Get Fit Slowly

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Before we begin exploring ways to get fit slowly in earnest, I want to establish some background information. I want to share my beliefs about food and fitness, and describe the current tools in my kit. I’ll begin by relating my personal fitness history.

About a boy
I haven’t always been chubby. I was a skinny, active kid, eager to run and play. We lived in rural Oregon, where my friends and I had freedom to roam the countryside. (Which we did.)

Though I got plenty of exercise, I was always something of a picky eater. I didn’t like most vegetables. Fruit was okay because it was sweet, but I turned up my nose at cabbage, cauliflower, and string beans. Because we were poor, a lot of our food was basic: potato soup, sourdough bread, home-canned items. Every Sunday we had a roast with mashed potatoes. Junk food was rare, but I loved it. In fact, as I grew older, I became a sort of junk food addict.

Though I wasn’t fat, my father was. He had been a high school football player, and was once considered handsome. But my memories of him — except just before he died — are of a fat man. He wasn’t physically active. He lived a life of the mind, not of muscle.

School days
In fourth grade, my parents enrolled me in youth soccer. This was the only organized sport I ever played — I stuck with it until the end of high school.

At some point — at least by sixth grade — I grew chubby. I became a geek: I read books, hung out with the smart kids, and developed low self-esteem. I didn’t maintain my physical appearance. Things bottomed out during the summer after my eighth grade year — one day I sat at the kitchen table with a sharp knife contemplating suicide.

I decided to live. I started high school a different boy. I cared about my appearance. I lost weight. I tried to socialize. To an extent, this worked. I developed friends in a variety of social circles. I joined clubs. I had girlfriends. And I was skinny.

But my diet was still poor. My parents had more money by this time, so I was able to have a dollar or two each day for lunch. Instead of spending it on good food, though, I bought junk. One day my friend Kristin scolded me for my diet.

“Twinkies aren’t good for you,” she said. “You need some fruits and vegetables.”

“Ah,” I said, joking. “But you see, I’ve adapted my body to Twinkies. They are good for me. In fact, it’s the fruits and vegetables that are bad.”

Mandatory PE classes and three months of soccer per year were enough to keep me in shape. Then, at the beginning of my junior year, I experienced my first injury. During practice one afternoon, my friend Paul fell on my leg. My right knee was twisted beneath his body. The pain was excruciating. I never saw a doctor, but I sat out most of the season waiting for the injury to heal.

College years
When I went to college, I was pleased to avoid the Freshman Fifteen. I maintained my weight. I remained happy, social, and active. I played intramural sports. I had a great deal of self-confidence — there was nothing I couldn’t do!

To earn money, I worked in restaurants. For breakfast and lunch, I ate restaurant meals. For dinner, I ate junk food. (One year I worked weekend evenings at a cake shop. I ate lots of cake.) In time, I stopped exercising. My focus turned to computer games and books and girls. I gained weight. By the beginning of my senior year, I’d put on nearly 30 pounds. I weighed 175.

I knew this was a problem. I didn’t want to end up fat like my father, so I signed up for a basketball class. I was awful. I was always picked last. But I was determined to learn to play, so I spent an hour every night in the gym practicing my shot, teaching myself how to dribble. By the end of the semester, I was being picked in the middle of the pack. The other guys in the class gave me an unofficial “most improved” award. Best of all, I was losing weight.

I lost even more weight during my final semester in college. For most of those four months, I became an ethical vegetarian. I ate fish and eggs and milk and cheese, but I refused to eat anything that might once have been sentient. I continued to play basketball and racquetball. (Shocking fact: I was the campus intramural racquetball champion.) By the time I graduated in May 1991, I was down to 160.

Introduction to stress eating
Things turned awful in a hurry. Because of poor planning, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I found work selling crummy insurance door-to-door in rural Oregon. I hated the job. I hated my life. I got into some nasty habits. Every morning, I would buy a box of old-fashioned glazed donuts and a pint of chocolate milk. I’d eat all of this at once. For lunch, I’d eat at greasy spoon diners, and for dinner I’d do the same. I gained weight fast.

Eventually I left that job and went to work selling boxes for the family business. But I didn’t like this either. And my bad habits were established. I ate like crap. By the time Kris and I were married in August 1993, I weighed 180 pounds. I hated the way I looked.

Over the next four years, I gained weight slowly but surely. I went through periods of dieting, but nothing stuck. Then, on the evening of 6 May 1997, I stepped on the scales to find that I weighed 200 pounds.

Getting fit slowly
I was stunned. It was like a switch had been thrown inside my brain. For the next six months, I became a health and fitness fiend. I tracked my calorie intake meticulously. Though I may not have been eating the best foods (microwave popcorn was a staple), I restricted my calorie intake. Best of all, I was exercising. I would get up at 5am to head to the track for a two mile jog. At work, I rode my brother’s bike at lunch. My first ride was on May 7th. I went 3.8 miles in 21:20 (10.69 miles per hour).

That summer, I documented my fitness progress. I kept my first web journal — they weren’t called blogs back then. (I actually think this is interesting reading, but that’s probably just because I’m reading about myself.)

On two consecutive days in mid-September 1997, I rode a 25 mile loop. It took 1:40:00, but it felt great. Soon after, I joined gym with my friend Dave. Though I wanted to ride the recumbent bike an hour every evening, Dave wasn’t keen on aerobic activity. He wanted to lift weights. So I lifted weights. Some nights, I was at the gym for two hours or more. I would arrive at 6:30 to ride the recumbent bike, then spend half an hour running on the treadmill, lift weights with Dave, and then finish with a swim. It was awesome. I felt great. I was happy and confident again.

The best part? I was running! I had always hated to run, but I found that it was actually kind of fun. It was a challenge to complete five miles, but a challenge I enjoyed. (Somewhere I have a record of my fastest time for a five mile run on the treadmill — I think it was somewhere around 40 minutes.)

By the end of October, I had dropped to about 160 pounds. I’d lost 40 pounds in 160 days.

Then, on Halloween night, I went to a party at my brother’s house. My costume was “J.D. from ten years ago”. I dressed in the clothes I had worn for my high school senior picture. (Yes, I still had them.) I basked in the attention of my friends.

But something else happened that night. I allowed myself to drop my defenses. I ate cookies and candy and snacks. I didn’t show restraint. I just ate. I’m sure that by my current standards, I didn’t have much, but it was enough. I continued to exercise and lose weight — eventually bottoming out at 157 pounds — but the momentum was lost. I began to eat junk food again.

King of the road
Still, I was devoted to exercise. With my tax refund in 1998, I bought a Bianchi Volpe touring bike. I was proud of that thing. I loved it. During the spring, summer, and fall of 1998, I biked to work whenever I could: 5.79 miles each way. Sometimes I would take a 16.9 mile route home. On gorgeous afternoons, I would leave work early to ride 25 or 50 miles through the countryside. It was an amazing time. I was the fittest I have ever been in my life.

Between 12 March 1998 and 28 September 1998 — the six months of Oregon’s riding season — I covered 1565.15 miles. I spent 95 hours, 3 minutes, and 40 seconds in the saddle. My average speed was 16.46 miles per hour. I was still running on some mornings, too.

During that summer, I gained ten pounds — I’m certain it was all muscle. By the fall of 1998, I weighed 170 pounds, but was completely fit.

Advanced stress eating
In 1999, my life changed. Kris, who had been teaching high school chemistry, decided that she wanted to change careers. She wanted to become a forensic chemist. To do that, we were going to have to move to New Haven, Connecticut so that she could get the appropriate degree. But what would I do? I’d spent the past eight years working at my family’s box factory. I had no marketable skills.

I began to worry. Worrying led me to that old pattern of stress eating. I also began to take computer science classes. Instead of riding my bike, I was in front of a computer all day. During 1999, I rode just over 500 miles. I began to gain weight.

Eventually, Kris got hired at the Oregon State Police Crime Lab without us having to move to the East Coast. About that time — in January of 2000 — I met Mac and his wife (Dr. Pam). I was up over 180 pounds again. I had found new work, too. I was spending 40 hours/week working two programming jobs in a suburb, and 20 hours/week working at the box factory. In my spare time, Kris and I were playing a lot of bridge (and eating a lot of junk food) with Mac and Pam. My weight crept up to 190, and then to 200.

The consequences of my foolish choices
In the fall of 2002, Mac, Pam, and I joined a recreational soccer league. Our team was awful, but we had fun. It was the first time I’d played soccer in fifteen years, though. I was out of practice.

To improve my skills, I would walk to the high school soccer field and spend an hour kicking the ball at the net or simply learning to dive again. (I was the team’s goalkeeper.) I overdid it. Almost immediately, I pulled my right quad. A week later, I severely injured my shoulder while practicing dives. I felt like my body was betraying me.

I played on.

Then one Sunday, my body really did betray me. While playing a game on a sloped field, I planted my foot wrong and my right knee buckled. It made an audible *pop* and gave way. I fell to the ground in pain. Like a fool, I played the following week, numbed on Vicodin. My knee gave out again.

All winter I had trouble with that knee. It had no stability. I could not use a shovel. I could not step down from a curb. When I went to the first spring soccer practice, I felt healthy but at the first attempt to run and shift my weight, the knee gave out from under me. I drove home crying.

I soon learned that I’d damaged my medial meniscus, and that I’d torn my ACL clean away. I did the only thing I could do: I had knee surgery.

Our hero today
Since recovering from that surgery almost five years ago, I’ve had poor health and fitness routines. I walk from time-to-time, but that’s about it. My diet is abysmal. Over the past year, I’ve worked some with a wellness coach. Lauren has been great. When I follow her suggestions, I make progress. Last winter, I lost almost 20 pounds. But I don’t do a good job of following her suggestions. I’ve gained that weight back already.

Despite my poor diet and lack of exercise, I genuinely enjoy physical activity, especially extended mild aerobic stuff like hiking in the forest or walking across London. I’m also happy to eat most healthy foods (except cruciferous vegetables). I don’t do a good job of choosing them, but I’ll eat them if somebody puts them in front of me.

My health worries me. My father died of chronic lymphocytic leukemia during the summer of 1995, ten days shy of his 50th birthday. My extended family has a history of cancer. I’m generally lethargic. My weight has led to sleep apnea, which means I have to use a C-PAP machine. I’m almost 39, and want to live another 39 years.

I’m ready to make better choices. I’m ready to get fit — slowly.