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Hernando Today

Beating The Weight

Hernando Today photo by BOB EAST III

Tim Howsare works out on the heavy punching bag at Elite Vale Tudo Mixed Martial Arts School in Brooksville.

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By TIMOTHY P. HOWSARE

Hernando Today

Published: March 5, 2009

Updated: 03/05/2009 11:42 pm

BROOKSVILLE On Sunday mornings I play organ at my Lutheran church in Ridge Manor. On Monday nights I get thrown around like a rag doll by a bunch of guys twice my size and half my age.

Losing 50-plus pounds since April 2007 hasn't changed my organ playing — except now I can see my feet on the pedals. But it definitely has jacked up my speed in a pair of running shoes and my endurance to hold out for six or seven rounds of boxing in the mixed martial arts (MMA) classes I attend at Elite Vale Tudo in Brooksville. ("Vale tudo" means "anything goes" in Portuguese.)

On Valentine's Day, I ran the Chinsegut Nature Center 5K and came in third in my age division (44-49). In November, I won first place in my division in the Run with the Sheriff 5K in Brooksville.

I run races to challenge myself; I know I wouldn't have even made it to the finish line if I hadn't motivated myself to exercise and improve my diet.

With 215 pounds on a 5-foot-7-inch frame — and a small-boned frame at that — I didn't need a doctor to tell me "Tim, you need to lose weight."

But my doctor did tell me, "Tim, you need to lose weight."

The only clothes that felt comfortable two years ago were extra-large sweats. My thighs rubbed together when I walked and I had trouble squeezing my gut behind the table in restaurant booths. Not to mention the risks of heart disease and diabetes and the stress all that extra poundage was putting on my joints.

I've now trimmed down to around 160. My weight loss has been slow and steady — about two and a half pounds a month. I figure if I've lost 50-plus pounds altogether, I've probably lost 60 or 65 pounds of fat and gained 10 or 15 pounds of muscle. I used to squeeze into pants with a 42-inch waist. I now comfortably fit into several pairs of new pants with 33- and 34-inch waistlines. My goal weight is 145 pounds.

I love to eat, so I can't say I eat less than when I was a wad of cookie dough. I just eat a whole lot better.

What works for me is exercise, and lots of it; I do some form of it nearly every day.

At my health club, Candlelite Fitness Center in Brooksville, I run and walk on the treadmill, run on the elliptical machine, lift weights, punch the heavy bag and swim. When I lost enough weight that the impact of walking and jogging on pavement no longer bothered my back, I took up running outdoors and trained for my first 5K in more than 20 years — the Run to Remember in Spring Hill on Sept. 11, 2007.

I joined a mixed martial arts class in April 2008 — pretty much on the first anniversary of my program. I lost two inches off my waist in the first month, so MMA — a furious, bone-crushing combination of boxing, kickboxing, jiu jitsu and wrestling — has literally changed the shape of my body. And MMA helps one appreciate the simply things in life — like Ibuprofen, Icy Hot, Epson Salt and a Memory Foam mattress.

I don't tally calories like when I first started eating right, but I'm guessing I consume between 2,000 to 2,500 per day, which is fairly high for someone controlling his diet to lose weight. Rather than the recommended 40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent protein and 30 percent protein diet, I eat about twice as much protein as carbos, and fats are only about 10 percent of my diet.

For breakfast I eat raisin bran sprinkled with wheat germ in nonfat milk. I also eat several tablespoons of nonfat cottage cheese.

On most days I pack a lunch and eat two sandwiches with lean, sliced turkey and ham on whole wheat bread. For dinner as my protein I eat boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chicken livers, salmon, catfish, tuna or tilapia. I use flax seed oil as cooking oil.

My favorite side dishes include broccoli, stir-fry vegetables, lentils, lima beans, split peas, noodles, rice and perogies (a kind of Eastern-European dumping). I snack on raw carrots and apples throughout the day. I eat red meat only on rare occasions and avoid junk food and fast food, except for Subway. For an occasional treat I like ice cream. It does have milk fat and sugar, but it also has good stuff like protein and calcium.

When I was grossly overweight and still a smoker and drinker, I can remember sometimes feeling pain in my chest after walking up two or three flights of stairs. I am grateful to God for blessing me with the opportunity to turn my life around.

I recently received a MySpace message from one of my "Fight Club" buddies, "The Lithuanian HitMan," who hadn't been to class for several weeks. He asked me if I was still training. I responded I'd been going to class every week and was training for a 5K. When I went to MMA class the Monday after the Chinsegut race, he was there. He told me I had helped motivate him to come back to class. I hope I can do likewise for anybody reading this article who wants to get in shape. While MMA and distance running are not for everybody, there's certainly a plethora of activities one can do to lose weight and get fit. Even a brisk, daily walk can make a huge difference.

By the numbers

Weight — April 2007: 215. Present weight: 160.

Waist size — April 2007: 42. Present waist size: 33.

Neck size — April 2007: 17 1/2. Present neck size: 16.

Chest size — April 2007: 44. Present chest size: 44.

Cholesterol — April 2007: 205. Present: 148.

Hernando Today community news editor Timothy P. Howsare can be reached at 352-544-5284 or thowsare@hernandotoday.com.

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