In Praise of the Gym

I topped out at about 270 pounds in high school. So when I say I'm in better shape than I was then, I'm telling the truth, but that truth doesn't mean a lot. I'd been a fat kid since third grade or so, but for most of my youth, the fatness would be covered by a series of growth spurts. Gain forty pounds, grow a few inches, repeat. As a result, I was usually just "the big kid:" obviously fat, but literally heads and shoulders above my peers, so it was a wash (also, basketball was awesome). However, some time into high school--10th grade, maybe?--I leveled out at 5'11" and it was clear that my luck had run cold.

I don't recall what my wake-up call was exactly, but I knew that I didn't want to be relegated to a Rascal scooter before the age of thirty. So, the summer after 11th grade, I would go out running every morning; walk-running at first, building up strength until my fat didn't hurt and I could run a few miles without blowing out a lung. I also cut my meal portions down. Way down. Honestly, it probably wasn't the healthiest way to lose weight, but teenagers can get away with that type of that thing more easily.

Over that summer and into the fall, I lost 65 pounds. The first comment I got upon my return to school was "Did you just get out of surgery?"

I've fluctuated up and down in the years since, most notably in college, where chicken tenders were plentiful and the gym was all the way down there. Then I graduated into the sort of plush office job that the human body has in no way evolved for (eight or nine hours sitting in a chair; who'd have thunk that would've been deleterious for our health?). Turns out that losing weight is relatively easy; the body responds well to minor shocks and the first weeks of a resolution pack enough adrenaline to help you fight through the irritation of hunger pangs and the indignity of shorts. It's maintaining any loss that's tricky.

Still, I've never gotten back to anything like what I was as a teenager. It helps, in some ways, to have that low bar. As long as I don't drift north of 230 or so, I always felt okay. But a low bar is still a low bar. Just because I'm doing better than I was in high school, doesn't mean I don't look like hell compared to other people, particularly my own wife, who kicks her ass a few times a week to continue looking hot.

Last New Year, sitting at 225 pounds, I resolved to drop twenty. I lost twenty-six. I then gained back eleven. Score this year as another wash. Now, I don't like doing endorsements, but I can't not recommend myfitnesspal.com, which despite its irritatingly twee name was crucial to the weight loss I did achieve. I only really started gaining it back once I stopped using their calorie counter. I never saw myself counting calories because I hate dieting and math (in that order). But with their exercise calculator I discovered something about myself: I like working out. While the thought of dieting in any way makes me want to punch celery sticks and rice cakes, an hour or so at the gym actually sounds kind of nice. More time at the gym in order to eat some cake? Why the hell wouldn't a person do that? Obviously going to the gym will not excuse every sin of ingestion and there's no good reason for some of the portion sizes we foist upon ourselves, but if I need to hit the elliptical a little harder to work off an anticipated beer night, I will gladly make that trade.

And once I started going to gym, I discovered other benefits of shape-building that blubbery, 13-year-old me would've dismissed as the rationalizations of a sell-out; seriously, that version of me and the current version of me would come to some serious blows... and current me would totally win. Getting up at 5am on a weekday does suck, but not only does it beat going after work (time which belongs to my precious X-Box and/or wife), I feel more awake when I finish at 6am than I do when I try to wake normally at 6am and that alertness remains throughout the day. Plus--while this should sound incongruous--I get better sleep at night, too. Repeated over time, it gets easier and easier to force myself out of my comfy, comfy bed, which, really, is the hardest part of those mornings. Everything after is pretty smooth sailing.

And weekends, though most gyms are usually busier then, allow for longer workouts, incorporating different exercises--cardio and weight-training. Weekends is actually when I prefer to do weights; you can dismiss this as my hatred of math shining through, but reps are harder to count at 5am than at any other time of the day. And back to that whole dieting thing that I hate: when I've gone to the gym and I'm better rested, I get fewer hunger pangs during the day. Not to mention the psychological aspect of not wanting to blow burned calories on the more fleeting culinary pleasures. I love you, Cheez-Itz, but damned if I'm going to undo my work on the treadmill for a few handfuls of you; better to save that for something more satisfying. Burger and a beer, perhaps.

Really, my hopes are relatively simple. I don't want a bro-ish P-90X type system, whose results are negligible and bank account clearing at best. I also don't want to slim down; I have a larger than average-sized head, something that could be quickly spotted on a smaller man. And I certainly have no interest in becoming an engorged anatomy chart. My ideal body type for myself is early 20th Century boxer: square, blocky muscles separated by formidable strips of fat. A solid, utilitarian machine fueled by whiskey, flapjacks, and mustache wax. The kind of thick and impenetrable torso advocated by Ron Swanson.

My goal this year is to drop fifteen pounds and then maintain that. One I'm pretty sure I can do. The other, we'll see.

The Half-Drunken Scribe will not become a weight loss blog, I swear. I don't do peppy boosterism. And tracking my own progress is likely to attract even fewer page hits than my usual topics. But putting this in writing, in front of tens of regular readers, should help keep me more honest this time 'round. Too many people to lie to, you know.