On Being a Fat Bastard
At one point back in mid-April, I stepped on the bathroom scale and was surprised by what I saw. Shocked, even. I was a solid fift...no, more precisely, I was a flabby fifteen pounds heavier than I thought, or believed, or fantasized, I was.
I finally reached a point where I was not only disappointed in my own appearance, but sickened.
So I started swimming, and after a couple months started regular Nautilus circuits. I ran a little during the day, but- as expected- it's a little too hard on my tibiae; treadmill might be better than the track in that regard, but I loathe treadmills.
Much of September was a total wash, due to a ridiculous side project I was working on, and frankly I needed that hour-a-night of gym time to work on it. I'm trying to get back into an exercise routine but that project is becoming like poop on your shoe, except for the most peritnent distinction: that the poop is paying you for being there.
Anyway, as of last Saturday I was down 31 pounds from my April grossness. Given the vagaries of the last six weeks or so, I probably scraped 30 in early September. All of my fat pants have gone to Goodwill, and a coupla pairs I bought to replace those are on their way out. But without all this extracurricular work, and a little more discipline, I would probably be closing in on 50 pounds by now. I've pushed that off to the end of the calendar year, but as long as my side work doesn't go away, the weight probably won't either.
But back on point, it's pretty sobering to lose 12-13% of your body weight and still be a fat bastard. I mean, I keep realistic goals in mind- like fitting into the shorts I bought months ago with the 32 waist. Looking like Brad Pitt in Fight Club is out of the question for a working slob who just crossed into the latter half of his 30s. But I know though that slicing off another 20, 25 pounds is possible and achievable (besides, I did it once before as a much younger man), and if I can look in the mirror and not feel nauseous, I think I've won.
And those 32 shorts: I can button them, but I look like a balloon with a rubber band around it.
Which is progress.
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I've learned to embrace my fat-bastardness.
I have more hobbies now than ever, and simply don't have time to go to a gym. I do try to let my friends' dog take me for a run now and then, and walk places instead of drive when I have time.
I figure as long as I don't have to wash myself with a sponge on a stick I'm doing OK.
Nicholas,
I too had made peace with the fact that I was just going to be a big fat guy. I even bought a Hawaian shirt to kind of really embrace the whole thing. But, G*d as my witness, I got too big for it in like a year.
Except for two things, I would probably have remained a
fat(ter) bastard:
-Actually seeing how much I weighed when I stepped on the scale and being surprised and repulsed; and
-A little boy who likes, and needs, to rough-house with his dad.
It just dawned on me that in the coming years, as he's going to want to keep going and going, I'm going to want to be slowing down. And I didn't like that.
GL, I am faced with the same…
GL, I am faced with the same quandary. An ever-more active four year old boy requires a little more on the fitness side than, say, a six month old boy that is incapable of independent movement.
Soccer, dodgeball, hikes in the (very, very, steep) woods. If nothing else, just doing this stuff should get me in shape.
B,
Unless, unless, you are as far gone as I was/am. The only way to make real progress, if your goal is losing weight, is consistent effort.
If you are already in half-decent shape, I bet activities such as you describe will keep you from falling into a hole in your couch so deep, you will never be able to fart yourself out of it.
Your hikes, of course, also put you and yours at the mercy of parasitic organisms. Very few such critters can survive the truly *fantastic* concentrations of chlorine bleach in the pool at the gym.
I myself am on the fry…
I myself am on the fry grease and donut path to fat bastardom. Googling... according to one online body-mass thingy chart, I am right on the line between overweight and obese for my height. My ideal weight, according to them, is about fifty pounds less than current.
Maybe I should eat less, exercise more, stop smoking, stop drinking, eat bran, give up heroin, crack and pcp, stop sniffing glue, huffing gasoline, walk around the house instead of using the electric wheelchair, and throw out the nitrous tank.
BMI is kinda goofy without knowing anything about muscle composition and general health condition or fitness. If you're a 6 ft man who is 270 of hippy-smashing muscle, you're obese?
In Olden Tymes, the Army would weigh you on a regular basis. If you were over for your height and age, you got the tape-measure treatment: neck, chest, abdomen. If you passed the tape, no problem. That's how they split out the dudes who were big but fit from the fatbodies.
So plugging in my prior weight made me solidly, uh, flabblingly, obese. As of right this second I am just about dead center overwight.
I need to carve off another 25 lbs to be at the high-end of "normal". Although use of that word is certainly subject to interpretation.
At the gym or pool? Yeah I'm overweight. At Wal Mart? I'm nearly malnourished.
If you were a female, you would know that the rubber-band-around-balloon look is known as a "muffin top." Which is just a cuted-up phrase for "flab-ass gut." I don't have any children to chase, so my only excuse for exercise is running after the dogs, and most of the time I avoid that by letting them outside on 30-foot leads so they can run around while I sit on the sofa mainlining lard and marinating in alfredo sauce.
As for my fat ass, my doctor takes some blood from me every once in a while and goes, "Whoa! Your thyroid and important accompanying hormones are all jacked up! Here. Take these pills and don't eat anything, ever."
Right now I'm doing my best to eat an "insulin-resistance diet," which basically means no carbohydrates unless they taste like cardboard, small amounts of chicken and turkey, and lots of vegetables except for the tasty ones.
I also ordered and have in my possession a workout DVD called "Hip-Hop Abs," ordered several months ago in a moment of weakness and self-pity well past the witching hour. If I ever elect to tear off the cellophane and give it a shot, I'll let you guys know if doing cardio to the melodious strains of Ludacris is any less painful than doing cardio to, say, a muzak version of Kylie Minogue.
One kid isn't such a big deal, but three kids will make you gain an unbelievable amount of weight. I'm just thrilled to STILL fit into the 38" waist pants I've been in for years. Yeah, I'm big, but at least I ain't gettin' much bigger. I lost thirty pounds when I was unemployed (I figured, what else is there to do, I might as well exercise). Then I gained half of it back. At least I can claim to have put on muscle mass from moving all the stuff I do sans forklift. But writing, after all, is slightly less sedentary than surfing the internets. I bet I just burned like three calories with this comment. LOL
Ian