demonstrates. I think it's fairly well established that keeping a diet journal is one of the best tools in a weight and exercise regime. I find that a journal provides a set of goals, a sense of patterns, and a basic commitment to oneself. To motivate myself, I wanted my journal to be something more. For me it has become a visual artifact of one chapter of my life.
The check marks after the weight column indicate that I did some strength exercises that day. Adding strength training has become an important part of the overall plan.