March 10, 2015

Pondering Pounds

Recently I’ve lost a few pounds.
I don’t mean as in “I visited Great Britain and misplaced my money.”
No I mean as in “I lost weight.”
“I lost weight” is a phrase that confuses me.
I didn’t lose it. I didn’t misplace it.
I know where it went.
I could easily find the missing pounds with little effort.
Heck, I purposely tried to get rid of it.
So “losing pounds” doesn’t quite describe it.
I didn’t “shed some weight” either.
I didn’t just fall off me like hair from my balding head.
“Watch where you’re running kids. You might trip over some of Daddies blubber that’s falling off.”
No shedding occurred here.
This was part of a plan I had. To get myself into better shape.
Not that I was fat. At least not by American standards.
Although once while passing a monastery I got into a discussion with an old monk.
He described me in Latin as “Qui Obturat Solis”.
I looked it up later. It means “He who blocks the sun.”
I admit my silhouette bothered me.
It looked like an upright football with legs.
So I decided to buckle down and lose enough weight that could move my buckle up.
My goal was to get to the weight I had in my twenties.
More importantly, to feel like I used to feel in my twenties.
So to kick start a lifestyle change into gear I needed to diet.
Now I have dieted before.
I’ve done the cabbage soup diet. (You don’t actually lose weight. It’s just the gas you have makes you seem lighter.)
The Atkins Diet (A favorite of mine in the old days. You can eat a herd of cattle in one sitting and still lose weight. But if you eat a grape You expand to Hindenburg size.)
And countless others.
The one thing my diets didn’t successfully do was teach me to eat less.
Especially the Atkins.
So I decided to try the one diet I never tried before.
The good old fashioned “Counting Calorie” diet.
You know the one, “eat less calories than you body uses.”
It’s easier than ever because of apps you can download to your smart phone or pc.
You can scan barcodes of prepackaged meals.
Or just have a food diary on hand to always be able to mark down how much you’ve eaten.
And it really works.
The reason it does is because you get so sick and tired of trying to measure and record all the food you want to eat,
That you end up saying “The heck with it I won’t eat anything!”
Actually it’s not quite that bad.
Close, but it’s worth it to see the results.
I’m learning to get used to eating less. I’m starting to exercise again.
And I would like to report that first time in many decades I’m feeling again like I did in my twenties.
I had forgotten what that felt like.
But now I remember.
That feeling is called…Hunger!
I remember now. I was always hungry when I was in my twenties.
Back then I could eat a box of Hostess HoHos’, a gallon of Ice cream and a couple of sandwiches,
And burn off all those calories by washing a spoon.
Now If I drive by a restaurant, I have to loosen a couple of notches on my belt.
But as you get older your metabolism slows down.
So your body allows you to eat less.
Basically one is slowly becoming a turtle.
They say this extends one’s lifespan. (like a turtle)
Or at least it makes life seem longer.
But I am sticking with it.
I consider myself a thin person wearing a fat suit.
Time to change my outfit.
Time to get fit.
But first I have to figure out how much I can fit into my mouth before going over today’s’ calorie limit.

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