It’s Not Me, It’s Him, Right?

90% of the Man I Used to Be

There’s photographic evidence of me being normal sized, but nothing really after 1976.  I don’t really remember when the gut appeared, or too many of my weights of my younger self.  It’s too depressing, other than it has been too high since the 3rd grade.  Not being athletically gifted, any attempt at organized sports was a bad one.  Which really hurts someone who loves to play as much as I do.  My marching band career was also hurt by my ability to even maintain a basic fitness level.

In my late 20s, I was playing dek/floor hockey twice a week and mixing in other sports as well like softball and soccer, and I finally got my weight down to 180.  Now, I wasn’t an athlete by any stretch, I wasn’t muscular, but at least by that point I was just a bit pudgy.

However, in the course of about 18 months, all of my sport playing opportunities fizzled either due to league demise or injury, so the athletic endeavors stopped.  And within no time, I was up to 230, and stayed somewhere between 220-230 for most of my 30s.

With a slight change in lifestyle by 38 I got my weight down to 215.  However, I began a long-term relationship.  Dating means eating out a lot, and the weight was back up to 225 in no time, and I just about had given up trying.  By the beginning of my 40th year, I had stopped going on the scale altogether.

Despite my resignation, things were still bothering me.  I couldn’t stand up for more than 5 minutes without being in pain.  I was perpetually tired.  I was cranky even by my standards.  Something had to change.

5 weeks ago I stepped on a scale for a dose of depressing reality and I noticed I was down to 216.  I figured that I must be doing something right, or it’s the medication, so I figured let’s take this seriously.  I figured out a few strategies to see if it would help me go further:

• Cutting out most sugar.  I miss the ice cream, I miss the weekly muffin, I miss the chocolate.  But I had to make a decision of which was more important, a two minute slight uptake in happiness, or the chance at a healthy body.  ‘B’ wins every time.  If I keep it to once or twice a week, I can still have a small fix.
• Removing/substituting minor elements from meals.  My breakfast cereal is now very plain and very fibrous.  I don’t eat potato/tortilla chips with lunch (unless they’re baked).  I try to make dinner less starchy and more leafy.  This is difficult for someone who abhors most vegetables and is indifferent to most fruits, but I am trying.
• Getting off my ass and doing something.  I started by running 1/4 mile a day in the morning.  I’m now up to 6/10 of a mile and I try to add 1/10th a week.  I know some of you do multiple miles a day, but for someone who has done nothing for 10 years, baby steps.  Soon I’ll be adding other workout elements as well.
• Skipping/curtailing the occasional meal.  If I know the day is going to involve a heavy meal (i.e. eating out, social event), I try to make one other meal of that day more of a snack.

It’s all sensible, and it’s working.  I’m not eating only grapefruit, I’m not doing a power flush, I’m not drinking chemical shakes all day long.  But since Memorial Day weekend, I have lost 14 pounds: 216 to 202.  And even though it thrilled me to say that my scale read 199 this morning, I use a 7 day average to track progress, so I consider myself at 202.  Using the average keeps me from getting depressed if I bump up one day.

I’ve now set what may be a somewhat unrealistic goal of 165.  I probably haven’t been 165 since Jr. High, and that’s when I was 5’6″.  I got down to the mid 170s my senior year of college — 32″ bass drums and lots of marching will help that out, and I remember even then I was still a little pudgy, so I know it’s not out of the realm.  My hope is to hit this by March 1, 2011.  That’s 34 weeks from now and I have 37 pounds to go.

In the meantime — does anyone need any size 40 pants?