Monday, March 24, 2008

The Deadly Number Three

Dear Children:

This last week was quite remarkable and, in many ways, agreeable. Last week gave me an opportunity to try some experiments. Never mind why the time was right for these experiments. Suffice to say that the stars figured to align, you know, the way stars align and then got aligned in that star-aligning thing they do.

The first experiment sounds a little stupid. Check that. The first experiment was a lot stupid. Someone once said that the way to find out what weight is or how much weight you lost can be easily demonstrated at the Wal-Mart. So I decided to try it. Wal-Mart doesn’t package their dumbbells. One can pick up a dumbbell and walk around with it, feels its heft and get a feel for its effect. The idea is to first determine how much weight you mean to lose – say twenty pounds – go to Wal-Mart and pick up two ten pound dumbbells. That’s one in each hand. Then walk around and do your usual shopping for an hour or so with these dumbbells held tightly in your fists.

The effect is not to demonstrate what its like to lug twenty pounds. Rather, the effect is to simulate the stress that extra weight has on your body. The effect is striking and, I’ll wager, undoable by most of us obeasts. If you had forty pounds to lose, you wouldn’t get to the fishing aisle from the weight lifting aisle.

You will soon appreciate that losing twenty pounds is a significant undertaking. There’s no way it can be easy. The effort will be substantial and probably frustrating.

The flip side is that you will soon learn that losing that twenty pounds is likely to contribute substantially to your well-being. There will be that much less stress on your heart, your circulatory system, your joints, your back and your lungs.

I was the moron – excuse me: educably mentally retarded -- who walked around Wal-Mart for and hour with 15 pounds dangling from each arm. Aside from the arm pain that I discounted because we usually carry our weight on our bellies and legs, I was winded, full-body achy and barely able to return the dumbbells to their shelf. It was quite an experience – one that I recommend for anyone who wants to guess what the cost of obesity can be. To be rid of those thirty pounds became, for sixty minutes at least, an intense and profound wish.

Another experiment was made possible these last few days. On Friday I lost my moorings. There was no way I could seem to get enough food down me. The day proceeded well enough with healthful meals and the usual exercise regime. Then 6:00 pm stuck and I was ravenous. We’re talkin’ stupendous, breathtaking hunger that would not subside. Intellectual awareness was useless. The food shoveling didn’t quit ‘til the car transported me (not bad as flukes go) to the Culvers for a bacon double cheeseburger and a quart of vanilla custard.

The next morning I ordered the number three for breakfast. The number three begins with two fried eggs, hash browns, toast and your choice of breakfast meats. Obviously, I’d gone astray.

After breakfast I was all satiety and disgrace. And, upon cool reflection, realized that if I were to stay on the diet, I’d be obliged to forego food for a fortnight or two. Fortunately, I was granted another cool reflection. I would forego food for a day.

Strangely, it was not unpleasant. There were some moments of withdrawal symptoms, I admit. Out of caution, I monitored my blood pressure and resting heart rate often during the day and went to the gym as usual. The blood pressure readings and the resting heart rate actually went down. I didn’t check blood sugar until the 30-hour fast was over late Sunday afternoon. That was a mistake because I was nearing hypoglycemia. Diabetics shouldn’t do that.

The experiment was instructive, however. I hope I learned that I’m merely addicted to too much food, a condition that can be rectified with a lot less food. The problem has always been that I relapse from the small-meals ideal to the endless-meals atrocity.

Please note: There is nothing in my history to suggest that this knowledge will find its way into practice. One can hope. Is that so wrong?

I made the weigh-in by the way. I’m at 188lbs down 2lbs from last week.

On the treadmill I listened to the 25 or so Harry James Orchestra hits. Many of them featured Frank Sinatra as the boy singer. That and the two-pound loss made my day.

Much Love,

Poppy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you made your weigh in. I've been reading your blog since I found out about it. Love it!
I love you too,
Erin

Anonymous said...

Poppy,

I had a similar experience after losing 40 pounds and picking up a 40 pound bag of dog food. Hard to believe I had been lugging that around all those years!