BMI

As winter became spring, I began to notice the extra weight I put on over the winter. And that made me look at how much weight I had put on since 1998 when I moved from construction inspection to a desk. The pay was a lot better, but moving a few hundred 30 pound concrete cylinders daily had gotten me into a little bit of shape. I was always on the heavy side. My fascination with food hasn't helped.

My heaviest was in high school. I topped out around 260. I had a "Body by Bud" poster of a heavyset guy sitting on a keg drinking a beer. The bumper sticker on the keg read "No Pain, No Pain." They were words I lived by. In college, I had a co-op job that didn't really factor in any time for eating. I was pretty much only eating dinner. I lost sever inches around the waist there. Hated the job though. I was in Boston and took the T to South Station every morning. On my way out of the station I walked past a large bank of pay phones. This was 1991 - there were still pay phones. Every morning as I walked past those phones I thought, "There's still time to call in sick." Needless to say, I did not go into that business. I was miserable, but lost several pants sizes. Probably not the way 4 out of 5 doctors recommend doing it though.

Then there was more college and then the construction inspection job. I weighed about 200 pounds then. Which apparently was still too much according to the body mass index. From there I moved to a desk. When I started it was actually a desk. I have a cube now. Since taking a desk job in 1998, I have slowly and steadily put on 43 pounds. When I entered my 243, 6'1" numbers the output reads "Obese." Ouch.

In an effort to be able to chase my kids around, I decided to do something. Turning 40 later this year probably has something to do with it too. As luck would have it, while I was looking through the recently acquired cookbooks at the library (641s for those of you into the Dewey Decimal System), I saw a beginners guide to running. This guy was recommending a walk/run. Walk a bit, jog a bit, repeat until you've had enough exercise for the day. He got a little more into it that that. There were schedules and charts and enough repetition and words of encouragement to fill a book. About 3 weeks ago, I started exercising. And while a coinciding Rapture was predicted, the world didn't end.

Night is the only time I get a chance. Everyone goes to bed, I grab some shorts and running shoes and off I go. I've got a 2 mile loop around the neighborhood. It is kind of peaceful. I'm usually the only one out. I have heard a few couples arguing through open windows. I scared a raccoon too. Lately the night skies have been nice. Pretty cool crescent moon tonight. Yesterday, I was walking while my youngest rode her bike. She was quite surprised that I could keep up with her. She pedaled faster, I ran faster. We got to the end of the street at the same time. No way that could have happened in April. I would have passed out. I cut waaaayyy back on the booze too. I drank a lot this winter. And for some reason, I started eating salads for lunch.

This morning I weighed in at 237. Still obese. If I can manage to lose 3 more pounds, I'll step down to overweight on the index. Baby steps....