Doctor P took one look at me, looked at his computer screen, and then looked back up at me.
“You are amazingly fat,” he said.
Susan says those weren’t his exact words, and that sometimes I remember what I think people meant instead of what they said. So maybe that’s not exactly what he said, but in my head, that’s what I heard.
It continued. For an eternity, it continued.
“So, what do you think about my knee?” I asked.
“I think it hurts because you’re fat,” he continued. “Have you ever tried to lose weight?”
Asking an overweight person if they have ever tried losing weight is like asking them if they’ve ever added chocolate to anything, pilfered items from their kid’s trick or treat bag, or eaten their dessert first.
“What do you have for breakfast each morning?” he continued.
“A large sugar-free vanilla iced coffee and a breakfast burrito from McDonald’s,” I replied. Sometimes I have two, but I told him one.
Doctor P smirked. “Come on,” he said. “You think one breakfast burrito and one coffee is keeping you that size? How much do you exercise each week?”
“A little,” I exaggerated.
Doctor P took another look at his computer screen and then returned his focus to my fatness.
“Do you know how much you weigh?” he asked.
I know how much I weigh. Not only do I weigh every morning, but I just did it in the hallway, outside this room. The nurse was polite enough to not act as if I was the biggest person she had weighed all morning.
“Yes, I know how much I weigh,” I responded. “But my knee…” I started.
“Your knee is not the problem. Your weight is your problem,” he said.
For the next 20 minutes — or perhaps it was eternity — I listened to diet suggestions and exercise suggestions.
“I like walking,” I offered.
Technically Dr. P didn’t roll his eyes at me, but in my version of events, he did. For the next five minutes, he explained to me how short bursts of high intensity training is actually better than 30 minutes of walking. I’m sure it is.
“How many times a week do you walk?”
I thought. There was that time back in April…
“At least three times a week,” I responded.
This time, he really did roll his eyes.
As Dr. P explained the benefits of exercise and weight loss, it hit me: this was the conversation I’ve been dreading all my life. My mind picked out key words like “diabetes” and “blood pressure” and “life span” but I wasn’t really paying attention to what he said. All I could think about was how could I have ended up here? How could I have let this happen?
The signs have been there forever. No longer being able to buy clothes at Walmart. Constantly complaining about shirts “shrinking” when in fact it was me, growing. Constantly dealing with back/hip/knee pain. Complaining about new cars being “too small.” No longer fitting in airline seats (or, at a minimum, carrying a seatbelt extended with me). The eating of the sweet snacks between the bigger snacks between the meals. The snowcones, the ice cream, the cake, the chips, the dips, the salty and the sweet, they all caught up to me right there in Dr. P’s office.
…
So… what were you hoping for? Another blog post promising to eat less and exercise more? As I told Mason before every basketball game, talk’s cheap — actions matter. Yoda nailed it: “Do, or do not — there is no try.” I don’t need Dr. P to tell me again. It’s time to get healthy or die trying.
For what it’s worth, I completely forgot about my knee.
Good luck sir. Keep fighting. You’ll do this…
FWIW – I’m in the same boat (to some extent). I have type 2 diabetes, and I just turned 50. I don’t exercise nearly enough, but I do walk quite a bit for work. I have recently started to take my diet more seriously. First thing I did was cut out morning carbs. Weight dropped noticeably. Start small. All this weight didn’t load on in a week, and it won’t disappear in a week. Make small adjustments that you can turn into healthy habits. You can do this. I know you can because you did the MCSE on the first go-through. Trust me on this – You DO NOT want to become diabetic.
My wife and I were both in this same situation 10 years ago. After some bumps in the road we discovered Weight Watchers and it did wonders for us. It’s a great program, has an online version if your not a social butterfly like me, and is flexible enough to not make you feel like you haven’t failed miserably if you stray off the path now and again. I’m sure your going to get a lot of advice on this subject, but I wanted to weigh in (no pun intended) and wish you luck. I know it’s not easy, but the end result is well worth it. Good luck Rob!
My sweet Rob, the weight stuff is a subject that no one really wants to talk about but I am glad you did. Speaking from experience, it doesn’t get any easier the older you get…..I have had a plan for 35 years…..just haven’t implemented it yet…..maybe we should start our own little club, you, me & Neal….we could help each other stay on task…..let’s talk after the wedding, I need a push to do this!! Love you :)
Stick with it, Rob. One thing I’ve come to understand being north of 40 age-wise is that while we might still feel 20-ish in our heads, our bodies are at the age where we really can’t afford to play fast and loose with anything that impacts our health. That youthful resilience we all enjoyed in the day has been supplanted with a run-down body model that needs a little more regular maintenance than what the factory manual specified when it shipped brand new.
Years ago a fitness guru named Covert Bailey made a statement that had a profound impact on me: He said to go with the exercise you enjoy. You like to walk? Then walk. Like to swim? Swim. Don’t listen to people who say you have to run or do crunches to be fit because, if you hate doing those exercises, you will stop eventually. After you’ve been walking (or swimming or biking) a while you realize you miss it a little and that starts driving your exercise and not just the health benefits. By a while, I mean months because that’s how long it will take for you to get used to it.
After that statement by Mr. Bailey I stopped going to the gym (I wasn’t going very often anyway) and did the things I liked: walking, biking and hiking. Before long I was exercising far more often than I did at the gym (I was beginning to hate going to the gym). After a while I was hiking so often that, when I took a long enough break from that activity, I would miss it and start up again. My biggest regret of the past year was stopping the hiking when it started getting cold. I should have put a coat on and continued my hikes.
If you can reach a point where you are actually enjoying your walks instead of thinking of it as a necessary chore, then half the battle is won, my friend. Don’t give up, don’t surrender. Find ways to enjoy the walk.