99 Pounds

Friends,

You might have read the Meat Links post here a while ago when I opine about living this veggie foodlife, and I'm now ready to report a development. I'm not giving up on it, no how, no way. I kind of like this, and it's been pretty easy. Yes, I faltered when I was at home, but it wasn't because I was so desperately in need of meat (that's what she said), but it was because the meat was there (she said that too). Here's a little mini-testimonial about liking this: The other day, Emily said that she thought a grilled Cardinal hot dog from the ballpark sure sounded good, and I disagreed with her. Now that sounds like a piddly thing, but you don't understand how much hot dogs, especially grilled hot dogs, and even more especially grilled St. Louis Cardinal Hunter Hot Dogs used to mean to me. When my parents visited, I used to ask them to bring me packages of the hot dogs, and when we went home, we stocked up on those hot dogs. There was a time earlier this year when, I kid you not, I had five packages of Cardinal hot dogs in my freezer (and since I don't live with a teenager, that seems like a whole lot of damn hot dogs). Those things were the bee knees of my existence, my personal crack addiction, my ambrosia. I loved the sweet, sweet nectar of nitrates and beef leftovers processed into edible tubes...but now, fuck'em. Yes, Junot Diaz, if I offered to eat a hot dog today, even a Cardinal hot dog, I'd have to say "I prefer not to." Anyways, I'm happy with it, and that's not what I have to report.

Last year, I decided I would lose weight because it was high time I got around to it. You'd think I would have done it sooner, what with my family history of heart disease, diabetes and having an uncle die of a heart attack (you may remember reading the blog entry about how much I hated the pastor who presided over his funeral...I'm still pissed actually). But, nope, for some reason I kept sucking down those hot dogs, fried food, and whatever else that could be put in front of me, I'd devour it. So, last year in May, we bought an electronic scale that had promised accurate readings up to 340 pounds. We had already invested in an exercise bike for the apartment, and like all home exercise equipment we used it, just not exactly regularly. The scale was an attempt to make sure we'd stay on task, and that electronic one seemed like that should do the trick.

We brought it home, placed it on the bathroom floor, I hopped on the beast to see what the damage was, and the scale didn't work. It gave me a reading of "E" for error. Now, I was a little pissed, thinking we bought a bum scale, so I read the directions carefully making sure I didn't miss some subtle step (you had to tap the scale in the lower right hand corner for it turn it on, then wait for it to zero out, then step up...so screwing up could have been a possibility). I stepped up again, and again, "E." So I tell Emily, she steps up, and it reads her weight accurately. I get on...."E." What the hell, right? Then I get to thinking about why is it doing this, what's going on, why isn't this working for me.. So I try this little experiment. I lean on the bathroom sink while weighing myself, to see what happens, and I get a reading, something like 260, which was in no way right. I step off, tap the corner, see the zero, step on, the machine thinks...then..."E." I step off and sit on the toliet dejected because I realized at that moment I was too fat for the scale. I was north of 340 pounds and the scale couldn't handle it. I was like those sad diesel trucks parked near weight stations, too heavy to continue on their trek.

Naturally, I freaked out and took to the bike pretty hard core, riding about an hour everyday, which put me about 15 to 16 miles a day. I even set up an Excel chart for my weight loss so I can keep track of it, to motivate myself you see (or to torture myself, it's hard to say which). But once a week from May 17 on, I was recording my weight. Eventually I got low enough to be measured by our scale, which is a feat, but not much of one. I'm hard pressed to find a simile for it, but it is kind of like with congratulating a mass murderer for not killing anyone recently...because you know, the murders shouldn't have happened in the first place, so were congratulations really in order? I don't think so.

And using some cunning math skills, I took my average weekly weight loss and added it back on to see where I was at the start of my weight lost journey. My math pointed me to 348, and more than likely I was a little heavier than that, so you could say that in May 2006, I was in the 352 - 348 range with my girth. By the end of that summer, so by August 06, I got my weight down to 319...which is a big achievement. That's about 10 pounds a month for three months...a fairly breakneck pace, especially considering how grossly overweight I was, and was still. Then school happened, the wheels fell off the bus in a prodigious manner. I quit biking because I couldn't find the time, and my record keeping fell to shit as well. Fast forward through buckets of beer, fried zuccini sticks, all manner of chicken, hamburgers and just awful shit, we get to the end of last school year, May 2007, I hop on the scale and the reading is...333.2. Holy shit. Again, I'm pissed. Over the course of the semester, my laziness cost me 14.2 pounds. That's about two gallons of milk strapped back onto my already big frame. As a result, I redoubled my previous efforts.

So that's where we are now, in the effort redoubled zone. And since Seth moved to Kent, I've given up meat (that's what she said...and I don't know why Seth leaving was the kick off point for that...it's not like he was my butcher). I've given up weekly drinking, and if I do, because my daily caloric intake is so low, I think I have enough room in the diet to withstand a couple if it comes to it. We've got dumbells I'm using reguarly, doing 50 or so crunches about four times a week. I'm biking too, 30 minutes to an hour four or five times a week (I'm getting in about 18 miles on those days when I go the full hour.) I'm really pushing myself, and I haven't let school work stop me.

This morning, I got on the scale, and for the first time in years, and I mean years, my weight was under 300 pounds. In all fairness, my weight is 299, but goddamn is it nice to be on the right hand side of the zero on the scale (we have since replaced the electric one for a normal scale with the big round face that has a needle that spins and points to your weight...we threw away the electric scale since it was starting to wig out, or I was routinely gaining and losing 5 pounds a day).

I still remember the moment in Carbondale, before I moved to Mankato, when I got a once over by on the Carbondale Health Service doctors (I thought I had strep throat). They put me on the scale, and the nurse just kept sliding the little weight thing to the right, and then more, and then more, and I was too fat for the doctors scale, which would have put me around 320. I was depressed, and moped, tried going to the gym down there, but work got in the way, so I stopped. Then came the food again, and poof, whatever good was gone. But now, I'm down to below that.

So, here I sit, 34.2 pounds lighter than when I began the efforts redoubled stage of the weight loss, and about 50 pounds from where I was May 2006. How much do I have to go? Well, if I want to be my ideal BMI, I have to weigh around 180 to 200. Now, I think considering my height, broad shoulders, and big head, if I weighed 180, I'd be even goofier looking than I am now...just all bony, knock-kneed, and gangly (like the Disney version of Ichabod Crane in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow). So I think 200 is where I'd like to be ultimately for the remainder of my life. So, that means I've got 99 pounds to go. Which is still a whole lot. I mean, that's about the equivalent of losing a fat 6th grader from my body, or an out of work model. And, this 99 pounds would be losing approximately 33% of my current body weight (yes, you fraction lovers, that's 1/3). And also, where I am now is still pretty damn overweight. I mean, imagine yourself 99 pounds overweight. Then imagine being that way was a positive accomplishment. Or better yet, think of yourself as needing to cut off one-third of your body to be healthy...and being pleased that it's ONLY 1/3 now.

Now, I'm happy where I am, and it's kind of a dubious place. A good one, for sure, but not exactly celebratory ("Hooray! I'm less of a blob...still blobby, now not quite as much!") and I've got a ways left to go, to put if mildly (and some challenges...like when I hit a plateau of weight loss, and how I will react to that). I promised myself that when I finally got under 300 I'd do a blog about this just to motivate myself, and leave a public record to try to make sure I keep pushing myself forward with this. And I was debating about whether now was a good time because what if I'm just having a light day...weight does flucuate...maybe I'm really at 302. But, I decided to write it today, if for anything else, to leave a public record to push me forward, and if not today, then very soon I'll be under 300...which leaves me just 99 pounds to go.


VIVA EL MUSTACHE