Let me start with me. Because I know me pretty well. And I know that when I was 209 pounds some years back, I was feeling miserable. I wrote about it already here, so I won’t rehash it…too much.
But I’m getting older too, so this time it was 192. Yeah. Seventeen pounds lighter than I was at my peak, but feeling miserable yet again. And for a new twist, I think a good part of that was not that I was eating too much (although, I must admit I was), it was more what I was eating. I wasn’t eating as terribly as before (when French Fries were an entire food group for me), but even things that I could eat before were starting to cause problems now. What had previously been fairly common in my diet was now causing headaches and stomach problems…and of course, too much of a good thing can still bring on problems.
If you’ve read my blog much over the past few months, you’ve seen me sing the praises of my green smoothie diet. The tally so far on that is that I’ve lost 24.5 pounds since mid-February. I was down to 167.5 this morning, and after the morning ride (another great morning!), I was feeling excellent. My headaches have dropped off, and I’m doing so much better than I was at the start of the year.
And that’s me. I’m 5’9” and I was miserable at 192. But I said I was only starting with me. I’m going to end with something that’s been on my mind for a while. But to be as delicate as possible, I caveat this by saying that I realize everyone is different. We all face different circumstances. We all have different DNA. But I still wonder. How can some of the people I see survive? People who can’t make it up a flight of stairs – who literally come out of an elevator gasping for breath?
This all came to mind today as I overheard someone today – a man who is clearly overweight, and who throughout the years I’ve known him has complained persistently about stomach and digestion problems – on the phone ordering a Mushroom Swiss burger to go from a nearby restaurant. With fries. And a side of mustard sauce. This is a regular thing – eating greasy takeout for lunch every single day. It’s so bad that when I suggested he actually eat something different for once, he couldn’t relate. He asked, “where would I get anything else?” to which I gave the obvious answer (and what I was getting at), “there’s a whole commissary full of food just down the street.” “You mean, like, make food at home and bring it in?”
Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.
It’s fairly obvious (my opinion, nevertheless) that moving from, say, 250 pounds (at about 5’11”) to even just 200 is going to take a complete overhaul of a person’s thinking. I mean, when a person can’t even grasp the concept of controlling one’s diet by preparing one’s own food, there’s a lot more to it than just eating a salad at Arby’s every Wednesday (salads are $2 off on Wednesdays here).
And it’s hard. Believe me, that’s why I started with my own story. Because if you see the date on the post I linked, you’ll notice I was hoping for the “Summer of Bob!” way back in early December, but I didn’t start doing anything about it for nearly two months afterwards. And I’m sure if you dug back a little further, you’d probably see me mention it even last summer sometime. I know from personal experience that it’s the easiest thing in the world to make excuses. “Well, my friend’s getting married in a few weeks, so I’ll wait until after that.” “Oh, Christmas is just around the corner. I’ll start next year.” Or maybe you just can’t walk by those donuts without grabbing one (or two). That was me. And honestly, I just got lucky. The stars aligned or something and I discovered that feeling better than I have in years is worth far more than the few moments’ pleasure I get out of a good pastry. And I assure you – I love a good pastry.
So I feel for the person who’s struggling with this. I really do. I’ve been there, and I don’t really want to be the jerk who’s found the next best thing and now turns into its super-(annoying)-spokesperson. But being healthy isn’t some kind of fad that’s going to go away if you ignore it long enough. It just gets worse, and there comes a point where the getting worse gets more noticeable. So this is where I hope my age and experience takes on some kind of meaning. Because I’m nearly kicking myself knowing that I flubbed and flopped my way through the best decades of my life only to discover as they draw to a close that I could’ve been so much better off without the Snickers bars and Doritos. If only I’d looked at cheeseburgers as an occasional treat that I could have once or twice a year (if that), instead of a staple that I’d eat by habit because they were convenient and I didn’t think to buy anything healthier at a grocery store and make it myself.
And this kind of concerns me too: I work on a military installation. The kind of place where you’d think you would be surrounded by a lot of people in excellent shape. People with mottos like “ready to fight tonight!” But yesterday as I left work I came to the sad realization that I could look around and, no matter where I went on base (well, except maybe the gym), I could pretty much be in range of a person in uniform that was noticeably overweight. In some cases, morbidly so. I suppose it should be expected – with the advent of COVID, the Air Force has suspended PT testing. That shouldn’t stop people from still staying in shape on their own, but, human nature is what it is. I suppose it doesn’t help too that the latest addition to the Osan AB food court is a Dunkin’ (formerly known as “Dunkin’ Donuts”) shop. I can say without reservation though that if one is given the opportunity to police oneself, one will always err on the side of lenience. And then the lenient side becomes outright neglect. And then it’s all over. It’s who we are. We’ve become accustomed to the conveniences of a quick bite, and the quick bite is seldom (if ever) something that makes us better. It really has come to the point where suggesting a home-cooked meal is met with puzzled looks. Could the world of WALL-E be far behind?
Health should be far more obvious than this.