02 March 2021

"Chunky"

He may as well have hit me upside the head with a 2X4.
Referring to one of his co-workers, my buddy's Father said, "He's 'chunky' like you."
Chunky?
At the age of 12, I hadn't given much thought to what others thought about my appearance.
But there it was. I was "chunky".

I inherited my difficulties with weight from my Mother.
At 5' 2", I have a photo of her when she weighed 190 pounds. She fought obesity her entire life.
I have too, although thankfully not to the same degree.

In retirement it's easy to develop bad habits.
Sitting in the recliner, remote in hand, I was beginning to enjoy the rut I had dug myself into.
It was when I could no longer button the waist of my Levis that I realized I had do dig myself out.

Running?
I hate it. I've ALWAYS hated it.
And my compound fracture in Santorini gave me pause about pounding on my right ankle anyway.
But walking is comfortable for me.
Sara Jean is also noticing "changes", so we agreed that walking was our exercise of choice.
We try to walk a minimum of 3 miles daily.
We walk at a 3mph pace, so our three mile walk takes us...
Duh... an hour. But when the weather is perfect and we have smiles on our faces listening to "Oldies" on our little radio, we'll continue our walk, sometimes up to 5-1/2 miles- shown on our "Map my walk" app on our phone.
The results have been slow in coming. But we put the pounds on gradually, so taking them off slowly is best, isn't it?

When I could no longer fasten my jeans I weighed in at 228 pounds.
I'm now down to 201, and struggling to get below 200. (As you lose weight the body becomes more efficient because it's not doing as much work as it was. Pounds begin to be VERY difficult to lose.)

My stomach is flat.
I'm sleeping better and I no longer snore.

Long ago my friend's Dad did me a favor. He made me take a close look at myself, and I've been aware of my weight and appearance since.

I'm happy to say I don't think I'm "Chunky" today.
"Hunky"?
I'm workin' on it. ;>)


2 comments:

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Metabolism matters. I went into Basic at 73 ", 185 lbs and came out at 220 lbs. In the past 18 months have dropped 70 lbs walking two 1 1/2 mile walks a day. My age, 76, plays a part. I also follow fairly closely a diet eliminating lectin-containing foods. That is difficult because almost all my favorites contain lectin.

Before the Army, I hadn't lived below 7,000' ASL and many years working at 8,500 to 9,000 doing heavy labor growing up (like bucking 2,500 130 lb hay bales a day).

My only physical challenge in Basic was doing a low crawl. When the cadre spotted that, it was, "Step right up folks and see JoJo the Dog Face boy. He crawls along his belly like a reptile! Show'em son".

Old NFO said...

That's great news! I need to get out there as soon as it warms up.