Author Archives: Ken Montville

Missed A Day

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Yep.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I really, really, meant to try to get to the gym for my measly 30 minutes on the treadmill but by the time I got out of my 3 hour meeting, got some ink for my printer, had lunch (otherwise known as eating and piling on the calories), it was almost time to get going to my late afternoon meeting.

The worst part of the meetings, of course, is the munchies they have readily available calling my name every 3 minutes. Eat me. Eat me. Eat me. That’s another discipline altogether. Resisting the munchies.

God, where does the time go.

Yeah. I could’ve run home, put on my gym clothes and run out the door to go to the gym.  In fact, that’s what I really should’ve done to build the habit, the repetition, the discipline. But I didn’t do it.  I cam home and vegged just long enough to miss my window of opportunity.

So I’ll try this thing, again, tomorrow. Maybe I’ll try to get to the gym earlier in the morning. That way the day won’t get away from me.

Resistance

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One of the biggest barriers to weight loss, at least any kind of sustained weight loss, is the Smiling man on a treadmill at the gymresistance you run into. This resistance comes mostly from myself.

I’m too tired. The gym is too far. I ache. I can do it tomorrow.

All kinds of things play around in my mind to keep me from exercising. These exercise resistance gremlins are different from the eating gremlins. The exercise resistance is a lot mental with a tad bit of physical thrown in.

Today was the perfect example.

I had a pretty busy morning. Part of it was taken up in physical therapy for a neck issue. It’s hard to turn my neck due to some degeneration bought on by age. It’s know as arthritis. Anyway, the session usually involves some light exercise and some guy working my neck to try and loosen it up and elongate it a bit.

Long story short. When I get out of that, it takes about an hour for the aches and pains to set in but they start to make themselves know. I just want to sit back. Tune in some New Age music and doze.

Even after the “power nap” I didn’t really feel like doing anything. But, I forced myself to get into some gym clothes and get in the car and go.  I did my half hour on the treadmill and came home.

Believe it or not, yesterday’s walk wasn’t so bad. Today, I actually broke a sweat and felt, if not exhausted, than pretty damn tired from the same settings – 30 minutes, 2.6 mph, 0% incline – that I used yesterday.

The other part of the resistance comes from getting on the scale this morning after being so virtuous and doing my leisurely 30 minute walk only to find out I gained a pound. My mind immediately starts reminding me that no matter what I do I’m doomed to exist in this 300 lb body and, who knows, I may even get heavier and heavier and heavier. Pre-destination.  John Calvin’s not dead. He’s living in my head.

The bottom line is that I need to break through the resistance. I need to build the habit. I need to power through the 21 days or whatever it takes to keep going. The resistance is brutal.

So This Is What The Gym Looks Like?

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I had a few errands to run to day but mostly they were things I could do later in the day or, really, later in the morning. After all, I was only planning to spend a ½ hour on the treadmill.

The MIssus went off to work (I work from home) and I jumped in the shower to  get rid of the bed head hair and at least brush my teeth. I put on my gym clothes and sneakers and headed out the door.

The gym I go to is about a 7 minute drive from door-to-door. That’s counting the traffic lights and the time it takes to park. When I go – usually mid morning – there are people at the gym but not nearly enough where I have to wait for a treadmill to open up. In fact, it’s busy when there is someone on the treadmill next to me. Usually, I get empties on either side.

The place really doesn’t change. Six monitors high against the wall showing about 4 different things. News, sports,music videos. It’s the music videos that they blast throughout the gym. That’s why I figured out it was a good idea to bring my iPhone in and listen to Pandora. At least, I could choose what I was listening to and it would be right in my ears so it would drown out whatever is popular these days.

The visuals are a bit distracting. Television always hypnotized me. If I walk into a room with a TV on it doesn’t matter if it’s the most maudlin soap opera or a cartoon, I become transfixed. The gym is the same way except that I try to keep my mind off the monitors by continuously moving my vision across the different scenes and then back to the treadmill read outs.

30 minutes at 2.6 mph at 0% incline. It burnt, according to the treadmill, 204 calories based on my weight.  That’s the nice thing about gym treadmills. You plug in information about yourself and it provide an almost customized result. 204 calories is not quite the two pieces of toast I had this morning…and certainly doesn’t cover the raspberry jam and Frosted Mini Wheats with 1% milk.

Nevertheless, it’s better than nothing which is what I was doing before today. The MIssus even gave me a little attaboy in the evening. (Typically, she would scoff at such a small amount of calories burned but I think she realizes she needs to be supportive of even the smallest effort) 

Tomorrow?  The morning is jammed up with appointments. That means I’ll need to go in the afternoon. I really, really, really need to make this a habit.

Gym Phobia

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Yeah. The fear of gyms.

For the past two days, I’ve been telling myself that it’s time to get back to the gym. After all, I’m paying the suckers $24.95 a month for the pleasure of being able to walk through their doors. Hey, for that money, I should go every day, right. Less than a dollar a day.

But, do I?

Nooooo.

I find “things to do” or I get distracted or I start surfing social media (sound familiar?). The bottom line is that I don’t go. Instead, I sit end up at home plowing through the sweets the Missus and I bought at the Amish Market a couple of days ago. Chocolate…

On the plus side, we had dinner at a reasonable hour which was made even more reasonable since it is now Daylight Saving Time and our bodies haven’t shifted to the new time yet. So it was like eating an hour earlier or something like that.

Maybe tomorrow will be the day I finally overcome the procrastination.

It’s not really the fear so much as the thinking that one day or two days or two months don’t really make a dent. Of course, I know, at some level, that anything I do to exercise and/or curb my eating helps.  It just doesn’t help all at once. I want to be 100 lbs lighter tomorrow…after I come back from the gym. Rationally, I know that doesn’t happen.

Who said anything about rational? Rational wouldn’t have had me tip the scale over 300;bs. Speaking of which. I plummeted from 305lbs yesterday to 299.7 today. How is that possible? Water weight? A bad reading? Barometric pressure (more like bariatric pressure)?

I’ll take it. I’ll see what tomorrow brings. It better get me to the gym.

Ending Day One

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I been reading this book - Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir -
about a woman who lost over 200 lbs. That’s a lot of weight. According to the book, she was topped out at 372. That, I’m proud to say is 67 lbs more than I weighed this morning.

Maybe not so proud.

Most people would be aghast as someone getting close to 400 lbs. Most people are aghast at people over 300 lbs. It’s just that most people are too polite to say anything out loud. Even doctors have stopped tilting at windmills. Every doctor I see (and it’s three plus the dentist) has said I should lose weight. But after they’ve said it the first time and, maybe the second time, they stop saying it.

Instead they make modest suggestions that modest exercise would be a good start. Just a  ½ hour a day. Just a little walking. Nothing extreme.

Good Intentions

I had good intentions this morning combined with a healthy dose of disgust at how I let myself get to this point. I wanted to moderate my eating, do some moderate exercise and, hopefully, get on the scale tomorrow morning to a smaller number on the scale.

Instead, I ate some the sweets the Missus and I bought at the Amish Farmers Market yesterday (and I lot of them, too!). I ate bread. Dinner was a ham and egg omelette with three eggs and two pieces of toast followed by the lemon poppy seed “bread” (really cake without the icing).

Arrrrrgh!

What is going wrong?

And, no. I didn’t exercise. I meant to take some time to go to this gym I’m sending money to every month just to get on the treadmill for a ½ hour. Just like the 372 girl in the book did.

Maybe tomorrow.

Over The Top

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It seems that every time I listen to one of those hypnotic weight loss CDs or start reading about how this person or that person lost a whole lot of weight – lot meaning over 200 lbs – I actually start gaining weight.

I know, at some level, I’m trying to pawn off my personal responsibility for stuffing my body with tons of sugar and starch. Yet, I can’t help but feel there might be a kind of reverse effect from this stuff. You know. Read about weight loss and I figure that’s all it’ll take.

I’ve also been throwing hundreds of dollars away at a local gym because I’ve been paying their monthly fee and not going (the perfect client for the gym). I’ve tried counting calories and joined a website that helps me keep track but I end up frustrated, hungry and eventually stop counting.

Now I find myself at the absolute heaviest I’ve been in my entire life. I weighed n this morning at 305 lbs. That’s a lot of weight. My blood pressure is high and I’m on drugs for that. I have sleep apnea. I’m going through physical therapy for what is essentially arthritis in my neck. My left hip aches (more arthritis) and reduces a little (just a little) of my mobility mostly in the raising and lowering of my leg.

Long story short, I’m falling apart physically and it’s mostly due to being grossly – morbidly – overweight.

I really, really, really have to get hold of myself.

Do Not Call Does Not Work

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Every night at the same time. Sometime between 6:100 and 6:30 the phone rings.

“Anonymous”

“Out of Area”

“Unknown”

All signals from the caller ID that it isn’t anyone I want to talk with or to. Yet, sometimes, I pick up the phone and there’s silence. Nothing. Nada.

I’ve been told that this is just a way for machines to verify the number is good. If someone picks up it alerts the telemarketing center that there is actually:

  1. someone at home and
  2. It might be a good time to call

Of course, Do Not Call doesn’t apply to politicians, charities (the Red Cross is the worst, followed by Special Olympics) and people with whom you have done some business with before whether or not the experience was good or bad.

Still that leaves a whole pisspot full of people who call anyway.

Being a real estate guy, I sometimes hear that real estate agents will call anyway because:

  • the process to lodge a complaint that results in a fine is too onerous for most people and,
  • even if, in the worst of all worlds, a fine is levied, it’s the cost of doing business.

In other words, the risk of getting fined is worth it because the probability of talking to someone who will do business with you (i.e., buy or sell a house…or know someone who will buy or sell a house) is so small. Tiny, in fact.

Still, it’s annoying as hell to hear the phone ring at intermittent times of the day.  Is it someone I know that I really want to talk to?  Is it a call I might be expecting? Is it a family member with an emergency? All kinds of reasons.

So, I rush to the phone and look at the Caller ID and see “Out of Area” or “Unknown Caller” or whatever. Frequently. Too damn frequently.

Do Not Call Does Not Work

Reading Books on the iPad

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Back in the day, I was conflicted.

I was thinking of getting a Kindle since everyone and their brother who owned one loved it Yet, the iPad had so much more you could do with it and everyone in my profession and their brother said it would be an invaluable business tool. (I’m a real estate guy)

What should I do?

Well, I broke down and spent the big bucks on the iPad and installed the Kindle app.  It seemed like the best of both worlds.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t

The iPad is nice. It has lots and lots and lots of apps and lots of functionality beyond just reading.  However, it is with the reading that it falls short. The back lighting really doesn’t last that long. Or I haven’t figured out how to make it last longer. As a result, I’m constantly touching the iPad to get the back lighting to brighten back up so I can read.

Yeah. I know. If I read a little faster or just turned pages more the light would stay on. It would also run down the battery life (which I realize is secondary since the battery life is way long on the iPad).

The other part, though, is that the iPad is heavy. Add a case and it’s even heavier.At least, for reading a book.The Kindle is super light and small-ish so it really is a ton easier just to carry it around and whip it out to read. I understand if you get the “pre Kindle Fire” Kindles, the Digital Ink is really very readable.

So, I’ve gone back to ordering real, paper and ink books. The kind that you hold in your hand and can’t take more than one or two at a time on trips or whatever. Thick books (thicker than Kindle, anyway).

I don’t know. It’s just something about a real book.  Maybe I should break down and get one of the original Kindles. hell, I think the cheapest one is only $79.

Maybe for my birthday…or Christmas.

Irony of the Restaurant Booth

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It always strikes me as odd that restaurants have such uncomfortable seating…for fat people.

Restaurant BoothMaybe it’s because the really nice restaurants that all the foodies go to don’t want to be perceived as the cause for obesity. On one level, they’re not. Eating – what and how much – is a personal choice and a personal responsibility.  Yet, isn’t it the restaurants that provide the overly large portions of everything?

I’ve gotten really fat. No question. I eat poorly and exercise infrequently. That’s my fault.

I don’t always go to restaurant that serve healthy food that’s also well prepared. That’s also my fault. Yet, I wonder why on earth any restaurant allows booths designed with immovable tables and immovable benches.

I’m sure that, at some point in the process, the owner or chef is sitting down with the interior designer or architect or whoever and planning out how many people they want to cram into the space they have allotted. They’re probably discussing how often a table will turn and, in order to expedite that process, how to make the seating so that it’s comfortable but not too comfortable.

Thus, the tight booth and the tables that are way to close to one another.

I visited a restaurant this morning to meet a friend for breakfast. It has a great reputation and pricing to match.

At first, they hostess offered us a smallish, two person only table within about two feet of the next table. The table situation would have been optimal for my girth but it was really intrusive for our conversation.  I really prefer not to  be too close to someone else. I don’t really want to listen on on their conversations and I would prefer they don’t listing to mine no matter how inadvertently.

So, we were offered a booth. The table was fixed and immovable as were the benches. Luckily, I was able to squeeze in. Barely.  My friend was kind enough not to say anything. So I said it myself: “I need to lose weight”.

Quite frankly, it was uncomfortable. To top it off, of course, the portions at this particular eatery were generous. So, on the one hand, I need to make wise choices about what food to put in my mouth so I can fit comfortably into restaurant booths. On the other hand, restaurants promote over eating with large portions cooked with plenty of fat, sugar, salt and calories.

Ironic?