Overweight and Unhealthy

I have an announcement to make: I am overweight and unhealthy.

It did take something of an official declaration to confirm this, as a height of 5'4" and a dress size in the 12-ish range puts me in the decided average for most American women. On the infrequent occasions when I used to complain about my weight, I got no credibility. Other women would look at my relatively slender extremities and snort. My doctor would tell me not to get so hung up on the numbers. I was about 145 lbs then-- a weight that most people outside of the nutrition industry would agree was a little on the high side for a short woman with small bones-- and was looking to trim off maybe 10 pounds of that; 15 pounds, tops. I happen to love fresh food and veggies--preferably in large quantities, see nothing wrong with an occasional sundae, and actually think that one-piece bathing suits are much classier than bikinis. In other words, I was hardly obsessive. But I still couldn't get anyone to take my concerns seriously.

Fast forward a year or two. I have now gained my very first desk job at the age of 35, replacing the job that kept me on my feet all day and that I walked a mile uphill both ways to get to and from. (Have you ever lived in Tallahassee?) Add a new baby in the house, which means that every available surface in the kitchen is covered with baby stuff and my food-prep area has shrunk to the size of a dinner plate. Not to mention that I'm afraid to actually cook anything from scratch, lest I somehow let fall an errant drop of chicken juice and have to burn down the kitchen in the interests of sanitation. (Have you ever lived with the mother of a preemie?) All the exhaustion from sitting on my butt all day means I'm too tired to cook, too tired to exercise, and too tired to get out of bed until 40 minutes after my alarm goes off. It's breakfast at Starbucks, lunch on the run, and dinner that's more like three shifts of snacking-- usually on real food, but not in the way that generates leftovers for the next day's lunch. Repeat ad nauseam. Some days literally.

Something had to give. And that something was my mother's health.

To make a long story short, my mom caught that nasty respiratory virus that was dropping people left and right, put off going to the doctor, and put such a strain on her lungs that she ended up in the hospital with heart failure. She was sent home ten days later with a bag of medications, a list of doctors' appointments, home oxygen therapy, and a final diagnosis of lung cancer. You might say it was a wakeup call. It didn't matter that my own immune system shoots down threats with the dedication of Strategic Air Command, that I have first-rate health insurance and no fear of doctors, or that I've never smoked a single cigarette. The warm glow thus generated had a lot less to do with ruddy good health than with leaking plutonium (see http://kangarooregina.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html). I could mosey on into the Hellevator while I airily justified the reasons why my exhaustion and incredible shrinking wardrobe were really not problems, or I could get my butt in gear and do something about it while there was still time. Considering the example currently before me, I chose to haul booty.

The gym I joined, not surprisingly, does not have Geiger counters. But I wouldn't have been too surprised to hear the scale and the blood-pressure machine start chattering away while a klaxon sounded somewhere in the background and red lights spun warningly in the hallway. I clocked in at 159 lbs, with a blood pressure of 158/108 (please, dear God, let my doctor not see this just yet). I'd have to lose 15 pounds just to get back to my "zero" point. And you know, I still don't look heavy. But I do have a trainer who takes me seriously. Like my doctor, she does tell me not to dwell so much on the numbers. But that's because she knows it could take me a year to lose those 25 pounds, and she doesn't want me to get discouraged before I start.

I showed up to the gym this past Monday for my first official session. I changed into the workout pants that had seemed so appealing in the store, and discovered a decidedly unattractive pear shape to my midsection. The addition of a cheery yellow t-shirt left me wondering if I should just stencil "Yukon Gold" on my back. I exited the locker room in the general direction of the workout area, and couldn't find my trainer anywhere. I climbed onto the elliptical machine, set my workout, and had to drop the intensity twelve minutes later. I had to stop after twenty, and I never did get around to any weight training. But I spent more time, covered more equivalent distance, and used more resistance than when I used to be a regular at my last gym. I may be overweight, unhealthy, and out of shape, but it seems that I really do have the tools to fix this problem. And I can't say it's discouraging.