The RE.net waist-loss challenge

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

When I met The Leggy Blonde, I had a 34-inch waist. I was working out for at least 45 minutes every day, and I was maybe a can-and-a-half short of six-pack abs. I had been through a pretty bad car accident, and being in good shape was a secondary consequence of re-mastering the art of ambulation. (I can’t run at all, if you want to challenge me to a contest you know I’ll lose.)

Things change. Being enthralled by a woman takes time, and among the blocks of time I devoted to being enthralled — then being involved, then being a couple, then being a team, then being espoused — was the time I had spent working out. I have worked from home since 1993, and in all that time the refrigerator has never once forgotten my name.

By now I have a 45-inch waist, which doesn’t even count this great bulbous thing that hangs over my waist. I’m 47 years old, but I have always felt like I was 19. I weigh about 250 pounds, where I have always felt like I weigh about 160. I never, ever cease to be surprised when I see this old fat guy staring back at me from the mirror.

At the New Year, I resolved to do something different. Until the last ten years or so, I had always made time to read for pleasure. And, obviously, I haven’t been making time to work out. Now and then, catch as catch can — not enough. So I resolved to put in at least a half-hour a day on the stationary bike, this so I could also read at the same time.

The reading part is working out fine. I know the exercise is also working out, because I can feel the strength in my thighs, calves and glutes. My wind is better, and my overall stamina is improved. But I’m not seeing any visible weight loss. I’m not worried about losing pounds, so far, because muscle mass is more dense than fat. But I would like to see some evidence of evaporating fat.

Take it to the next level. Cathy has been cooking for me a lot, so as to overcome my Realtor’s impulse to pig out at the drive-through. But I decided to take things a step further by eating half as much twice as often. For one thing, I’m never as hungry as I think I am; I’m often full after the dinner salad in a restaurant. And, for another, it’s a major big deal to get me to think about food in the first place. The fact is, I won’t eat twice as often. It’s utterly amazing to me that I managed to get fat in the first place, given that I will only stop working for the most urgently demanding of bodily needs.

Anyway, that’s as may be. I want the fat off. I liked my first plan, but it wasn’t radical enough, so I’ve supplemented it with a second plan.

What does all this have to do with real estate? Working as a Realtor can be dietary suicide. We’re either working from home, noshing at will, or we’re racing hither and yon, scarfing down fat-dripping drive-through food between appointments. For men, at least, that great bulbous thing that hangs over our belts is the best-ever source of heart attacks. Great…

So my real question is this one: What about you?

I happen to know of at least four other prominent Phoenix-area real estate webloggers, all of them male, all of whom could stand to lay waste to their waists. I won’t say anything at all about women — especially not skinny women who fret when they gain half-a-pound — most especially not skinny women proximate enough to poison me with Tofu — but many of us boys could stand to be half the men we are by now.

So that’s my challenge — for anyone, not just male Phoenix-area real estate webloggers. Inman Connect is August 1st, essentially five months from now. Whether you’re going or not, that’s a decent finish line. If it seems like a rational goal to be able to see your shoes without having to sit down, join me in my waist-loss challenge. Express a goal, come up with a plan to achieve that goal, then get to it. We’ll check back in August to see who has managed to leave the drive-through lane behind.

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing