What?? Me Lose Weight??

Hi, my name is James, or as I learned in Junior High Spanish, Hola, mi amo es Jaime.

Having now nearly depleted my knowledge of Spanish, I would like to continue.

In the world of blogs, I am lightenupwithjames@blogspot.com

I am a 60 year old male, married, a father and grandfather. I like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain. I am not into yoga and I have half a brain… wait, I digress. 

While having been aware of The News-Herald's Lighten-up program for years, I was never the guy who needed that. I went to the gym 4 or 5 times a week. And I actually worked out! I was not one of "those guys" who does 4 reps then checks his heart rate for the next 5 minutes; all while occupying a machine. Nope, when I joined a local gym, I was at 234. I dropped 40 pounds. Then, a series of unfortunate events took place.

 I injured my shoulder. I turned 60. I no longer really cared.

My Lovely Bride informed me she was going to apply for this year's contest. I figured I would join to encourage her, and if I dropped 5 or so pounds, that would be fine.

The day reckoning came at the Lake County General Health District for my "evaluation". This is a polite way of saying your "Oh-my-gosh! I –can't- believe- I-weigh-that-much!!" session, which was somewhat eye-opening.

Initially, I was a bit disappointed upon entering the office on a snowy, blustery Saturday morning. I was hopeful trays of doughnuts, urns of coffee, and slices of pizza would await us. A little Farewell To Food event.

Rather, my Lovely Bride and I were greeted by thin, perky, trim, fit Health Department staffers. It was disgusting. How can these people, who look as if they were taken from the pages of a fitness publication, have any idea of what I, the moderately overweight, go through?

In place of crullers, jelly doughnuts, pepperoni festooned cheese covered baked pizza dough, the clever staff had prominently displayed a cheerful display visualizing the amounts of fat in various foods, the amounts of sugars in various food, the amounts of salt in various food.  One staffer gleefully declared while picking up a container indicating the fat in a fast food cheeseburger; "And this is really how fat looks in your body." Thanks, Toots… just what I could have done without knowing.

There were the obligatory measurements, the Body Mass Index measure, the percentage of Body Fat (such an uncouth term) and the dreaded weigh-in. I think someone tinkered with the chart that indicates if a person is a healthy weight all the way up to morbidly obese, with all the stops in between.

Well… let me tell you. I was mortified when the smiling young man happily announced "James you are OBESE!" My gosh, why didn't he just put in the paper!? Wait.. I just did. Just 8 lousy pounds over the line from being a genial "overweight", to a not-so-terrific "OBESE" That was a shocker.

I am not one to adapt a nutritional plan with a great deal of success. Our church recently completed a 21 day Daniel Fast. While I started (sort of) well, I quickly crashed and burned. You may look up Daniel Fast on line. Suffice it to say, The Danny Diet and I didn't get along. At all.

Which brings me to this program:  I L-O-V-E to eat. I love meat, I love pasta, I love doughnuts (especially a family owned place in Eastlake)… I just L-O-V-E food.  And that is fine with this program. The objective is to lose the weight in a safe and healthy manner. And… to keep it from creeping back on.

Now… if only I can ramp up my "git'r done" and get back to the gym.