Unhealthy, Wealthy, and Unwise

As my mid to late 30's came along, several major changes, good and bad, came about. In October 1997, at age 36, I completed my tech school education at Heald for computers and electronics. The week before graduation, I landed a full time job as a systems operator for $14/hr plus lots of overtime hours. At last, my self esteem had some momentum as I achieved some success career-wise.

Very nearly the end of that same year, Mom passed away. There was an inheritance of which I received the lion's share. Now, I was making $40+K per year and had quite a tidy sum in the bank. This is not to brag, but to set the scene of where I was in life at that time. I was nowhere near a millionaire, but I sure tried to live like one at times. Obviously, I was not prepared to be in the financial position I suddenly found myself in.

One thing I did correctly was to buy a house while the market was still sharply rising and would do so for years to come. There I was, rattling around in a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house all by myself for over 4 years. Unfortunately, I made numerous poor decisions. An unnecessary refinance on my house, a gently used truck that I paid cash for and really didn't need, a LEASE on a mini-van for some crazy reason. There were usually 3 nice vehicles in my garage or driveway. A person can only drive one vehicle at a time, right?

Now besides the irresponsible spending, there was the matter of my spiraling weight gain. About the worst thing in the world for a drug addict or an alcoholic is to have big money land in his or her lap while in the depths of addiction. Well, food is a lot less expensive than drugs or alcohol. I had carte blanche to whatever I wanted to eat whenever I wanted to eat. Whatever vehicle I chose to drive on a particular day, it was a struggle to wedge myself into it and out of it. When I drove, the steering wheel sunk into my ample flesh, often giving me fresh bruises or skin irritation.

The point is that while I had all this alleged financial freedom, I had absolutely NO discipline! Many, many times I've said to people while in the midst of this massive weight-loss, "Discipline brings rewards." I will also say from painful experience that lack of discipline will cost you dearly. Physically AND financially. I am much happier now in my current physical condition without the money than I ever was with a swollen bank account and body to more than match.

On vacation July 2011

Hamming it up April 2012. Keeping the weight off, yes?

Now we've decided to set a new goal. My "ultimate" goal weight of 250 had been accomplished, so we might as well go above and beyond. The unimaginable was now on the horizon and I was going for under 230 lbs.! As a bit of extra incentive, a friendly wager was established with a fellow client of FullForce. I had 60 days to get to a weight below his. I was actually competing to weigh less than a guy shorter than me.

And off I went, not only training with RG, but continuing with the early morning spin classes before work and the water aerobics. It became a need for me to distance myself from the old me as much as possible and it continues to this day. Now I must become better and better and better, which I consider a good addiction.

This other gentleman was being trained by one of the other trainers and the contest turned into a lot of good-natured trash talking amongst the four of us. It was a healthy, high-spirited atmosphere which did us all a lot of good. Good healthy competition can only improve a person.

The big day finally arrived and we had our weigh-in. My friend weighed in at about 231 or 232. Then I stepped on the scale...and it read...227 lbs.! This was the least I ever weighed as an adult. Even as far back as 8th Grade I don't think I was this light. The contest was won. More importantly, my health and fitness were not only at their peak, but there was no reference point from my past to compare the feeling to! Every day I walked around feeling like a fully charged battery. No words could do justice to the feeling of pride and accomplishment.

At this time, RG told me that we were no longer training for weight loss. We were now going for strength and flexibility. That made sense as my weight really couldn't get any lower for my height and frame. An incredible situation that I never dreamed possible!

  

Sad But True

This part of my life is difficult to share, much less talk about. Yet, it is far too significant to omit. It is not my intention to be morbid or to depress the reader, but it is what it is and it needs to be said. Read on at your discretion.

My 30's were rather cluttered with funerals. It seems more family members and a friend or two passed away during this time than any other. It began tragically in 1992. My nephew, Brian, who was the only child of my brother Jeff, was pushed into oncoming traffic on a busy main street in Hayward, CA. Idiot ass, waste of life gang-banger pretending to be a real tough guy chooses the son of my deceased brother as a target and an entire branch of the family tree gets pruned.

Less than a year later, Dad dies after a long period of battling illnesses too numerous to count. Seems like life punched him in the gut so many times it was a wonder he could breathe. When he was laid off his job with General Cable that he held for over 25 years, he was no longer the bread-winner of the family. Mom took over this role with her post office career. Dad felt as though he was emasculated. It sent him spiraling into a deep depression and a feeling of worthlessness. He became paranoid and refused to leave the house. In his last decade, he suffered three nervous breakdowns and it was heartbreaking to visit him while he was hospitalized for this. Ultimately, he just wound up shutting down internally and that was that.

Late in 1997, Mom routinely comes home from work after her graveyard shift. She stops at Wendy's to enjoy a frosty as she likes to do occasionally. Then, for whatever reason, her heart simply stopped beating, her head slumped down, and it was over. She did have a pacemaker for some years, but she was a spry, active 73 year old woman who literally worked until the day she died. I'll admit my relationship with her wasn't the smoothest, but, conflicts or not, we were still mother and son.

If you still have your parents, do your best to enjoy each other. It is still a very odd, haunting feeling after 15 years to not have them around.

Another nephew and a sister died when I was in my 40's and I'll discuss that as that part of the timeline arrives. A close friend from my job at Varian stayed friends with me after I left in April 1997. I continued to visit him and his beautiful blond Brazilian wife and 2 daughters. After a while I noticed he started looking depressed. He was getting a gut on him and he seemed not to really care. I should have said something, I guess. Then some time passed, I became very busy, and I didn't visit for about a year. Finally, I dropped by one day only to have his wife tell me that he passed away. Shocking! My mind could not wrap itself around this revelation. He was one of a few people who told me I was their only friend. Well, now I had one less friend.

One thing that surfaced from all this was the fact that the only time our family really gathered together was at funerals. It further soured my opinion of the closeness (or rather, the lack of it) of the family to which I belonged. To this day I remain highly cynical of my relatives and family units in general. Does that make me a bad guy? Hope not...

Happiness is the Farmers' Market



Whole Foods for clean foods  

Now the push is on to reach the goal of breaking the 250 lb. weight mark. We train on the TRX (a fantastic device resembling a long adjustable strap with two handles on each end), we train on the assisted pull-up machine. Push-ups, inchworms, alligator walks, and an introduction to an object called a kettle bell. Continued water aerobics, spin classes, Stair Climber sessions, incline treadmill and elliptical machine at the corporate gym.

Then the day comes! I weigh in and the scale reads exactly 250 lbs.! RG and the other proprietors of FullForce are SO proud of me, but not as proud as I am of myself. Two and a half years and 282 lbs. of work, discipline and dedication have led to my rebirth as a fit, strong, new me!

With his usual class, RG treats me to a steak dinner with all the fixin's at Tahoe Joe's and we are joined by MS (one of the co-owners of FullForce) and significant others. One of the more memorable evenings of my lifetime, and the steak never tasted so good...

Next time, I hit rock bottom...in a good way!

Sailing Right Along...Into Danger!

So now I'm blundering my way into my fourth decade. At age 30 I weighed in at around 360 lbs. This is alarming, to be sure. Awareness of the danger is not lost on me. Yet there seems to be no urgency to do anything serious about it for any significant length of time. How ironic; in my 30's I had the body age of a senior citizen and now, at 51, I feel like a man in his mid to late 20's.

The older a person gets, the faster time seems to pass. As I inched my way closer to middle-age, the pounds kept piling up. Unfortunately, my age 30 weight was an abnormally high starting point for the "middle-age spread" to start. Most people gain a few pounds per year at this time. I can say with a degree of certainty that I packed on about 20 lbs. each year on average.

Miraculously, any time I had a physical check-up, my blood counts came back normal, my blood pressure was borderline high at worst, there was no diabetes, and my cholesterol count was always below 200 (although it once got to 199). Further, I could walk around where and when I needed to. However, running became impossible. There were times when my chronic left knee would swell up without warning. There were flare-ups of bursitis in my left hip that made it hell to walk even a few steps. I became winded at the drop of a hat; every 10th breath or so I'd have to deeply inhale. Sleep apnea sauntered its way into my life and many times I'd wake myself up gasping for breath or catching myself snoring. By the way, on the rare occasion of sharing a room with someone, I'd snore them right out the door. Nice life, huh?

Around age 30, I was working at the last temp assignment of my career. One day on the job, it dawned on me that I brought in a full 2-Liter bottle of Coke. At the end of the 8-hour shift, the bottle was empty. I didn't spill any of it and I didn't share it with anyone. I drank it. More than half a gallon of Coca Cola consumed in less than 8 hours! I also remember clearly that day one of my co-workers asking me how I had the energy to work as hard as I did all day long. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was really a left-handed compliment. Apparently, someone of my girth was supposed to be unable to do his share of the work that was expected. I chuckled unwittingly and joked that drinking a 2-Liter bottle of Coke highly elevated my energy level. This was one enormous red flag trying to scream at me: "DO SOMETHING, YOU'RE KILLING YOURSELF!".

Soon after this I landed a permanent job with a company called Varian Associates. This job was the longest time of employment in any one place in my life. I worked for them for 6 1/2 years. I settled into routines and behavior patterns that highly enabled my ever increasing weight and decreasing health. In contrast, after about 4 years in my first apartment, I changed residences quite frequently. A relocation on the job, financial considerations, living conditions of the current residence would all force me to live somewhat nomadically. The stress of frequent moves also accelerated my rationale for eating as I pleased.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

I'll be sharing other deeper personal experiences of my 30's next time.

How's your food journal coming along?

All right, then. I'm under 300 lbs. now and that's phenomenal! But there's plenty more to do. My ultimate goal, after all, was to get below 250 lbs. Right around this time, FullForce Personal Fitness has left the launching pad and, for the most part, I've migrated to the new facility with my 3 friends.

As the ultimate goal came into sight, the workouts got ever more challenging. It was just stupendous to be doing things for the first time ever or in a very long time. I once did a full, straight-backed, chest to the ground push-up in 8th Grade. One. Now, I was doing 5 of them at a time. Then 10. Then 10 push-ups became a routine exercise that followed other segments of the workout. In a half hour session, RG sneakily had me doing 70-100 full range of motion push-ups! Another first came about way back when I was training with my original trainer. I was in my first few months of this oddyssey and I got to the point where I actually ran for the first time in many, many years. I didn't realize it until 1 of my 3 friends from FullForce told me that day that while I ran, my face was beaming with pride! It was a real epiphany.

Another exercise that dripped the pounds off me was called inchworms. I learned to do them at the old gym and got proficient at them at FF. I started doing them for longer distances, RG pushing the levels of my endurance ever further. I left sweat trails. At times, I cried out in agony. When I did that, the other trainers yelled out encouragement for me to push through. And I did. I'll leave it to the reader to look up what inchworms consist of, but it evolved to the point that as I walked my hands out to starting push-up position, I did one. So it was inchworm up, inchworm down, push-up, repeat.



Ugh! And there's room to spare!



While all this was going on, 2 days per week I'd go to the original gym and do water aerobics. 2 other days per week I'd go there at 6AM to do Spin class for 45 minutes on the stationary bikes before work. By now I was completely consumed with reaching that under 250 number. I kept up the journal and the healthy eating habits. I had no idea where things would go once I reached that goal, but reach it I would!

And did! Find out what happened that happy, happy day and beyond next time...