August 24, 2010 - Save the Whale(s)

Not sure who invented the mirror, but I’m not exactly a fan right about now. You see, I had an interesting encounter with one this last weekend when Julia and I traveled to Flagstaff to watch Jason’s football team play the first game of the season. Wonderful game in which two top 25 in the country teams faced off and the good guys won. That, however, had to take a backseat to my discovery.

Julia and I checked into our hotel early in the afternoon on Friday with the goal of just enjoying a three day weekend and taking advantage of the cooler weather and green that you never see in Phoenix. We surveyed the room, found it a little small, but certainly good enough for our needs. The bathroom, however, was the size of a postage stamp. I’m sure you all have been in one. It was so small, you almost had to climb in the tub to close the door.

In itself, that wasn’t the problem. You can always find workarounds for those situations. However, early Saturday in the morning I found myself in the bathroom after my shower with just a fogged up mirror and a fat guy staring back at me. Sad thing was, it wasn’t just any fat guy, it was me.

Not sure if it was the smallness of the room or what, but it really struck me that maybe it wasn’t the room that was causing the tight quarters, it might just be me. Over the last year, I have been very successful at staying healthy. That is the good thing. Yet, during that time I have also been very successful at gradually adding a little bit of weight every month. Too much, in fact.

In reality, I really don’t weigh that much more than I did five years ago, it’s just that it has somehow moved to unflattering positions. I’m not quite to the point of needing one of Kramer’s manzieres but I cannot be that far off. I’m starting to look more like a football instead of just watching football. It was at that moment I realized it was time to get it in gear.

I have tried to do some walking now and then, every so often some back yard pool exercises, but I have found more reasons to not do it than do it. It was just a few weeks ago that I actually walked a couple miles and did some water walking in the pool (sounds oldmanish, but my right foot feels a lot better after doing that verses just walking.)

Then I became incredibly stupid and thought that I would top the morning of exercises off with a lap or two swim. That ended about one millisecond after it started. I could not have gone any farther than one body length when my left calf cramped up and my left foot freaked out and contorted into something resembling a dried up mushroom. This was a moment that could have landed on America’s Funniest Videos as I jumped around the pool trying to get rid of the two cramps. So much for swimming -- the perfect exercise.

After that near death experience, I decided I needed a different way to exercise, so I had the boys carry up the elliptical machine that has been sitting comfortably in the lower level since we moved to Arizona. Somehow it lost a screw or two so I had to do some repair work before I actually got started. Then I waited a couple weeks just to get in the right mood. Because of the delay, I utilized the machine as a clothes hanger as I had done for years in Ohio. It wasn’t until I saw the fat man in the mirror that I really took using it seriously, however.

When we returned from Flagstaff Sunday afternoon, I decided that it was now or never. Julia and I will be on vacation in Mexico in six weeks, so I could not put it off any longer. I did not want to look like a beached whale. That night, I ate corn on the cob and tomatoes for dinner as the boys feasted on bacon cheeseburgers and home made macaroni and cheese.

That night was the first night of actually using the elliptical machine for exercise. I thought I could hop on board, put in 30 minutes and feel good about myself. I got the hopping on board part right, but after that it seems like time slowed down. After five minutes of real time and what seemed like five hours of workout time, I was ready for a break. I convinced myself that it was better to be a wimp than die of a heart attack.

Because I negotiate for a living, I felt very comfortable negotiating with myself that I didn’t need to worry about the aerobic portion of the work out, just the amount of calories burned. As a result, I am now up to six minute shots of exercise at a time. In a year, I might actually see that 30 minutes.