Aging means evolution (pt 1)

(pictured- Unflattery. Pre-5K in July 2010)
Did you know that there was a time when I was a helper to folks who needed to start a fitness routine or wanted to lose weight?

It's true! I, the royal Me, was a veritible fountain of information of all things fitness (I was like a personal trainer "lite"). And Goddamn right I was. I've been lifting weights and living a healthy lifestyle since I was 14. I'm well-read, trained, and have a experience/experimented often and well in those years. I never had a six-pack, or that crap. Just an enjoyment of working out and a healthy diet.

The unfortunate drawback of all that is a bit of a bout of dysmorphia. Lookit up). Your old pal Mikey has never really been what you call "comfortable in his own skin". I've never went nutso about it except when I was in Jr. High and living off of only instant breakfast in the a.m. and pizza rolls at night- It's just a fact. I've an Endo/Meso frame and it's not easy to keep my weight down. No biggie. (Did I mention I'm over 30? Whatever. The stipulation people put on our bodies when we get older is way off base, IMO)


So the big joke is the two best diets are break-ups and cancer. That's a fact. And I am a super-emo-mopey-ass when I'm dumped, and proceed to spend my days not eating and drinking the night away until I'm over it. This, my reader, is how it was for me around 5 years ago or so.

And I was thin.

Like, for the first time since high school. I actually felt like I was in good shape. Sure, I was what my friends called an "unhealthy weight" (or a refugee camp victim, as AL says) but I felt good in my skin, you know? Even when my diet/eating came back I was still doing all right. I gave blood and they complimented me on my resting heart rate. I felt good. And fit. And I thumbed my nose at an old co-worker who told me it's all down hill after you hit "30".

Let's fast forward to about a year or so after that: I got a physical. And I found out some alarming things. (Especially when they'd call and have me come back for "more tests")

-I weighed around 195 lbs. Even when I played football in High School I didn't weigh that much.
-I had high cholesterol. I actually found myself rationalizing my diet to the doctor to no avail. (I guess fat free cheese and soup wasn't cutting it)
-I had high blood pressure.
-I was at risk for diabetes...and cancer.
-I grew an abcess in a (ahem) very delicate area of my body.

That, friends, had me bummed out. To a huge degree. I joined the local gym with my girlfriend, thinking that maybe it's a result of not having access to a full weight room or the ability to do cardio. (I was still running. Just not...a lot.) And then, more crap happened. (1) My S.O. and I went on a cruise. And (2) I had to buy a boat load of new pants and shorts for the trip- In much larger sizes. I officially couldn't button my old jeans. Also? Comments started coming up about how I "looked like I'd put on weight". I started looking at pictures of myself and really, reeeeeally not liking what I saw. (I started looking like my dad and my grandpa Ken.)

I avoided/tried avoiding pictures unless my head was tilted a certain way. Like the below photo, I'd find clever ways to position myself to reduce the overall amount of body I was showing. I got rid of/donated my old clothes including the tight hipster t-shirts. Shirts went untucked. Pant tops were left unbuttoned. And even though we had joined the neighborhood gym? Nothing seemed to really be changing on me physically.

In spite of being told by my girl that I should just be happy in my own skin I still felt a little like Sisyphus. I was doing my part. I was lifting. I was jogging. I was eating soup. I still ate healthy (I thought.) I was enjoying food and even allowing myself dessert every so often. I stopped my offhand-comments about my "chubs" that used to annoy my girl when I said them. It felt like I had a healthy attitude, but my body wasn't responding any more.


Here we were. I was 34 going on 35...and I felt I must have been doing something very wrong fitness and health-wise. And I was getting more and more frustrated that I was going to have to come to terms with the fact that as much as I'd envisioned myself as being "fit" and "healthy", this was how I was going to look for the rest of my life and it was time to start getting comfortable with that. (Pictured: How I pose when I don't want unflattering body shots to go on Facebook and they do anyway)