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Mike Schechter: Biking to Lose

By Clarissa Ersoz

Mike Schechter is not a spokesman for dieting fads and get thin quick schemes; instead he promotes all the benefits of the cycling life. He might not be on the radio or in commercials, but he’s lost more than 150 pounds in just two years. Resident of the Northwest since 1997 and cycling enthusiast since 2009, he accomplished a goal that many people find difficult, even impossible, to achieve: he lost weight, and not just a few fluctuating vanity pounds.

Born in New York, Schechter moved to the West Coast for a summer to work in the area, but found he couldn’t leave. He transferred to the University of Washington and although he traveled back east for a short hiatus to attend law school, the city of Seattle eventually coaxed him back to the Northwest.

Schechter, like many, found himself struggling with his weight, as a child and as an adult, explaining that he was never a small kid. In high school he played football and stayed active, but when he broke his leg his junior year, football fell by the wayside. He never picked up sports seriously again, but kept relatively active in college by playing intramural basketball, walking and hiking. However, the reduction in his level of physical activity and the student lifestyle of late nights and unhealthy food contributed to his weight gain. After graduating he started working at a desk, living a sedentary existence and not making healthy decisions.

Photo courtesy of Mike Schechter

Schechter before.

“I knew I was getting bigger. I needed to keep buying bigger clothes, but I had no changed image of myself, no clear picture of what I really looked like,” he explains. It was not until he saw a photo of himself at a Husky football game, dwarfing one of his coworkers, that he realized he had a serious crisis on his hands. Seeing that photo was the moment of epiphany when he recognized he needed to make some serious modifications.

Schechter experienced the same frustration with dieting that most people do. “I’d been on every diet. I would lose weight and then put it back on,” he confesses. Sometimes he had success, but he was still gaining weight. In September of 2008, he weighed 396 pounds and “it’s even possible I was over 400 at some point,” he admits.

By March 2009, Schechter decided to undergo lap band surgery to try to get his weight under control. Although he had very positive results from the procedure, he still wanted to change his habits. For him, the surgery was a tool but there were still a lot of other things that needed to happen before he could call himself healthy.

Two-and-half years before undergoing surgery Schechter had bought a bike, which sat in his basement untouched until February of 2009 — a month before his operation. At the time, a friend suggested they go ride the Burke Gilman Trail. It had been ten years since he last rode, and by the end of the outing he declared, “everything hurt.”

Photo courtesy of Mike Schechter

Schechter now.

Following his surgery, he started cycling regularly. He commuted to work, riding about eight miles each way, and sometimes even added extra distance on the way home. Although he would at times go running or use the gym, he continually chose to bike. As he puts it, “Even when you run ten miles you’re still in your own neighborhood, but you go on a 50- or 60-mile bike ride and you’re in the next county.” He began making his rides all day affairs, discovering places not accessible any other way.

“I saw an immediate change after I started biking,” he remarks. He noticed his weight decreased, his stamina increased and his confidence surged. By June 2009, Schechter felt confident enough to participate in the Livestrong Challenge, where he rode 70 miles and raised funds to fight cancer.

“That distance was no big deal and so I thought I might as well do the Seattle-to-Portland [STP] ride,” he adds. Schechter conquered the 200 miles in one weekend and after enjoying his first two events, he decided to sign up for a third, the Crater Lake Century scheduled later in the year.

“In STP you maybe climb around 4,000 feet in 200 miles, but at Crater Lake you climb probably 8,000 feet in 70 miles. It was brutal,” Schechter remarks. Although walking the bike up some of the hills, he endured and finished the ride. “I made it through and that felt great. And there’s nothing like getting over that hill and seeing Crater Lake; it was so beautiful.”

This year Schechter plans on riding 100 miles in the Livestrong Challenge, along with completing the STP in one day. He also intends to ride the Crater Lake Century on August 21, but this time without any walking. “I’ve got a new bike and I’ve been doing a lot of training, I’ve learned how to climb out of the saddle and I’ve been climbing as many hills as I can,” he proclaims.

Schechter’s future endeavors also include the half Ironman this coming October in Miami in preparation for a full Ironman in 2011. He still intends to lose an additional 40 pounds to reach his goal of weighing less than 200 pounds. “The last time I was under 200 pounds was at my bar mitzvah,” he says.

“There is no comparison between my life now and my life 150 pounds ago. When you’re fat you lead a life of avoidance,” he explains. Evading certain activities and situations to save him from embarrassment was part of his life. “It was the little things — like the size of the booths at restaurants, seatbelts on the airplane or even walking up a hill to meet a client.” Life with less weight has also been a life of less sidestepping. “I don’t say ‘no’ to things anymore.”

His advice to anyone trying to lose weight, “there’s going to be pain. You need to learn to distinguish between pain and injury,” something he learned from playing football. Schechter also admits that it will feel miserable at first, but if you endure the first few months the results will be tremendous. To all exercise or bicycle skeptics with excuses not to ride, he reiterates that the bike can take you somewhere far away, for a relatively low cost. “There’s just no excuse,” he states. Schechter is the same guy minus 150 pounds, but has a new outlook and big plans to keep riding, keep losing and keep living.