Losing Weight

Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking and I think that one of the main reasons why I'm not swimming as fast as I'd like is still the weight issue. I recently went for a body fat test analysis and found out that I have about 10% extra body fat that I shouldn't have. The average person is supposed to have 15-18% body fat and I have 27.1% so it's not the greatest. Don't get me wrong, I've come a long way in terms of my weight actually. Shortly after my parents died, I went through a kind of depression and I gained a huge amount of weight. At one point, I was 220 pounds! Now for a guy who is only 5'8" that is certainly not healthy. Fortunately, I'm down to 182 right now and my target weight should be about 155 or 160 with my height.

I've decided to take a bit of a different approach this time and I went and consulted a dietitian to help me plan meals properly in order to help me lose weight. It turns out after talking with him, a general assessment is that I've been eating far too many carbs and not enough protein and this is causing me to lose weight a lot slower than I normally would be considering the amount of exercise that I've been doing as of late with going to the gym and doing the masters swimming.

I should be getting my diet book some time in a week or so. I'm actually really excited because I think that this is going to make a big difference for me. I never really realized that my eating habits were holding me back but I guess it's true that what you eat is just as important if not more important than how much you exercise. The diet book is great in that it's tailor made for each person so that what is in there is specifically to help me. It also gives step by step instructions as to what food to buy, how to prepare it and how much of each type of food to eat for an entire month. I think in the long run it's going to be great. After all, if I am having to pull an extra 25 pounds through the water while I'm swimming, it's only natural that my times would be slower. It's like swimming with a 25 pound weight attached to your ankles... let's hope that over time I can get rid of that weight and be fit, lean and stay healthy.