Lose It With Lamb, Week 9

As you may know, I won a million dollars three months ago. My wife Jody and I have been very careful with that money. We haven’t taken any long cruises or stayed in any fancy hotels or hired a personal chef. In fact, we haven’t splurged at all . . . until this week.

The house we recently moved into (we actually downsized!) is near a bike path, so we finally decided to invest in a pair of bicycles. Jody chose a blue flowered Schwinn 3-speed; I chose a red and black Schwinn trail bike. Why bother to tell you the colors? Well, we also bought a dog trailer to pull behind us—our dog, Maggie, a boxer/shepherd/spaniel mix, pretty much goes everywhere we go—and the trailer is red. Jody says it clashes with her bike, so I get to pull it.

Towing Maggie in the trailer has been quite an eye-opener. Together, dog and carrier weigh 79 pounds. The total weight I’ve lost so far? About 79 pounds. So in essence, I am now pulling all of the weight I’ve lost. And it’s heavy, especially when we’re toiling up those Georgia hills. It’s hard to imagine that all of those pounds used to be on my body, particular around my midsection. No wonder my back was always killing me!

It’s amazing all the things I like to do—and am able to do—now that I am in better shape. At the gym, I swim, run on the treadmill, do the elliptical and stairmaster, lift weights and do core exercises. Outside, I bike, walk, run, push-mow and garden, plus raft and do zip lines whenever we have the opportunity (Jody and I both love a good adrenaline rush).

I’ve also been playing more golf, so this week Wendy, my trainer, cooked up a full-body workout centered around flexibility and rotation, the two major ingredients for improving your swing. But whether or not you golf, it’s a challenging all-around routine that’s definitely worth a try (or two) this week.

All of this activity seems to be helping at the scale, too, as I lost 1.8 pounds this week. How did you do?

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