Wait Weight

My father in December of 1978

I’ve never paid particular attention to my weight. Lately I have, and I mentioned it in the last post, so I thought I would write a little bit more on the subject. Leo, over at Zen Habits, has particularly stirred up a few thoughts for me.

I grew up in the Southeastern U.S. My family, in general, tends toward the heavy side. (I hope I can say that without alienating anyone). When I was a young boy, my mother would take me to her TOPS, (Taking Pounds Off Sensibly), meetings. I don’t remember anything except being bored. Also, if that particular group was a model of success, part of its modus operandi must have been to banish those who had taken pounds off from the meetings. My mother would work at losing weight all the time but never effected any real change that I could see. Lately, she tells me she’s lost some weight and that she’s feeling better. She’s 78 years old now, and she does have a few health problems — pain particularly — that are probably somewhat related to her weight. Nevertheless, when I spoke to her yesterday to wish her a happy Mother’s Day, she told me some of my siblings were on the way over with barbecue and donuts. Oh well, at 78, I don’t think she’s suddenly going to start eating quinoa and hummus.

My father was also overweight. As a boy, I thought he was BIG. Recently, however, I found a picture of him at 53, and he’s not as big as I remember. He suffered a heart attack in his mid-fifties. He had bypass surgery, was recovering nicely, and was killed by a teen driver who ran a stop sign and slammed into the side of my father’s truck. Hence, probably, part of my disdain for the automobile as a means of getting around.

Now for me. I guess this is somewhat personal. I grew up with terrible asthma. It has persisted into my adult life, though not as bad. I think that because it was such an instrument of personal betrayal, I never paid particular attention to my body. I also didn’t pursue things that might be considered “healthy” when I was growing up, because I couldn’t breathe while doing them. I sat out of a lot of gym classes. It was kind of embarrassing and shaming, and I developed a concomitant disdain for all things sports. To this day, I really don’t know what sports season it is. (Is football over? Has baseball begun? Does hockey have a season?) I did ride my bicycle all the time. I think that once you get started on a bike, the adrenaline produced by riding it keeps the asthma at bay. You just have to be careful to regulate your effort — no sudden sprinting.

I believe that when I considered doing something to get in shape, like running, I shied away from it because it seemed like it was aimed at becoming something I felt that I could never be — namely athletic. Or I would think off and on over the years about things like yoga, and I would do yoga for a while, but somehow the picture of myself as the image of health at the end of the process did not seem right. I want to lay the blame at the feet of asthma, shame, and a weird relationship with my body. It’s probably that and a whole lot more.

So I’ve never consciously pursued a health regimen aimed at honing my body into the image of a some sort of golden boy, but I have been active, and I eat fairly sensibly.

My driver’s licence says I weigh 165. That was true back in my early twenties. For most of my adult life, I have weighed around 185. I’m OK with that. This past winter, I started feeling heavier and not recognizing myself in the mirror quite so much. I checked my weight, and it was 210. I’m not OK with weighing over 200 pounds. That’s a barrier for me.

Part of it might possibly be Singulair, an asthma medication I started taking regularly around November. Weight gain is not listed as a side effect, but checking the internet — always a good way to diagnose medical problems I’m sure every doctor would agree — many people complain about an associated weight gain.

Depression is a published side effect, as well as suicidal thoughts and suicidal “actions”. I spent much of the winter wondering if I was depressed. “Am I depressed? Is it just the winter? Am I thinking I’m depressed because it might be one possible side effect?” I still don’t know, but I decided to stop taking Singulair a few weeks ago. My asthma is back, but it feels like the world has gone from monochromatic back to color. (Was it the Singulair? Was it winter?) I have the energy and the interest to get out there and do things again.

My weight is one of the reasons I quit. My lower back went through two weeks of fairly intense pain. I don’t know what that was about, but I’m sure the extra twenty-five pounds didn’t help.

Anyway, I’m going to try to get down to at least my old holding pattern of 185. Abdominal weight is being increasingly demonized as the harbinger of all sort of health problems I don’t want to deal with over the next 45 years.

Leo, as always, has recently posted about habits, making small changes, and focussing on those changes in regards to health over on Zen Habits.

I’m not so good at focussing on one thing at a time, but here are the things I think trip me up the most.

1) I’m a grazer. Particularly when I’m home. If I’m not being mindful, I get stuck in a circular eating pattern. Some primitive part of my brain gets loose while I’m busy doing other things, and I find I’ve been constantly eating small amounts of things. I like having a banana with some almond butter, for example. Not so bad, eh? But this winter I would end up having three or four bananas and half a jar of almond butter in a morning. I don’t feel like doing that now, so again, I think it might have been related to the medication.

2) As a parent, I finish the food my children don’t eat. I hate to see things wasted. My children, exhibiting an unusual amount of good sense in our culture, stop eating when they are full. “Give it to me, I’ll finish it,” has become a common refrain of mine.

3) I tend to try to finish off pots of food rather than deal with leftovers. Pad Thai is particularly pernicious for me. I’ll have one bowl of Pad Thai. Since it is so good, I’ll have another one. Then I’ll eat what Zeb didn’t finish. Then, since there is just a little bit left in the wok, I’ll have a third bowl. That’s just too much food, even if you use a bicycle to get around.

There’s other issues to contend with, but I’m going to focus on those three — limit grazing, compost what my kids don’t eat, only eat one serving.

We’ll see where that gets me.

I’d rather have a bigger compost pile than heart disease.

I’ll follow this post up soon. I have a lot more to say, but I’ve already broken the golden blogger rule about keeping posts short. Particularly, I want to take issue with Gary Traub for those Rivendell Bicycle folks that might read my blog.