I may or may not have been holding a cheeseburger during this picture
Happy New Year! It’s been a little while since my last post, but I’ve been very busy between family, work and of course, swimming. I took on a “lighter” workout schedule for December, and by light, I still swam about 95,000 yards (I swam 150,000 yards in November for comparison) albeit with a less disciplined approach. I did this for a couple reasons. First, I do not want to burn out. I’ve been training for over a half a year and wanted to give my body a little bit of a rest. My shoulders/rotator cuffs were in desperate need of this break. Second, I wanted to give my mind a break. Swimming a hundred plus laps 5 to 6 days per week in a pool can be difficult to maintain. Third, and most importantly, I used the month of December to pack on some weight.
In order to help protect my body from the cold water in the English Channel (if you already didn’t know, I’m only wearing a pair of speedos during my swim), I need to get fatter.
Back in May/June, I weighed in at around 180 pounds. The photo of the scale (above) is from the last week in December (I’ve actually gained another pound and a half since this photo was taken, but I’ve since learned that taking a picture in the locker room is highly frowned upon, so I was unable to document it). If you can’t tell from the photo, I’m about 22 pounds heavier. This is a big deal for me. I’ve never weighed over 190 pounds in my life.
When I look in the mirror I don’t think I look any fatter, but my pants says otherwise.
So what exactly have I been eating? Everything in front of me! Put it this way, I burn per day, on average, around 3500-4000 calories. This means that I need to consume substantially more than that each day to gain the necessary weight. While that may sound awesome to some, it is not as glamorous as it sounds (try downing a burrito and three tacos at Chipotle and let me know how you feel).
As far as everything else goes, I’ve decided on a charity to help raise money for and will be announcing that very soon. Also, now that the swim is THIS YEAR (Holy Sh!t), I will be posting on this blog more frequently. I really encourage you to sign up for my newsletter at www.jonathanheilman.com. I do post my blog on social media, but sometimes it gets lost in the feeds if you haven’t been online for awhile.
Until next time,
Jon