It should have been obvious

I am not a thin person. For the entirety of my adult life I have been in the range of what the grossly over-simplified body mass index considers "overweight." I've been okay with this for the most part. Sure, I'm not winning any fitness awards, but as long as I can climb a tree or carry a heavy object I've been comfortable where I am.

I've made some modest efforts over the years to at least maintain my weight. More exercise. Fewer Oreo cookies. That sort of thing. In 2019 I had gotten myself down to 255 pounds, a low I'd not seen for probably a decade, and I was feeling pretty good about that.

But then COVID came around and, like many people trapped inside with nothing to do but eat away their boredom, I gained back ten pounds.

Last summer though, I decided I was going to come out of the pandemic better than I went in. A wedding invitation motivated me to drop some of those pandemic pounds. With a strict change to my eating habits, I dropped 20 pounds for the wedding. It felt great being under 250 for first time in years so I decided to let it ride.

Ultimately, I dropped another 15 pounds by the end of the year.

The secret to my success: Diet and Exercise.

Mostly diet though.

I would love to say that it's possible to run and lift your way into a smaller clothing size, but in my experience that's just not the case.

It's a contributing factor to be sure and there are plenty of other health benefits to working out, but the simple fact of the matter is that human bodies are so stupidly good at conserving energy that shedding pounds through exercise alone just isn't feasible. Not when hour at the gym can be swiftly negated by a slice of pizza.

Thus, I've spent the better part of the last year trying to find the right balance.

A dramatic cutting of calories is pretty effective at dropping pounds quickly, though it's not without its drawbacks. After a few 500 calorie days, I found my energy level plummeting, leaving me barely able to make it through the day without a nap. It gets results, but it's probably not the healthiest method of weight loss in the long term.

As winter neared, the hardcore diet gave way to holiday meals, leaving me with the exercise half of the equation to maintain my progress.

Unable to visit the local wellness center during the pandemic, I treated myself to my very own elliptical machine. A few times a week I hop on, start a video on my phone, and spend an hour on the machine.

By the time the New Year rolled in I had established a pretty regular pace of five miles per hour at the maximum resistance.

The more I exercised though, the more it gave me the justification to eat things I probably shouldn't have. Combined with an abundance of stress eating earlier in the year, my weight loss plans effectively came to a standstill. I wasn't gaining weight, but I wasn't losing it either.

For the first six months of the year I gained and lost the same five pounds over and over again. On the upside, my strength and stamina improved and I started looking for new ways to challenge myself on the elliptical.

But then I went and donated some blood.

As it turns out, red blood cells are pretty important when it comes to exercise and not having them around can have a dramatic effect on your stamina.

All of a sudden the pace that I had become fairly comfortable with turned into a physically exhausting slog. I've been giving blood for years, but this was the first time I'd done so while also maintaining a regular exercise routine. They aren't kidding when they tell you to avoid strenuous activity. For weeks after donating I struggled to maintain what had previously been my standard speed.

In fact, it took so long to recover that I was actually starting to get a little worried.

For two months I struggled to get back up to speed, wondering what was wrong. Was it just the blood donation? Did I do damage to myself by going back to exercising too quickly? Was it COVID? Was it the COVID vaccine? Was it some other medical condition?

The answer, as it turned out, was none of the above.

You see, not long after my donation, I had also decided to get back on the diet train. Not to the same strict extent I had previously, but still a considerable drop in my calories.

On the upside, I started dropping pounds again. Not dramatically, but a slow and gradual weight loss. On the downside, and I really should have realized this from the start, but cutting calories means having less energy for exercise.

The "ah-ha" moment came after a weekend of covering various summertime events. On a particularly eventful Saturday, I consumed two sandwiches, three hotdogs, chips, beans, ice cream, and more. It was more food in a day than I'd had for quite a while.

Thus, on the Sunday after when I went for my usual run on the elliptical, I was shocked to find myself back up to speed. In fact, not only did I maintain my standard five miles per hour speed, I didn't even have a particularly difficult time doing it. It was the best run I'd had in weeks.

Subsequent observations proved the hypothesis. Runs on the weekdays when I diet are a struggle. Runs on the weekends where I allow myself to "cheat" I'm able to maintain higher speeds.

I shouldn't have been shocked. It was pretty obvious in retrospect. I'm sure any nutritionists out there would smack their head and saying "duh!" at my revelation.

Still, it's just something you never really think about. We eat when we're hungry, or bored, or sad, and that's usually the extent of it. My daily life generally doesn't involve much activity more strenuous than getting in and out of my car and nothing outside of literal starvation is going to impact that. The connection between what you eat and physical activity generally isn't quite so obvious.

So here I am, still trying to find that balance. I'd like to keep building my strength, but to do that I've got to eat more, which is counter-productive to weight loss. I'm sure both can be done, but not easily or quickly.

A year into my efforts I've lost 50 pounds overall. Week-to-week I seem to lose six pounds and gain back five, but I'm okay with that. Slow and steady and all that jazz.

Who knows what the next year will bring.

Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and looks better, feels better, and is not yet tired of people noticing.