A weighty topic

My history with being overweight is long.

If you see pictures of me when I was young, you can tell even as a child I was wearing "husky" sizes. I was not very athletically inclined - though there were times when some latent abilities we Strong men seem to have surfaced. Still, I was more inclined to read or write. Whenever we went shopping, my mother would just drop me off at the magazine rack knowing that when she returned later I would still be there engrossed in some magazine.

Then there's the sweet tooth. If it had sugar, it went in my mouth. And one was never enough.

One day near the end of seventh grade the school nurse gave me a note to take home to my parents. An inquisitive sort, as I waited at the end of the day in my homeroom for the bus to arrive, I opened the note. One sentence read, "Your son is suffering from severe obesity." I had no idea what obesity meant, so I asked my fellow bus-waiting students. None of them knew. I then went to the big dictionary at the front of the room, and read the definition aloud.

"The condition of being very fat or overweight."

There was some nervous laughter. I was silent. The summer after that year was the first one in our new home on the outskirts of town, and I basically remained home all summer, not interacting with any of my classmates or friends. I did start to diet.

But something also began to change. I was growing taller. Between the physical at the beginning of seventh grade to the physical at the beginning of ninth grade I grew from 5'4" to 5'10..

Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I was skinny. I remained so throughout high school. One of the things that helped was I was a walker and a 10-speed bike rider. I thought nothing of biking from one town to another. I rode my bike to school. I rode it to friends' houses. I rode it to work. I never bothers to get a driver's licence or a car.

This persisted into my 20s, even after I got married. I rode or walked as much as I could. I remained thin. But one day while it was snowing and the wind blowing, we were walking to Mass carrying the baby. I decided it was time to get a car.

I did get one. That's when my sedentary jobs and my sweet tooth took control of my body, and since age 28 my weight has been yo-yoing. This past spring, with the pandemic lockdown, I reached my heaviest, unhealthiest point.

In my family, there is a history of weight related issues - strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes in particular. My father had a massive stroke at age 65. I tuned 65 in June.

So in August, I set a goal of losing 50 pounds over the next year. I'm actually ahead of schedule, having lost 28 pounds. But I'm still considered overweight. I have to lose about 22 pounds more to reach my goal - and to be in the normal range for my height. At the rate I'm going, I might hit that goal next March or April.

I'm determined - for the sake of my health.

Pax et bonum