I TURNED 58 YESTERDAY

I HOPE I HAVE MADE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE

The year ahead will be one of difficult and challenging transition.

Details about major changes will be shared in early 2023.

I always try to write a blog post tied to my birthday, something different than the other 364 posts of the year.

I have long contemplated writing my own obituary.

I have pre-written obits of well-known people when I was a journalist.

It’s common practice to have them at the ready with a significant person is very old or ill.

But I keep thinking if I post it, maybe someone will think I’ve expired, am about to or am in the mood to expedite the journey to the other side.

Not the case on all counts.

So how to do a bit of an I love me post without crafting my own obituary in paragraph structure.

Well, how about bullet points.

To date, 40 years living as an adult, I have: 

1.     Completed projects in some of the greatest cities of the world

2.     Traveled – solo and together – to even more of the best cities on earth

3.     Written a one-of-kind special section on one of Columbus, Ohio’s poorest hardscrabble neighborhoods

4.     Won major awards for my journalism

5.     Been my editor’s nominee for the Pulitzer Prize

6.     Had my work published in more than 100 newspapers and magazines

7.     Posted daily to a blog for nearly a decade

8.     Produced cover stories on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility

9.     Produced center-spread major feature articles on urban design, planning, architecture, engineering, mobility, sustainability, housing and growth

10. Ghost written trade journal article and op-ed pieces for clients

11. Spoken in the grand ballroom at the American Planning Association national conference

12. Given a key lecture in Paris at the International Making Cities Livable global gathering

13. Spoken about Universal Design in planning at the APA Florida statewide conference

14. Written a winning proposal for presentation at the American Institute of Architects national conference

15. Written an award submission that won the APA’s highest nationwide honor for a client

16. Been on planning teams recognized with APA statewide and regional awards

17. Led the communications for an urban design studio that more than doubled in size during my tenure

18. Led marketing for a globally honored international architecture firm

19. Led business development for a legacy engineering firm that expanded its walkability and multimodal practice

20. Served as the senior policy advisor to the chair of the Miami City Commission – within three years of moving from Ohio

21. Wrote the legislation for affordable homeownership in Little Havana

22. Contributed to a project that created a pedestrian walkway connecting Miami’s greats historic main streets – Calle Ocho and Coral Way

23. Served as point person for the elected official who cast the deciding vote to adopt Miami 21, the first citywide form-based code in America

24. Created a groundbreaking Universal Design course for the undergraduate and graduate levels

25. Taught the revolutionary Universal Design course at a top 10 school of architecture

26. Contributed writing and research to the largest trade association in America for two decades

27. Contributed content to the nation’s largest non-profit for people with spinal cord injuries for 20-plus years

28. Advised world leaders on how to improve housing, transit, workplaces, parks, services and daily living for people with disabilities

29. Advised corporations on diversity, equity and inclusion – through the lens of disability advocacy

That’s 29, half of 58.

I’d like to think there are 29 more great accomplishments, but there’s no need to keep writing.

I thank those who read this essay to completion.

THIS STUFF WORKS

 I’M LIVING PROOF

It’s all about flexibility, options – housing, transit and work places that meet a broad spectrum of training, talent, income and physical ability. 

The approach to development patterns and spending that Chuck Marohn (of Strong Towns) advocates for is a clear route to inclusion, equity and accessibility.

It eliminates bond issues for 3-lane roads to SprawlVille and 2 new highway lanes that never do anything to reduce traffic congestion.

It also pays a pretty nifty benefit.

If you simply eat more fresh, local, healthy food and walk around a lot (and demand more walkability and connectivity if your town lacks it) – you regain your health (physical and mental) and your future.

THIS STUFF WORKS

I’M LIVING PROOF

Building, or in most cases, rebuilding a Strong Town simply gives options.

My wife uses a wheelchair for mobility and the efficiency of a wheelchair ramp equipped van – to overcome broad gaps in transit and connectivity in Greater Miami, makes sense for us.

We live in a 100-year-old accessibility-adapted small house, on the smallest buildable lot, in dense urban neighborhood. 

So, we are proof that you don’t have to move into a condo or apartment tower to support smart urban growth.

THIS STUFF WORKS

I’M LIVING PROOF

Compact development, investing in existing main streets and city corps works.

It prevents wasting millions (make that billions) of dollars on the sprawl growth game that never produces for the city budget as promised.

It works in small, medium and large towns.

It does not take your sedan away from you and force you to live in a 300 SF hipster walkup apartment over a liquor store in some blighted part of town.

THIS STUFF WORKS

I’M LIVING PROOF

Two years ago, I weighed 310 pounds.

I actually still walked quite a bit while in Europe on vacation, but my blood work produced stats of a man who should be looking at favorite cemeteries for burial rather than a plan for teaching and consulting in semi-retirement in the not-so-distant future.

I do the steps now, my joints don’t hurt.

I don’t sweat standing still.

I haven’t been sick since I started to take advantage of the urban lifestyle healthy living plan.

THIS STUFF WORKS

I’M LIVING PROOF

Instead of using two train connections, I walked farther to catch a train that would get me to within five blocks of my destination. 

I used the ferry to go to Long Island City and run along all the relatively-new public space and parks that allow one to run along the East River with spectacular skyline views to the west.

We are very close to transitioning from a two car to one car family.

The payoff for all of this?

Today, I weigh 175 pounds. 

I just had a physical and dozens of measures of health are in the upper (good) percentile for a 55+ man.

THIS STUFF WORKS

I’M LIVING PROOF

When we wanted to go someplace outdoors and different, we drove, but we did what planners strive for in 24-7 downtowns and main streets. 

We parked the car once and walked all over Brickell, Coconut Grove, Miami Beach, Coral Gables and beyond.

When it was safe to travel to Manhattan for a major project (after I got second COVID vaccine) in May, I vowed to not take a taxi, car service or rideshare – even from JFK.

I used transit, stopped in Jackson Heights on the way in to Manhattan and walked all over that diverse neighborhood.

THIS STUFF WORKS

I’M LIVING PROOF

I took advantage of living between two major urban corridors – Miami’s Calle Ocho and Coral Way – and walked to pharmacies, markets, hardware stores and other daily needs.

I bought local food and cooked it for lunch for my also working from home spouse.

We walked all over the neighborhood, masked, to the point where we documented and shared with the city – every broken sidewalk, messed up crosswalk, vacant lot, derelict house and broken bus bench in a vast swath of urban Little Havana.

THIS STUFF WORKS

I’M LIVING PROOF

For many years, I was one of the planners/planning storytellers who wasn’t so good at practicing what he preached.

I loved walkable places, mixed-use, wide sidewalks, bike paths, premium transit, parks, TOD, compact development and the like.

Then COVID hit and I could work from home, so I wasn’t in the car to commute to an office.

That meant a chance to break free of the drive through greasy lunch break and then bring home a supersized pizza on a slight detour on the way home.

THE NEW ME

I75 POUNDS – DOWN FROM MORE THAN 300

I guess this is still me.

But when I look in the mirror, I’m not sure it’s me.

I’m used to a double chin, maybe a triple.

I’m used to cropping every photo at the shoulders – because there was a mountain of fat below.

I weighed 175 pounds before I entered high school.

The last time I was ever my proper body weight for height and age was entering the summer between 2^nd and 3^rd grade.

I still may well suffer the body damages brought on by four-plus decades of obesity…I wonder aloud whether a knee or hip replacement is in my future or if overworked heart and organs will have something to say about the way I treated them.

I’d be lying if I said I no longer crave eating an entire pizza to celebrate something, or to eat two bacon cheeseburgers, a super large fry and chocolate shake to cope with something depressing.

Just this month, while in New York on business, I certainly indulged in a bit more pastrami, slice pizza, cannoli and Korean Fried Chicken than my daily regimen allows.

But I also got up early to run and took a super long walk before day’s end.

I totaled just more than 70 miles run/walked in seven days.

My poor wife didn’t see me get up early to work out more than a half dozen times in the 30+ years she’s been with me.

I’m not sure what she thinks of this guy with a closet full of men’s medium shirts and 32-inch waist pants.

For most of our life, she knew a guy that went up and up and up – till his pants waist was north of 50 and his 3XL shirts were getting tight.

I hope to share some secrets to my success. But it mainly was eating right, moving around more and most of all – believing in myself and seeing food as an energy source, not a drug of choice to medicate all that ails…plus a substitute for love when I needed a boost and celebrated by eating a 7-course meal of fatty, sugary, fried food.

THE VERY LONG ROAD TO REDEMPTION

AND A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

By the time I escaped my family’s endless descent into more toxicity, by being the first Wright ever to attend college, I knew what a reward was. A reward was a pair of bacon double cheeseburgers.

I also knew what comfort and love were. Those came in the form of downing whole pizzas with 6 toppings, or wolfing down enough giant burritos to feed four starving men.

When I realized my dad was perfectly content to ignore most of my mom’s obsessive compulsive and other damaging behavior, I salved my pain – and 40 work, 40 hours of study weeks – with newly-discovered sub shops and fatty food drive throughs open late night in downtown Akron.

It took me damn near a half century to figure out that I could confront pain and reward achievement – with something other than triple slices of cheesecake with a caloric content exceeding the recommended intake for all five work days.

I’m not all the way there. When even a hint of anxiety or depression enters my life, visions of iced brownies, XL orders of fried catfish and mountains of double buttered whipped potatoes dance in my head.

I’m an orphan now. Have been for nearly a year. Dad died of cancer a few years back and mom died in a nursing home April last year when COVID was ravaging her dementia care ward. They are at rest, maybe, freed from the demons that robbed them of much joy and burdened their two sons with shame, obesity, insecurity and mountains of unresolved issues.

I’m about as imperfect as they come. But I have a dynamite soulmate of a wife. I have a loving, if strained relationship with my only sibling.

And for the first time since I was a tiny boy, I’m eating right and exercising routinely.

 

OVEREATING -- ROOTED IN SADNESS

I WAS TAUGHT TO MAKE FOOD MY DRUG OF CHOICE

I understand the factors that made me overweight from a young age.

My late mother was severely mentally ill and dad unspeakable things to me. A chaotic and terrifying day was a good one.

A day of having everything you loved dearly -- including trinkets your beloved late grandfather gave you on his deathbed when you were nine – torn from your arms, broken then burned in a ceremony of anger and draconian punishment, those were the hard ones. And they sometimes outnumbered the “simply” torturous days of chaos and agony.

When my mom would come out of her fit of fear, anger and rage – she’d run to get her little boy a big pizza.

When she snapped out of it -- and realized she should not have told me I would be an orphan because she was either fated to die within a year or would take her life in front of me – she would bake a pie and feed me half of it.

After a round where my mom, nearly psychotic, would attack me, pummel me – then lie and tell my dad that I raised my hand to her, so he would beat me black and blue when he got home from work – she would order a 4-piece fried chicken dinner with huge breaded jo jo potatoes to some how make up for it.

When I went years without seeing a museum, park, zoo, or play on a school field trip – because her messed up mind felt I would be exposed to imagined death-causing germs for leaving the classroom – she compensated my weeping (because of being left out) with half bags of chips, pretzels and sugary sodas.

When I became isolated from all friends – I was the only kid who never was allowed to host sleep overs, or have visitors, or join a sports team – and considered a leper to be made fun of, mom would feed me a half dozen big donuts from the in-store bakery at the new super market.

From about second grade on, you can see it in my school pictures. As my tummy outgrew its little body, my eyes looked vacant, sad, mournful, hopeless.

Part 4, the final chapter, published in this blog on Sunday March 14

THE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE JOURNEY CONTINUES

NEXT UP, LOSE 25 ADDITIONAL POUNDS AND EXERCISE MORE

Carrying around a second “me” in belly and other fat took its toll.

I started realizing that when in Turkey or Morocco – I would shun restaurants that had third story dining rooms reached only by stairs.

I would skip the museum on a hilltop for a walk through a neighborhood on flat land.

I threw a fit when a budget inn told me upon check-in that the elevators was broken and wouldn’t be repaired for ages – so I would have to walk not only to my room but to the rooftop café for included meals.

I was about 50 – and not a smoker or drinker or taker of much of anything stronger than Tylenol – but my knees were killing me.

Finally, my beloved wife Heidi told me I needed a plan.

No more thinking I would walk off a giant meal.

No more fad diet, or buying an armload to Lean Cuisine dinners and figuring those would magically shrink my size by delivering a lower cal microwaved lunch and dinner.

I got an app that rates the fat/sugar/carb/protein count of food.

I made a 3.5 hour trip to the grocery, buying a lot of stuff that barely made it to our fridge and cupboards before.

I slowly, methodically threw out dozens and dozens of treats, main dishes, sauces, sweets, breads, brownie mixes and other stuff I’d been mainlining forever.

I try to walk several miles per week, but I know that portion control and cutting out a lot of stuff that is darn near poison (albeit tasty, well-marketed poison) – is the key.

I have several remaining goals:

1)     Step up the walking even more. And bicycle too.

2)     Continue to cut out some once a week treat foods – even if they are in small portions and fit within my meal plan.

3)     Keep the 100 pounds lost off of me for six months – to make sure I’m not one of those folks that celebrate reaching a goal…by consuming a bunch of “cheat” treats that were the reason I needed to drop 100

4)     Drop another 25 pounds. Yep, your read that correctly. I’m not auditioning for the role of a man on hunger strike. I simply got so out of control, that to truly be the weight I should be – for my age and height under six feet – I need to drop about 125 total, from my December 2019 starting date.

Wish me luck.

I HAVE NOW LOST 100 POUNDS

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

It started around Thanksgiving 2019.

We went out to an upscale seafood holiday buffet at a waterfront restaurant.

Overweight almost all my life (well, since 3^rd grade, but that’s almost a half century ago), I went hog wild.

Oh, the grilled finfish and chilled shellfish might have actually been decent choices.

But somewhere along the way -- gumbo with rice, starchy side dishes, breaded crab cakes, fried fish, sauces, butters, sodas and too many dessert bar trips to count – I did what I always do: eat like a starving man.

And when we got home, I didn’t even feel bad.

This became such a routine, that I didn’t feel like I had a half dozen portions of full meals – in one body.

I think just about every one of us loves food.

We crave fat and sugar.

Back when there wasn’t a drive-through on every corner and a snack count at every convenience store and gas station, we had to work all day for a meal – so if we gobbled down a bit much, it was burned off.

For me, food has a magical quality.

I fell under its spell like a person with substance abuse issues chases the high from heroin, meth or hard liquor.

Have a miserable day. Boss tore into your over nothing? Parents 1,000 miles away not speaking to your over a trivial issue? Treated your spouse poorly and raking yourself over the coals trying to figure out not only how to apologize, but also how to stop yourself from repeating bad behavior?

Eat a half a giant pizza, down a whole bag of chips, eat a third of a pie, down 6 pieces of fried fish drowned in tartar and accompanied with a mountain of French fries.

But food also was a way of patting myself on the back, of making sure the warm feeling of success felt like a zillion calories inside an ever-expanding tummy.

So a family sized serving of whipped potatoes in butter, a half a box of gourmet chocolate, a PBJ on artisanal bread with Jif and high fructose jelly spread thick as an inch – those were the way to do a victory lap, to celebrate the front page story, the closed deal with a creative client, the first day in Europe on vacation with my wife.

While I had to (or should have learned to) own this behavior for a third of a century of being an adult – I did not.

It took me decades and decades to realize that even if I didn’t care about my appearance “because hell, I was not male model or movie star,” that I was risking my health.

(more on my healthy lifestyle journey next blog post – February 28)

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.