Week 3: Why I’m Eating Bread and Losing 10 Pounds

Why are you doing this? You look great. You don’t need to lose anymore weight.

As a startup founder, especially one that sits on the computer all day working on WordPress and editing articles, I just don’t move around much. At the beginning of my journey four years ago when I was a lone founder who worked everything herself, it was really hard to get away, let alone include an exercise routine. I spent over well over 15 hours a day sitting. If I didn’t sit, I was stress cooking or eating with my family.

Stress + sitting + startup = 10 lbs.

Like over 26% of founders, I’ve gained at 5-10 lbs on this journey.

 

How much weight do startup entrepreneurs gain?

There is little I can do about the stress level. Hey, when the bills are stacked up against you, and you have to make cashflow and still grow the company, there is little a startup founder can do with this bootstrapped system other than stress about it.  Stress. It comes with the startup game, or anytime you become your own boss.

I finally found some relief in my third year of business when I was able to hire employees to take work off my plate. That meant I had more time to exercise. But I was at my highest weight ever at 145 lbs. So I took out my trisuit and went swimming, cycling and running again. Back then, I felt that I could handle a loaf of bread a day no problem. At that weight and the rate I was burning, it was easy to consume a loaf a day.

That was why the 90 loafs in 90 days experiment was possible.  I was even hoping that I would lose weight, but the training period and my high caloric consumption for the Triathlons just wasn’t conducive to losing weight. I did, however, maintain my weight throughout that period with bread and for the rest of the year.

But you look good, why lose weight?

I was really pushing the upper limits of my BMI. Which means that I have excess fat I’m carrying around. I don’t need it. Not on my back, not on my knees. Especially not when I’m running the 5K of my triathlon (maybe that’s why I’m so slow for that leg – no wait, I’m just bad at running). Anyway, I’m confident that if I get rid of that 10lbs, I can be faster in the overall race this year at the HAAG lake Triathlon.

This week, I added Dave’s Killer Bread Epic Everything Bagel into my diet. Can you imagine a person eating a bagel a day and still losing weight? This is how I’m doing it:

Food	Portion	Calories
Multi grain bread	4 slices	440
DKB Epic Everything Bagel	1	260
Butter	2 Tbsp	200
Orange Juice With Calcium and Vitamin D	8 oz	110
Strawberry Jam	2 Tbsp	70
Green grapes	1 Cup	65
Apple slices	1 Cup	60
Friend Egg	1	90
Steamed Broccoli	1C	55
Chocolate Eggs*	6pc	160
Total Calories		1510

*chocolate eggs are not part of a healthy diet. However, I have a weakness for Cadbury’s chocolate eggs, and if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am addicted to them.