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My Lifestyle Change
May, after losing over 40 pounds.
Eric before.
by
Eric Bohannon
Old Dominion Assistant Athletic Director for Communications
In the middle of January, I stood on the scale and it was clear that something needed to change. Six years ago, I ran my first half marathon, was in great shape and weighed around 200 pounds. When I stepped on the scale in January I was up to 280 pounds. I was always tired, grouchy, and I’m sure not much fun to sit next to in public. Something needed to change.
Following a quick trip to Arizona in February, my girlfriend and I came up with a plan. No flour, no sugar: basically, everything I’ve eaten the last six years. And two other big changes: no soda and a very limited amount of eating out. The first two, flour and sugar, were a huge part of my eating and drinking habits and eating out was more of a normal thing than cooking had become. This wasn’t the first time I was going to try something, but as I said, something needed to change.
The first day was March 5 and it did not go well. I had a massive headache and a dinner of chicken, corn and salad sounded about as appetizing as rubber. I ate it, but I got sick. Day one was miserable but as much as I wanted to eat something else, I didn’t. Days turned into weeks and it turns out I actually like to cook. I cook most of the meals and now, no one would mistake me for Gordon Ramsey, but nothing has caught on fire yet.
After a month, I knew we were finally onto something, but in the past I had done well for a few weeks or so and then fallen off. I started to workout after being on this for about three weeks, playing tennis with our staff, some running (mostly walking), and I started to feel better. We kept eating at home and everything was going well. My biggest challenge was when hosted the Conference USA Women’s Tennis Tournament. There were bagels, subs and pizza, all things that were very tempting, but miraculously I was able to stay on my eating plan.
As of May 8, I’m down 44 pounds and I feel great. There is still more work to be done, as I’d like to get back down to 200. But the cravings and needing to eat fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, two foods I passed on the other day at a luncheon, have died down. I believe I need to continue this lifestyle for at least the near future. It has worked so far and I see no reason to change.
I always used the excuse that I was busy, or that I would start a diet tomorrow. But the fact was I needed to start now and I’m not too busy that I can’t take care of myself. One of the things we’ve done is to prepare our meals on Sunday for the week. This has helped tremendously. Another thing we do is eat leftovers from dinner for lunch the next day. I’ve tried not to make food a priority. These last two months have been gratifying. I feel great and I have more energy than before. I plan on continuing this lifestyle and see how far it can take me.