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...