Time to Trim Down

Well another year has come and gone, and as of Wednesday of this week, I am 29 years old.  I had a decent year last year, lots of good things went my way, and the bad things weren't too much to handle, so I really can't complain about much.  Oh, except that I'm getting fatter.

Yep, the old metabolism has gone and died on me, and I don't eat right or exercise, so it is only logical that I would begin to blow up like the Michelin Man.  This has happened to me before.  Most notably toward the end of 2004 I was a little over 200 pounds which, for my height of just 5 feet 9 inches, put me dangerously close to being clinically "obese".  At that point I made a pact with my former college roommate, who was also having some weight trouble, that we would work out, eat right and just generally get in shape.  My family was going to go on a cruise at the end of April 2005 and I wanted to be looking better and feeling better by then so I could really enjoy that vacation.

Things went pretty well right up to the cruise.  I lost over 25 pounds and felt great.  I was sleeping better, had a lot more energy during the day, and I could tackle a flight of stairs without having to take a break halfway up.  But after the cruise I lost the enthusiasm that I had before and over the course of the past year and a half all of that weight has come steadily back.  Most of it got packed on during my move last year.  I kept most of the weight off until I started spending every weekend on the road and living out of my Raste's apartment.  I started drinking soda and beer again (both of which I had quit for over 9 months) and I was eating whatever convenience food I could get my hands on.  In just 2 months I put on 10 pounds, but I rationalized that after I got moved into my new house and settled down that I would be able to take it off again.

Now it's a year later, and all I've done is postpone getting fit.  If you don't purposefully make time in your schedule for working out, and if you don't plan your meals in advance, it is really easy to let a year or two slip by and cover up all that time with excuses like:  "I'm too busy."  "I'm too tired." or "I'll do that tomorrow."  But that's all over now.  Several events have transpired that I believe are going to make it easier for me to stay motivated and stay on track this time.

1) My wife became allergic to "sulfites".  This actually happened while I was at the Chicago Lan in 2006.  Leia called me and said her stomach hurt.  There wasn't anything I could do from nearly 700 miles away except tell her to see a doctor. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong at first, and she went back and forth for several weeks, sometimes feeling ok, sometimes feeling lousy and getting these weird hive-like breakouts after meals that would go away within an hour.  We knew it had to be some sort of allergy, but she kept testing negative for everything her doctor could think of.

And then Leia's specialist told her that it could be that she was allergic to sulfites.  Sulfites are very common food preservatives that are in damn near any kind of processed food you can think of and even lots of "natural" things.  Dried fruit is sprayed with sulfites.  All grapes are sprayed with sulfites.  Just about every type of corn product or anything made from "corn squeezings" has sulfites in it.  Vinegar is made from corn, and that has sulfites, so no ketchup or bar-b-que sauce is safe either.  Sulfites are used in most bread products too.  The damn stuff is ubiquitous and the only real way to make sure you aren't getting any in your diet is to cook from scratch.

So we hardly ever eat out anymore, and we can't really have convenience items (frozen pizza, etc.).  Leia bought a bread machine (which I was skeptical about, but it turns out the bread is darned tasty and easy to make) and started doing things like making her own jam.  When I'm at home I already get lots of good, healthy food to eat, which is going to make it a lot easier for me to stick to a balanced diet.

2) I took a good hard look around at work.  There are a lot of just enormous people at my job.  It is your typical office building and everybody here pretty much sits at a computer desk all day long.  We have a cafeteria that serves good ole southern fare for breakfast and lunch, and it's cheap.  I have indulged in a biscuit smothered in sausage gravy and a side of butter-drenched hash browns far more often than I care to admit.  There are plenty of vending machines scattered all over the building and each one is packed with various manifestations of trans-fat and high-fructose corn syrup.  I've gotten used to downing a 20 ounce soda with my "breakfast" and having another in the afternoon coupled with some sort of ungodly confection dispensed from the twirling metal coils of a large, glass-fronted box.  In short, I have developed eating habits in one year that some of the people in this building have had for upwards of 10 years, and I started to notice what I was going to look like if I kept up with this trend.

When I say that many of the people that I see on a daily basis are not only overweight, but morbidly obese, that is not an exaggeration.  There are numerous people in this building that are so heavy that they will not take the stairs, not even one flight, and they park in the visitors spaces right next to the building so they don't have to walk through the whole parking lot.  They take up the entire hallway when they walk down it, and their office chairs creak and groan under their bulk.  I'm not making fun of these people, in fact I am sympathetic to their plight, because I know darned well that if I don't make some serious changes now that I will share the same fate.

3) I read some startling books.  I read three books this year that I think should be required reading for every American citizen.  Even if you read them and don't believe a word they contain (although I don't think anyone could disagree with EVERYTHING in them), I still think you could get a lot out of them.  These books are: "Fast Food Nation", "Fatland" and "Don't Eat this Book".  If you only read one, you need to read "Fatland".  That is actually the book I read last, but it was the most eye opening.  The other two books focus a little more narrowly on the evils of fast food, but I already knew that wasn't good for me.  But "Fatland" just shocked the hell out of me.  America gets fatter by the day, and the book pulls no punches in telling you why that has happened.  And the book isn't political, or at least I don't think it is.  It doesn't try to blame the government, or society, or Hollywood or anything else.  It seemed to me to be much more observational, rather than accusatory.  More of a "Here's some facts, and here's what I think they mean" kinda deal. 

All of these books were startling when I first read them, but as the year has gone on and I have started to look at the food I eat and the way I live, as well as the diets and lifestyles of those around me, I find their collective message to be more and more compelling.  You may feel free to read them and draw your own conclusions, I won't tell you what to think, but I do recommend that you read these books because they have changed the way I look at the world.

4) Sunburned Goose told me about SparkPeople.com.  So, the New Year rolls around and I mention to Sunburned Goose (who lives here in Birmingham) that I'm going to get back on the wagon, start eating right and loosing weight, and he tells me that he is already doing that with the help of a website called SparkPeople.com.  Basically it is a free website that allows you to track everything you eat and how much exercise you do.  Sweet!  So I signed up and my wife signed up.  I figure this site ought to be a big help to keep me on track.  Thanks Goose!

http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage.asp?id=cranefolder

5) I talked to Wally and threw down a challenge.  As you may or may not know, WallyBR and I have somewhat of a rivalry going.  He destroys me completely in Halo 2, while I am content to best him in every other conceivable facet of life.  Fair trade by my reckoning.  I happen to know that Wally has been trying to kick start his own weight loss program and when I mentioned SparkPeople.com to him he said he was going to sign up.  I suggested that perhaps we could have some sort of ultimate fitness challenge that we expose through our 2old2play blogs and he readily accepted.  Wally also suggested that we have our final showdown at the 2old2con Lan party this year.  I think that is a damn fine idea and we are currently in negotiations over the exact events and scoring of the challenge.  I'm thinking a swimsuit contest is certainly in order, but for god's sake Wally, no thongs!!!  Think of the children man!  The children!

6) I just finished putting together my new home gym.  I had all of this fitness stuff in mind a full month ago and had decided that I would start my program on my 29th birthday.  My local Sam's Club had a nice piece of weight equipment at a good price and I decided to make that my birthday present.  I bought the gym on Sunday and have spent the past 4 days putting it together in a spare room in my basement that was just collecting junk and spiders.  I will be posting up another blog quite soon detailing that ordeal, but for now let it suffice to say that there were a lot of pieces involved.  I tightened down the last bolt around 9:30 last night and the gym is ready to go, bright and early on Monday morning.  My wife and I are going out of town for the weekend or I would be hitting that thing right away.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And there you have it, all of the reasons that I believe THIS time I will actually be able to stick with it and make permanent changes to my lifestyle and level of fitness.  I have the support of my lovely wife, my friends, my own grim future to prevent, and an archrival to humiliate.  I have already stopped drinking soda.  I had my last one on Jan. 16th, and I have promised that I will not consume a soda or any sort of artificial drink between now and April 16th.  To satisfy my thirst I'm strictly on water, milk, juices (that are 100% juice) and perhaps some green tea now and then. 

There are a lot of other things I have planned for this year, but I knew that I would have to get my fitness level up if I hope to accomplish any of them.  I'm going to need all of the energy I can get if I expect to get everything done that I want to before I turn 30.  I've only got 362 days left.  It's time to get cracking.

Oh, and Wally, try not to cry when you see your wife doing tequila shots off of my washboard abs, because "There ain't nothing sadder than seeing a fat man weep."