Beer Fitness: 12 Pounds Lost in 4 Weeks WITH Beer

One morning in early March, I looked at my Google calendar.  In exactly four weeks, I was going to be laying on a beach in Maui for Spring Break.  Excited?  Definitely.  I pulled out my summer clothes from the depths of my closet and laid them out.  As I reached for my favorite pair of plaid shorts from 2012, I quickly found out that I couldn't get them on.  My winter months of beer drinking, couch lazing, and fried food eating had taken its toll.  I needed to make a change immediately.  I ran downstairs to my building's gym and got on the treadmill.  Thirty painstakingly long minutes of intervals had me barely able to breathe.  

While at work that day, I charted out what I needed to do: move more, eat better, and give up beer.  The first two I could commit to.  It takes two solid weeks to adopt a habit, and I had four.  But give up beer?  I would have to be crazy.  March is the month of epic brewery birthday parties, brewers' nights, and beer festivals.  Taking beer out of the equation wasn't going to happen.  And so began my experiment: Could I lose weight and tone up while STILL enjoying beer.

Week 1:  A well planned grocery trip stocked me full of healthy options.  For breakfast, I fell quickly in love with Yopa's greek yogurt.  Snacks ended up being pecans, string cheese, and apples.  Ready made salads with chicken made my working lunches doable.  Dinner was the wildcard. I had picked up some chicken for some of my Beer Crockpot concoctions, but other than that, I hadn't planned too far ahead.  I kept track of all my food for that first week on MyNetDiary.com.  
As for exercise, I knew that my routine responded best with full immersion. I started off with walking five miles at the end of my day.  That quickly increased to eight miles, and by the end of my first week, I had worked out six out of the seven days.  I found some time during my day to get in some squats and lunges too.    

Now let's talk about the beer factor.  Every day that I walked, and even that "Freeday Friday" I didn't, I drank beer.  Sometimes it was in the middle of my walk if I just happened to find myself at a neighborhood watering hole.  Other times, it was after the mileage was completed.  Sometimes it was one beer, other times it was three.  During this week, I went to American Brewing's third anniversary party.  IPAs abundant, I enjoyed every last one.  After the first week, I noticed that I slept better, reached for healthier foods more often, and almost became addicted to my daily walk.

Week 2:  It is worth noting that I had some pretty amazing friends come along this journey with me.  Was it because they wanted to lose weight?  Was it because they wanted to get healthy? Was it because they are just as crazy as I am?  Well, I will let them figure out what category they fall into.  Having partners in crime that willing gave up hours on end to traipse around cities at all hours of the night was motivating.  The daily walks continued, and before I knew it, eight miles was the new minimum.  I began tracking my walks on MapMyRun.com.  This gave me exact GPS information on distance, pace, and location.

St. Patrick's Day ended up being during week two.  This included Double Mountain's sixth anniversary party with a 15k St. Paddy's Day dash in Portland, Oregon the following day.  Sufficiently carbo loading on anything but food amply fueled that 15k, as did the unintended eight hour sleep!

Week 3:  I started to incorporate more squats and lunges, as well as weight training during my down time at work.  Nothing fancy, just a simple set of dumbbells made this happen.  The daily walks now became too short if we didn't hit double digits.  One evening, I found myself on a legitimate half marathon jaunt.  I didn't even realize how far we had walked until we reached the bar at the ten mile mark, and still had three to go.  Needless to say, that was a three beer night.
On a day that I had extra time, I would walk around the track across the street from work.  Juggling my main job, along with part time ones, made for some scheduling challenges.  What seemed to be saving me was intentionally planning ahead my meals on Sunday.  This meant that I, along with all the other singles in the neighborhood, spent the late remaining hours of my weekend at the supermarket.  

Week 4:  This was my last week to get in as much as I could, as well as attend a scheduled beer research tasting, a brewer's night, and a beer festival.  My walks this week were all about speed and efficiency.  I used hills, especially the much loved "Mt. Meridian", to get more bang for my buck.  I had a few hours to spare before a brewer's night, so we spent those hightailing it up and down that hill.  On another night, a well planned crockpot meal and Milk Stouts already in the fridge, meant a decent walk could occur before the evening's festivities.  During the morning of my favorite beer fest of the year, Washington Cask Beer Festival, I made sure to get a solid treadmill interval session in.

Let's go back to that morning.  It was the day before I flew out to Maui and thus became the moment of truth.  Had my endless hours and hundreds of miles actually made a difference?  I once again got out those favorite plaid shorts.  Not only did they easily get on, they were too big!  I was now faced with the dilemma of squeezing in a mini shopping trip in order to be well suited for the islands.  Definitely a good problem to have!

Listen up, Beerlovers.  Summer will be here before we know it.  That winter weight will need to hit the road.  But don't fret, it CAN be done.  Eat healthy, get moving, and KEEP your beer!