HAPPY AND HEALTHY

NOT SHARING THIS TO BRAG ON ME, BUT TO MOTIVATE OTHERS

Anyone who knows me remembers that from second grade on, I was overweight.

I soared to more than 300 pounds.

On my 55th birthday, my test results showed cholesterol double what it should + pre-diabetes.

This week, I received results with numbers better than an average 30 year old.

I started walking a lot more.

I traded pizzas and double cheeseburgers with a basket of fries -- for salads, veggie stir fries and grilled fish.

'Za and burgers are for rare special occasions.

The photo is from the day I walked 45 KM -- that's longer than a marathon -- in one day in Portugal.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO (A HEALTHIER) ME

I’VE TAKEN OFF ABOUT 70 POUNDS THIS YEAR

I’m not a big birthday guy.

Mine is the 22^nd, this Thursday.

We will probably do more for Halloween.

And we never go out on the date itself, unless it falls on a Saturday or Sunday.

Call us pragmatic children of the Midwest.

The big thing to mark this year, more so than accomplishing 56 years on earth, is my weight loss.

On Thanksgiving 2019, we went to a seafood buffet.

I turned it into a see food buffet.

I ate about 20 plates of everything in site including breads, starches and desserts.

Easily blowing up the healthy, low calorie value of seafood.

In early December, my bride of a third of a century suggested some lifestyle changes.

We focused on weight loss.

I’ve been fat all my life.

Actually, up to second grade, I was skinny as a rail.

But my mom fell into terrible mental illness in the early 1970s.

She said “sorry” by heaping on fatty food.

I medicated with mass quantities.

Let’s just say by the time I started looking at portion control and introducing more fruits and veggies, I was getting up to NFL lineman weight.

And that was on a 5-10 frame, not a 6-4 frame of a big boned left tackle.

I started learning stuff. Like that a granola bar seemed like a better choice than a candy bar, but that many have more fat and calories than a few squares of dark chocolate.

And I used to think I was doing great eating a half cup of raisins. Or a gulping a big glass of orange juice.

Till I found out sugar in those.

I knew eating the better part of a whole pizza, even a small one, was wrong.

Little did I know that once slice of a cheese pizza was more calorie than a healthy eater should down for lunch.

So here we are, 70 pounds lighter.

A flight of stairs no longer is the enemy.

My knees don’t feel like their 90 years old.

Pants are sliding down without a smaller belt.

I’m swimming in some of my fat dude golf shirts.

The frightening thing, considering how much I’ve shed, is that I’m still fat by any measure.

I have more than a couple pounds to go to get under 200.

I'd like to reach my ideal body weight for a 5-10 man over 50.

It's won't be easy. I’ve plateaued for a few months.

They say it happens.

I need to walk more.

While I’ve done great with the calories and food choices, I’ve not exercised enough.

I know that does great things for metabolism and even mental well-being.

I guess the same combo of stuff that kept me putting off healthy eating for more than four decades has continued to block my desire to schedule some walks around the neighborhood park.

I know I don’t have to join a gym, buy equipment and do cardio till I pass out.

A healthy body is two simple things. Eat less (and better) and move around more.

Here’s to calling myself out in public in this blog.

Guess my birthday gift to myself is pretty obvious.

Time to start walking.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, 

I RESOLVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO MY HEALTH

From the time I was little, I ate whatever I wanted in whatever quantity made me feel full.

It’s a long story – one that will be told on this blog sometime in 2020 – but suffice to say my mom was severely mentally ill and often abusive.

In her rare times of being lucid and contrite, she would cook an insane amount of food for me as a way of saying sorry.

A little kid, barely 5, would be served enough lasagna, garlic bread, veal cutlet and cake to feed a crew of Olympic swimmers in training.

Fruits and vegetables were rarely on the dinner table.

Thus began a century of associating 5,000+ calorie days with being loved.

Feeling down, eat an entire pizza.

Celebrating something great, get $300 worth of food from a $100 gourmet brunch.

I turned 55 in 2019 and by the end of the year, decided that maybe another round of buying bigger pants, shirts and belts…was not the answer.

So I am on my journey.

Healthy eating and exercising seems as exotic and faraway to me as the images of Marrakech, Morocco displayed at the top and bottom of this page.

But day by day, I am getting used to shopping healthy, cooking healthy, eating healthy.

Wish me luck as I add some healthy moderation to my life.