I am losing weight again. It is embarrassing to have to admit that again - even if it was only to myself and not to all of you who might be reading this. I am happy right now with my progress - 20 lbs since the first of the year, 27 lbs since mid December. I am actually running this time. Most of the other times I lost weight there was not an exercise part to the equation. And the exercise part feels good too. I have more energy and I have a sense of accomplishment as my times on the mile run, 3 mile run, and 5 kilometer runs get smaller in tandem with my very own self getting smaller.
What is embarrassing is the fact I not only let myself get out of hand again, but I let it go so far this time. Two years ago I stepped on a scale in a doctor's office and was literally shocked at how bad it had gotten. There is a trick the eyes or the brain plays on you (who knows, they may be in cahoots with the stomach in a giant gastrointestinal plot), but most of us fat people can't see how fat we are. I have heard others talk about this so I know its not just me.
The sizes of your clothes go up, ... but gradually, so you think you've only "put on a few". Before you know it, you have a closet full of clothes you can't wear at all and a select few items in there that are just "really comfortable". But it doesn't ring a bell because it all creeps upon you so slowly.
You might think that unless the fat guy is a vampire, he has a freaking mirror that could point out the sad truth. Ahhh, but remember, the eyes are in on this flim flam game. Fat people have no idea looking in the mirror exactly how fat they are. It is one of the greatest optical illusions out there. I have no idea how it works. Do we turn ourselves just so, angle our chin(s) just right, so as to minimize what we see? If we do, it is all subconscious.
But pictures don't lie. Pictures catch the unflattering pose and the sag of fat in areas that in the mirror just don't look like that. More than once I have had pictures taken and sat and stared at them knowing that the image is me but marveling at how I had gone months without ever encountering this particular "me". There is a famous saying that the "camera adds ten pounds". That saying has been around since before I was born. I wonder if it was an actor or actress that was the ball of self loathing and vanity that prompted the first sycophant to coin that lie. The camera tells the truth.
So do scales. I think to avoid this embarrassment in the future I am going to have to commit to weighing myself once a week for the rest of my life. It makes sense. You wouldn't think of going months without checking your bank account information, why would you ignore your health for months at a time? The stupidity of that leaps out at me when I type it - kinda the point of this post.
The weight is coming off though and the exercise is actually an enjoyable challenge - I fight to get my times lower and the competition of healthy me versus fat slob me is a fun one. And I do picture that in my head while I am running. The voice that tells me that I am too tired to continue is FAT SLOB ME. The voice that wants to sit down with a pint of ice cream is FAT SLOB ME. The voice that wants to take any of the disappointments of the day and drown them in beer and chicken wings is FAT SLOB ME.
I have called FAT SLOB ME all kinds of names in my head. This morning while running I punished FAT SLOB ME. He wanted to stop running after the first 20 minutes because of the heart burn I had from last night's chili. I cussed him out with the best words I ever learned from the old saw mill and turned the resistance up on the machine for 15 minutes until he whimpered and went away.
I know that's crazy but it is working for me. Having a food scale is another thing that is working for me. The last time I counted calories and lost a lot of weight, I avoided pork and beef all together. It was skinless, boneless, tasteless chicken breasts all the time. This time around I found out the calories per ounce of pork loin and roast beef and used the food scale to finally realize just how much food 4 ounces of meat actually is.
Roast pork with a side of garlic red wine vinegar green beans is a fantastic meal.
I still eat everything. I still have a beer and / or a glass of wine on occasion. But I count the calories for it. I tend to do frozen yogurt now instead of ice cream. The taste has improved leaps and bounds since the 80's (when I first tried it) and the calorie impact is really small. So my menu is encouraging and enjoyable too.
And here is a fun fact. Went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago. She is really excited about my weight loss too. She only wants to me to lose another 50 lbs. She thinks that weight will be easier for me to maintain and limit my health risks. My goal is to lose another 75 - that would take me to the ideal weight for a man of my height and age. And it would really piss off FAT SLOB ME too.
But the fun fact - we did blood work on my last visit. I am just about in perfect health except for the weight. I don't have enough of the good cholesterol - which has Priscilla pushing fish oil pills on me like a drug dealer who is afraid of not making her quota for the cartel. But my bad cholesterol is good, my sugar levels are great, my liver function is perfect, and I am stunningly handsome. Don't argue with me - its medical science!
God has blessed me with an opportunity to go into the second half of my life with the best possible chance to avoid an early death and some of the most debilitating diseases that too many of us inflict upon ourselves. It would almost be blasphemous to not take advantage of this opportunity. My dad didn't. He was diagnosed early with "sugar" as we called it then. Doctors tried to control it with diet, but Dad didn't. He finally wound up having to take insulin. He had his first heart attack just a few years later. Within 10 years of that, he was dead at the age of 58.
There is so much about my father's life that I can only hope to emulate. He gave money to those who needed it more than him when he didn't really have enough to be giving any away. He taught us boys to think and question (regretted that last one sometimes). He taught us pride and humility. He taught us to look at the sacrifice of Christ with awe and shame and sadness and joy - he couldn't talk about the thief on the cross who acknowledged the Godhood of Jesus without his voice cracking. He taught us to honor our elders even as he showed us honestly and humbly that they were not always honorable.
When I first moved out of his and Mom's house he sat at the end of my bed and told me things about the world and about me and about him. I know at some point I will share all of those with you because that is just what I do. The one thing I will share today is that he walked me through a list of things in his life that he had handled poorly and asked me to learn from his mistakes without having to make them myself.
I am too embarrassed to list all the things on that list of his that I have unfortunately checked off on my own list as I lived a life of which he would have been both proud and ashamed. And I was well on my way to checking off the way his life ended on my list. Sometime imitation is not the finest form of flattery. Sometimes the best way to honor a memory is to walk the other path.
All of this is not to say that I will succeed in losing all the weight. And even if I do lose it all, it doesn't mean I will keep it off. One of the things I have learned from the weight going up and down and up and down is that good intentions count for nothing. Every day I have to choose to live my life differently than I used to live it. Every day I have to look FAT SLOB ME in the eye and say, "One more mile."
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