There’s a Lot Going On

For starters, just to get this out of the way,  in case you don’t know…Katie and I are in the process of a divorce. I don’t want to dwell on it publically, other than to say that nobody did anything wrong, we don’t have any major disagreements, and it’s all about as painless as can be. I’m terribly disappointed in the outcome, but I don’t have many regrets either. Is it odd that I regret neither the marriage or the divorce? I don’t think so, but, then, I’m close to the situation.

On an unrelated note, many months ago I signed up to participate in one of the KU Center for Physical Activity and Weight Management’s clinics.  I’m sitting at about 275 (125 kgs/19 st 9/2 qts 1 pt 1cup – sorry, terrible inside joke), and have been somewhere around this weight for 4 years. Here is the clinic:

http://www.ebl.ku.edu/pvc_index.php

I’m in the “phone” group. So, every Wednesday at 5:30, I participate in a phone meeting for about an hour. Yes, my food is largely paid for. Not too shabby. Furthermore, I have come to the realization that I need at least a long period where I don’t make choices about my diet or my exercise. I’m just bad at it, and not for a lack of knowledge or information.

I LOVE FOOD. If you know me, you know that this is true on a very deep level. I love cooking. I love expensive food, and I love inexpensive food. I love nearly every part of the animal, and I love the dairy they produce. Grains don’t excite me as much, but as a vessel for other flavors, bring it all on.

That love, combined with a sedentary lifestyle, has rendered me quite obese and unhealthy; so much so that a slow, measured weight loss just doesn’t work in a context of choices. A series of unhappy choices is no way to go through life, and that’s what it would be constantly without the structure of someone else giving me almost all my food, not allowing me to drink alcohol and forcing me (essentially) to do at least a certain amount of physical activity.

I did this with great success 10 years ago. When I left Lawrence and moved to England, cut off from my friends, my social patterns and Free State Brewery, I imposed a strict diet on myself that, combined with the need to walk a good distance every day to and from school, allowed me to get all the way down to 187. But, boy, was I a miserable bastard. Somehow, I managed to make a few friends despite my misery, including one of my dearest friends, Melinda Norman (nee Rogers). When Mel and her now-husband Adrian came to Lawrence for my wedding, she was a bit taken aback when she saw me in my element…all my friends around, jovial, drinking, eating, loving life. It was like all these things about me that she had only seen in isolation all sort of made sense when freed from the self-imposed asceticism of my time in Liverpool.

I’m very good at finding a happy medium, or at least contentment, which my soon-to-be ex-wife is not — one of the underlying reasons for the end of our lifetime partnership. I don’t know how to find this particular balance, but I know I can’t even try to think about it without dropping down under 200. I was under that weight for about 5 months of my adult life…and, that’s not skinny on my frame or anything. Still, I remember what moving around at that weight felt like, and how I didn’t shy from pictures…and how I told myself I could never let myself get back to where I am now. For a generally positive and happy person, I don’t feel very much joy right now, and a (very) big part of that is self-image.

It won’t all be serious, I swear.