Lots of people lose weight every day.  Some do it on their own by using a strictly managed diet.  Others sign up for a weight loss clinic and/or service that supplies a plan and maybe even sells you the food.  I chose not to follow somebody else's way.  Instead I set out to do it on my own with the theory that that would be only way I could stick to it and keep the weight off once I lost it.

I did enough basic internet research to have a pretty good idea what would be the best approach for me.  I also set a rather modest goal for myself in terms of both the amount I wanted to lose and the time it would take me to lose it.   It's taken three years but I have now achieved that goal.

Four years ago, when I was 49, I started developing some relatively minor health problems.  Cumulatively the minor aches and pains and other issues began to add up and make me VERY uncomfortable with my life.  My cantankerous and curmudgeonly attitude and disposition was affecting my relationships with my friends and co-workers.  I knew I had to make some lifestyle changes and start feeling better about myself.  Then, three years ago, inspired by the actions of a couple of close co-workers who had taken up stair climbing and short walks while at the office, and following a few embarrassing incidences directly related to my ever-growing bulk and resulting loss of agility (I twice fell on my fat ass in public), I one day decided to join them and move my now 218 pound carcass out of my chair.

I started gaining weight when I first moved to the United States fifteen years ago.  I used to live in Toronto, where I led a reasonably active life style and didn't own a car.  Except for a one year period in the late eighties when I worked out of town, there was never really a need to drive.  Toronto's subway/bus system was more than adequate to get me anywhere I needed to go.  I also did a lot of walking and playing various forms of sports with my friends.  As a result I was in decent shape and the correct weight for my height when I moved.

When I arrived in New Jersey in February of 1995 it became apparent immediately that a car would be an absolute necessity.  Most people drive there, and they drive everywhere, all the time.  My daily commute to the office was around 15 miles.  It didn't take long before I started gaining weight, and four years later I had gained 10lbs.  I had also turned 40, and that coupled with my loss of regular physical activity meant my metabolism had slowed to a crawl.  It made me constantly hungry and I began to eat a lot more than I ever had before.

I eventually moved to California and this habit of driving and eating too much continued, but when I quit smoking at 45, I began to really pack on the pounds.  So much so that by the time I was 50 I had gained a total of 53lbs. since I had left Toronto.

Starting to stair climb was the beginning.  It wasn't a huge amount, but it started me down the path to weight loss.  Several weeks of climbing stairs was followed by a year of ever-longer power-walks.  I started walking a mile a day, then increased the distance every couple of months until I was eventually getting up every morning and power-walking for an hour.  I was of course aware during this time that successful weight loss requires a combination of diet and exercise.  With me, the diet part was really nothing special.  I simply stopped eating tonnes of food that was bad for me, such as fast food.  I still ate everything I like, but I aimed for simple moderation in how much I ate.  I also started looking for foods with more nutritious ingredients, such as whole grain pasta, and avoiding ingredients that are unnecessary, such as high fructose corn syrup.

In that first year of my new-found road to fitness the weight loss was pretty dramatic.  I even remember losing 4lbs. in one week.  It took 6-8 months to lose 28lbs.
I eventually stopped losing though, and I realized I had to take my fitness and dieting to a new level if I wanted to lose more.  So, I started running everyday, and within three months I was running 5 miles a day, 7 days a week.  I would get up early every day and run before work.  I still do this every day.  In the winter when there is a lot of rain I use a stationary bicycle when I can't run.

I ran like this for over a year, and I lost another 5 pounds without really changing my diet dramatically.  I got to 185 and leveled off and stayed there for over a year.  All that running also began to take its toll as I started having problems with my lower back and ankles.  I had to cut back to 2.5 miles of running and 1 mile of power-walking every day.  The good news is that by this time I had so revved my metabolism that cutting back on the running had zero effect on my weight.  It was simply the daily 30 minutes of aerobic exercise that was the most important thing, not how far I ran.

Of course along with the weight loss and increase in physical fitness came another benefit:  My self esteem and attitude at work also changed as I began to feel really good and would come to work, after having just finished a run, with a better frame of mind.  My co-workers both noticed and greatly appreciated the change.

I still had more weight to lose however, and that's when I decided to stop eating after 4p.m. or so.  I read a story in a newspaper some years ago about a centenarian who had just died who for something like 85 years never ate a thing after lunch.  He was apparently very thin as well.  It also dawned on me that you don't see many people of greatly advanced age who are seriously overweight.  So, I just stopped eating after my 2 o'clock lunch, and within ten days I had lost another 8lbs. Today I'm at 175 and have reached that goal I set for myself three years ago.  I still have a ways to go to get to 165, my new goal and final target weight, but I know that I will achieve it.  The weight will slowly come off over the next 18 months or so.  I'll will finally be back to my mid-thirties size and will be able to retire my various fat pants for good.  And I will have done it without ever paying for a diet plan or fitness club membership.

Today my rules for myself are:

1.  30 minutes of daly aerobic exercise (mostly running), six days a week.  No excuses.

2.  No eating after 4 p.m.

3.  Eat breakfast every day.  Breakfast usually consists of a 1 cup bowl of whole grain cereal and one piece of fruit, or two pieces of fruit, such as a banana and an apple.

4.  No unnecessary food, such as chips, soda pop, candy, bread, or other sugary and/or high-carb foods.  I eat for nutrition and sustenance only.  I still eat food I really like however, but those foods rarely include fried foods.  I usually steam or bake instead.  I also order the smallest portions when I order lunch while at work.

5.  No buying easy-to-eat groceries, even if they are good for me.  The only exceptions are fresh vegetables and humus.  When I eat at home on weekends I eat food I have to cook, unless those foods are raw vegetables.  This has the added benefit of lowering my grocery bill because I buy fewer packaged foods.

6.  No booze.  Though I do like to go out once in a while with my friends and drink beer, it's not very often.  Perhaps once every three months or so.  I also occasionally like a half a shot of whiskey to sip on, or a small glass of sherry.

7.  Drink plenty of water.  I keep a stainless steel water bottle on my desk at work and fill it often.  I find water helps quell my hunger.  At home I drink seltzer with a slice of lemon or lime.

8.  I like baking (pies and tarts mostly, from scratch so I can control the ingredients), but I only eat a little of it myself.  I give the rest to my co-workers.

Biggest lesson learned:  It's incredibly easy to gain weight, and it takes years of hard work and personal self-control to lose it and keep it off.  The best strategy is a complete and enduring change in life style to one of lots of physical activity and good eating habits.

When I think of my pictures I see flashes of time. Places. I measure my life by my films.

via nationalpost.com

 

I actually learned to read music once.  I got pretty good at it too.  Unfortunately, I just couldn't play very well.  You know when you've got it when you play.  Most of the time I didn't have it.  So I put the axe down and decided it wasn't the best thing for me.  It turned out to be a mistake, but probably not why you might think.  It wasn't just the loss of the ability to play a musical instrument I lost, it was, over time, the loss of significant interest in music in general.

 
That was in the late seventies, and over the next fifteen years or so I nearly completely ignored popular music.  I continued to occasionally listen to jazz, as in retrospect I thought it was more important than popular music and it therefore made me better than those who listened to popular music.  This kind of hubris is very common when it comes to people's supposed taste in music, and I have dear friends who, to various degrees, fall into this trap of musical élitism.  It's very easy to do.

Two important events instigated a rejuvenation and a reinvigoration of my love of music.  First, I moved to the United States, and the resulting boredom I experienced because I was in a relatively new culture where I knew very few people gave me cause to find more ways to occupy my time, and music filled in nicely for my lack of friendly distractions.  Second, there was the beginning of a monumental change in the music industry itself.

This was 1995 and the internet was burgeoning, signaling (to seemingly all but the trend leaders in the star-making machinery of popular music) that the smell of major change was blowin' in the wind.  Aided by file sharing, I began to listen to a lot more music, starting with going back to my Jimi Hendrix and jazz roots, and fueled in no small part by the great artists on the album In From the Storm (a Hendrix tribute album).  One in particular, Sass Jordan, piqued my interest on that album, though little did I know at the time that years later her name would figure prominently in a personal musical awakening that has led me to this day to expand my musical tastes, regardless of what anybody thinks about them, and listen to and learn about such great bands and artists as The Tragically Hip, Romi Mayes, and Sass Jordan herself. 

Recently, and thanks to the encouragement and knowledge of my good Canadian and American friends, the new openness and less corporate controlled and expensive nature of the music business, digital music, social networking, CBC radio 3, sites highlighting independent artists, and the fabulous online radio station Pandora, I have discovered a whole new world of exiting music from every type of genre.  Music has meaning to me again.  Hallelujah.

My friend Beijing York on Facebook posted this brilliant explanation of one of the tenets of economics.  It's quite entertaining despite the topic!

<p>Neoliberalism As Water Balloon from Tim McCaskell on Vimeo.</p>

Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life, because today I got my motorcycle license. "Big deal", you might say, "people get their motorcycle license every day".  I"m sure that's true, but I can tell you that I was the oldest person in the class by at least 10 years.  I was even older than all but one of the instructors (more on that character in another blog).

At age 52, I'm probably at the upward fringe of people who do something like this, and some might want to know why I have done it.  I have heard all the dire warnings. "You're going to kill yourself" being the most blunt of these, and "it's not you it's the other guy" being the most diplomatic,  and "Someday you're gonna go down.  So what ya gonna do when ya go down" being the most Bob Dylanesque.   Of course they all basically mean the same thing:  You're as crazy as a loon and a fool to boot.  Well, maybe that's true, but deciding to take up a relatively dangerous mode of transportation isn't something I arrived at impetuously.  I've actually been hooked for most of my life.

When I was in high school back in the '70s, I used to trade my car (an ol'66 and more blog fodder) for a little Honda CB100 on weekends with some kid I knew who was an apprentice mechanic.  I'd zoom around town at seemingly breakneck speed for a couple of days, and he'd get to drive a honkin' chevy.  On Sunday night we'd trade back.  Our dads were never the wiser for it either.

Neither of us had a license to drive the other kind of vehicle, and of course we were lucky we never got pulled over, or got into an accident.  But hey, I was a teenager and pretty fearless.  I also had the time of my life and I can still remember the wind in my hair and the bugs in my teeth to this day.  It was then I pledged that I would one day get my license and have my very own bike.

It has taken 35 years, but I'm almost there.