The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

I can officially say that I’m the least in-shape I’ve been in my life. I’m so out of shape, I’m the health equivalent of an abstract painting.

Scales used to be my greatest fear. Nothing was more embarrassing then watching the doctor keep adding more weight to the scale during the annual checkup.

While I’ve always struggled with my weight, in recent years I’ve been throwing the fight more often then not. While I haven’t weighed myself in a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m also at my heaviest.

I can make a promise today, though, that I will make a serious change in my lifestyle. Faced with the hereditary threat of diabetes, the embarrassment of being constantly short of breath and a future of forever having sex in the dark, I’m ready to make the changes necessary so that I can live a healthier life.

I’ve come up with a few ideas that will help me improve the quality of my life. Most of the ideas revolve around improving my diet and increasing the frequency of exercise. Other parts of my plan will be pulled from past brushes with a fit life.

When I was in scouting as a youth, I trained one year to attend Philmont Scout Ranch. A massively mountainous backpacking camp nestled in New Mexico, the trip involved months of practice hikes. I would walk around my neighborhood for hours – the entire time carrying around a backpack filled with 60 pounds of encyclopedias.  

It was during that summer of walking endless loops around my neighborhood that I discovered rock and roll.

I would listen to Q 94.5, the local rock station, on a tiny Walkman during my practice hikes. Previously lacking anything resembling knowledge of music, it was during that summer between middle and high school that I discovered Ozzy Osbourne, KISS, Metallica and Led Zeppelin.

Looking back, that summer was one of the bright spots of my youth. Too young to have a job, I spent my days in carefree bliss – daydreaming while I walked the streets of my neighborhood. Even McAllen’s dry heat couldn’t bring me down.

The summer did have it’s own bad spot — an accident of disgusting proportions.

One morning during my third lap around the neighborhood, I began to feel my stomach grumble. Soon, pain was radiating through my gut – causing me to take a break and analyze the situation. I was about a mile from my house and nowhere near any public toilets. And I knew without a doubt that a toilet was what I needed.

Fearing the worst, I began to walk home as fast as my chubby little body could go. Even if I were able to sprint back home without collapsing in an asthmatic heap, you’ll remember I was weighed down by a sixty-pound backpack.

I soon realized that I wasn’t going to make it back home in time and was faced with a decision to make. Stuck in the middle of suburbia, there was no bush to squat behind. I was going to have to poop in public and I could either do it on my own terms or not.

I decided that the best way to handle the situation would be poop my pants a little bit – instead of possibly risking a massive uncontrolled mess. Unfortunately, upon letting a little pressure off of my anus muscles, I discovered that I didn’t just have to poop – I had diarrhea.

Needless to say, there is little in my life that is more embarrassing then being an overweight teenager walking home with a backpack full of encyclopedias with poop running down my leg.

I trained for four more months without having a similar experience. While I was still left huffing and puffing during some of the hike’s steeper climbs, I was in the best shape of my life.

Unfortunately, upon returning home from the camp, my life soon got off track and all the training went down the toilet.

In getting my life back on track, I hope to regain some of that vigor I once possessed. After all, how am I going to be Batman if I have the physical stamina of the Penguin?

Postscript

I wrote that essay on January 15, 2009.

That week, after writing the essay, I did something I had never done before in my life — I followed through on an oath. In the past I’ve made plenty of promises to loose weight in get into better shape. I’ve bought new running shoes or perused the pages of a book about the Atkins diet but nothing has ever stuck. Within a week of any promise I made to myself, I was back to eating whole pizzas and sucking down two-liter soda bottles. This time it was different, though.

Maybe it just took putting the proverbial pen to paper, but something finally clicked in me that I needed to get in better shape. Since January, I have developed better eating habits, adopted a daily exercise routine and, to date, have lost sixty pounds. Thankfully, I have yet to poop myself again. I’m not done loosing weight yet, though, so there’s always a chance.

My dog looks afraid that I'm about to eat her. I'm so heavy, I'm afraid I might try to eat her.

Here I am sixty pounds lighter and no longer in danger of eating my pet.