scott d. feldstein

I bet my friend Adam that I could lose 10 pounds in seven weeks–while I simultaneously quit smoking. A largish bottle of Ketel One rides on this, so wish me luck.

The weight loss has been slow going these first two weeks, though. According to my Physics Diet chart, i’ve only lost 1.2 pounds so far. I mean, I could practically gain 1.2 pounds at the dinner table. That’s like nothing. But i’ve been doing what I’m supposed to do: Eating less and exercising. In fact, I’ve started running again. So far I’ve stuck to 2 miles a go, three times a week, but on Sunday I did 3 miles. I’m hoping to be able to do 3 miles three times a week as time goes on. Quitting smoking isn’t hard for me. I get some patches and I’m all set. The challenging part is staying quit long-term. So far so good. I think persistence is the key to success with this bet.

Speaking of bets, though, I have another wager that I’d like to offer. (I thought I blogged this already, but as it doesn’t seem to be here I guess I didn’t.) I’ll bet $50 that Obama is elected president in November. The first nay-sayer to put “I’ll take that bet” in the comments will get the privilege of handing over their hard earned cash to me on November 3rd.

Lacking anything more interesting to blog, I’ll tell you about something I did on Saturday. I ran on a treadmill for the first time ever.

You may know that I used to be a regular runner. I never ran more than 5 miles at a crack, and never more than three times a week. But hell, even running 3 miles three times a week (as I did for a couple of years) keeps one pretty fit.

That was, oh, thirty pounds ago. Sigh.

Now I’m afraid to run! I always had to kind of baby my knees. At this weight I’m scared to do more than a mile or two. But Saturday morning I reulctantly got on the treadmill, expecting to hate it a lot.

But I didn’t! I set it for 30 minutes and ran 4k, no problem. A nice easy pace, no knee pain, no problem. I’m ready to do it again as soon as I get the chance.

One tip, though: don’t close your eyes. You’ll end up getting spat off the back end of the treadmill.