Losing, Winning, and Running in the Race - Item One

No, the series of items/postings under this title has nothing to do with the neck-and-neck, tooth-and-nail contention for the Democratic Party nomination to beat McCain this Fall. I'm simply getting this blog back up to speed, and helping either of my two readers (two of 'em on good days, and counting myself at least twice) with what's been going on of late. First item:

For her Big Two-Five birthday a couple months back, Daughter-One Shellie allowed me to treat myself to membership in Weight Watchers. She'd been verbally and metaphorically twisting my arm (I usually just pull her leg; she always wins, however) to do so for several weeks, having somehow managed to lose twenty-some pounds herself… off a physique that (to my rose-colored Daddy-spectacles) seemed not to need a loss of that magnitude anyway.

Still, she's now even more beautiful than she was, somehow. Full credit goes to Mom for her good looks, of course; I take credit (along with my sister) only for her sassy-lassie mouth, and occasional bumps and bruises handed her by Life. She could not have turned out better; I'm immensely proud… and generally giggling at her latest escapade-story – the ones she'll admit to, that is.

As of the very beginning of the year, starting weight for me (at 5'9" to 5'10", depending on the thinness of my hair and the thickness of my socks), was about 215(+) pounds; initial weigh-in at Weight Watchers in mid-March – after already having cut back on bad foods, and so on – showed me at just over 210. Successive weeks have confirmed one or two gains of a few fractions of a pound, but otherwise steadily losing, week after week, anywhere from barely half a pound to (last week) 2.6 pounds; current weight (well, as of last Thursday's meeting) is 204.

I really don't want to lose any more rapidly than this; my gut instinct (har, har) is that it should be a gradual process. Having nearly lost a close loved one to anorexia many years ago (not a danger for me), I do have a clear idea of the other extreme.

After the first week with Weight Watchers, I cut out the tasty but stupid McDonald's breakfasts, switching over to a couple light yogurts and banana and/or a fiber bar in the morning, for dinner a Healthy Choice or Smart Ones frozen dinner (as few Weight Watchers points as possible – I buy & eat those listing six points or fewer per dinner/entrée on the package); lunch, when I have it, is various fruits and vegetables… or sometimes a Roy Rogers roast-beef sandwich (no fries!), which is extremely lean – so lean, in fact, that it's served sideways.

I, uh, still have a horrid breakfast most Sundays (I won't detail it for you folks; suffice it to say that slender, health-conscious Shellie really did hang up on me in shame when I admitted the components to her). But that's my one last indulge-me meal each week, and I'll be cutting them out soon, too.

Beyond this, I admit also I'm not really following the Weight Watchers diet plan very closely yet – mostly working into it; swimming out to it from the shallow end – though heeding the various menu/discipline suggestions discussed at the weekly meetings.

Still, I find myself already giggling at how my pants are already getting a little loose around the waist, and how on one of my belts I'm down to the narrowest notch. I don't think I've lost more than an inch or two there yet – but that was a thirty-eight waist in January… and it was only thirty when Shellie was a baby, and I weighed maybe one-fifty -minus.

I haven't set a firm target weight yet; younger brother Doc (maybe an inch taller; he was raised free-range) has a little hint-of-a-gut of his own, yet asserts he masses only 78.5 – kilograms, that is; for the rest of us not graced with a couple years in the Antipodes, it's about 173 pounds. Thus I confirm his theorem that I'm denser. Older-brother Sarge is a little shorter than me, and weighs about 180-something – but he's a Marine; by definition he's not just denser, he's got more muscle mass.

So I think I would like to see myself reach the one-eighties to begin with; a ten-percent weight loss, for instance, would have me at 189.

That's 86 Kg, Doc – now stop buggin' me, and go eat your vegemite.

Coming up: The Aging Child resumes running.