Author's Note: Composed prior to Valentine's Day, but posted after due to revisions and proofreading delays :)
This year is an iconic (read: ironic) year. As Valentine's Day rolls around there is a satirical, almost pathetic, irony to the fact that I do not have to worry about a fine dining experience at The Keg. This will be the first year in a very long time that I have zero stress about where to make reservations, how much to save up, and whether it will be *ahem* a good night. It will mark over 45-days since I've had meat, and half way through my second month of my veg*n diet. For me, that's a big life change.
Red meat was normal for me for a long time, along with pork, chicken, turkey and occasionally fish. For years, the big worry about meal preparation was "which protein" to choose from. Whilst I was out and about running my grocery errands, I would plan ahead for my meals with ease: Would I go with a steak? A stew? A chop? What meat did I want to prepare for my meal, as if to go along with the sheer coincidence that "MEAL" is made up of almost the entirely same letters as "MEAT". As such, logic dictates that to be a MEAL it should be almost all MEAT, right? That's normal.
I woke up with a foot pain one morning that wasn't normal. Sadly, it was ill-timed with a business trip. I was up all night, far away from home in a hotel room in agony to the point I was barely able to walk. I didn't have medical coverage in the US so I stuck to alternating hot and cold treatments, self-diagnosing the pain as a "twisted" ankle. Hobbling down the hallway the next day at the business office I looked ridiculous, a martyr, but I had to do what I needed to do and get home. Within a few days of prescribed pain killers, the ankle had "healed" and the pain subsided.
This happened a few times over the next few years. The doctors usually turned me away at the emergency room, citing my weight as the reason.
"The body isn't designed to carry such weight", the doctor would say.
"Ok, Got it. That's what you always tell me..." I'd reply, pleading," but can you just do an xray or something to make sure that's what it is?"
Sure enough, my joints were never fractured. Always "soft tissue damage" resulting from "overburdening".
Eventually, the same pain occurred in my knee. I woke up one morning to a familiar dull ache, but in my left knee. I chalked it up to sleeping at a bad angle on a makeshift bed I was on while visiting my dad. By dinner time, I couldn't walk. The next day, my knee was so swollen, red and sore, the joint was virtually frozen at a fixed angle, and to move it was an agony that I have never, nor shall I, ever forget.
The doctor's cited the same reason: My weight. It was suggested that I had torn my meniscus, or ACL, and only time and therapy - and weight loss - would resolve the issue. I physically could not exercise to lose weight, and inactivity bred more fat. Some days, I couldn't even put my own sock on. It was all I could do to dress myself, and thrive on a diet of Celebrex and naproxen sodium (Aleve). To this day, my only saving grace from ulcers and blood toxicity was the amount of water I drank, just enough to dilute the blood and carry out the flushing of my system.
Eventually, I had an MRI completed. The joint specialist advised me, once again, my joints were fine, they simply couldn't take my 335lb weight.
"Knee replacement is inevitable."
I lived that way for years. No answer. No reasons. No resolution. I couldn't work out to save my life. Literally. Hopes and dreams faded as my opportunity to enlist passed by, a career in policing became nearly impossible along with almost every other career requiring physically fit conditioning and my 30's crept up swiftly.
The best way I could describe my "typical" status was this: I could walk down the street, to get To and From, but if a pickpocket stole my wallet I could not chase them. I'd keel over like a cripple without his crutches.
Then one day it hit me - like the boulder on my late Uncle Rick's toe: maybe, it was Gout. It's hereditary, runs in the family and is typical of a middle-aged meat-eater. Almost seven years after my first episode, three doctors later, after multiple emergency room visits, an MRI and regularly completed bloodwork that said All Systems "Go", I attended a Walk-in Clinic and asked to have a test completed for uric acid levels, an indicator of Gout.
Sometimes, I wonder why they call it "Free medicare" in Canada. Maybe, it's because you get what you pay for. The only thing free was my final diagnosis, whereby I finally learned how to be free of pain because we finally had an answer as to why my knee ached: my uric acid count was off the chart. It would take six months of 300-mg per day Allopurinol tablets to bring my bloodwork back in line with a "normal" male. That's twice as long as the usual 90-day loading period. The delay was an indicator just how crystalized the uric acid was in my system, around internal organs besides the indicative joint pain, with the use of allopurinol mobilizing the other, previous unknown areas of concern. Basically, if untreated, Gout kills.
I now maintain a relatively gout-free status, with no inhibition physically. I could even chase a purse-snatcher confidently!
Over six years of my life I spent thinking I was physically damaged, requiring surgery and no one knowing what to fix. Fast forward to 2013, and my braces are off; Like Forest Gump, "I was running...."
Now, to figure out what to eat to maintain my balanced, plant-powered lifestyle. With that comes the complication of meal planning. In days prior, it was basically a selection of either aforementioned meat choice, or which processed food to throw in the oven, or on a "late day" from work the big question was what to pick up on the way home. Holidays were previously not challenging with ease in simply deciding which overpriced restaurant to book reservations with. This year is different.
Planning a healthy dinner takes more effort, especially to find a meal that feels well-rounded, so as to make sure you don't leave the table feeling cheated or like something is missing. For me that means at least three selections on the plate, each one representing a previously favored food group.
For the "main" piece of "meat" tomorrow night I may very well choose a hearty beet. Everything about an oven-roasted beet steak feels right for the main, "meaty" piece of my meal: it's dense, flavorful, requires chewing and is satisfyingly wholesome.
Some of my favorite sides now include steamed broccoli, brussel sprouts, or cauliflower. I'd like to not over-steam them, to retain as many of the nutrients as possible (research 118* Cooking). In the case of cauliflower though, I have fallen in love with pureed cauliflower as a replacement for mashed potato, a beloved food that calls to my Irish heritage.
Baked Kale is now a staple of my dinner time, with varying flavored toppings and seasonings, but nutritional yeast or turmeric and black pepper are among my top favorites.
I almost never have plain ole salad. The obvious choice of omnivores to incorporate plants into their diet screams for flavoring in the form of high calorie, low nutrient dressings that sabotage even the best of diets, unless of course you make your own. There are plenty of dressing recipes on the web. For me, its just an unnecessary step given my meals ARE plants.
The only thing I haven't conquered yet is dessert. Frankly, I'm trying to avoid it.Although flavored dessert tofus, Oreos or sorbets are an easy choice, I typically just skip them altogether. For the special occasions though, I might try the Engine 2 ice-cream recipe that calls for simply frozen bananas and a tablespoon of vanilla extract. In fact, recently, a reader recommended a modified version of this, by suggesting the inclusion of peanut butter while blending. I might have to try the E2 Ice-Cream sooner just to test the theory!
Either way, I'm sure whatever I serve will be healthy, enjoyable and far less expensive and far more healthy than any of my past Valentine's dinners. I recommend the same to all of my loved ones. Cook your hearts out, in a style that's healthy. Your significant others might love the food too. You can bet your hearts on it.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Abnormally Normal
Have you ever found yourself sizing up another person's grocery selection at the grocery store?
Sure you have. We stand in line like cattle on a farm, waiting our turn at the end of the stall to have our purchases processed. While there, we have little to do but stand and look around, and occasionally flick our hair (those that have flickable hair, or any hair at all for that matter). We gaze around at the lights and sights. Sometimes we graze, sorting through the subliminally-planted, spontaneous purchase type foods marketed by deliberately and maliciously placing last in the store that come in the form of high calorie snack foods that taste fantastic.
And we size up other people and their purchases.
Hypothetical scenario. A cart loaded up with vegetables, fruits, and other non-processed items, primarily organic or otherwise "natural". What's the first thing we think of when we see that?
My money is on one word: "healthnut"
That, or "whackjob".
Normal people don't eat only fruits and vegetables. After all, how can they live if they don't get their protein? How do they expect to maintain muscle mass and over all health if they aren't eating protein? How "abnormal" of them to abstain from eating animal proteins and packaged, processed foods!
That gut check is still present weeks after my dietary switch to a plant-based lifestyle commenced. Why do I know this? Two words: "Raw Lasagna".
The Italian food lover in me reeled with disgust, appalled at the food travesty. Until recently, I'd never even heard of such a culinary fiasco! How on earth could one say that this was "lasagna"? The audacity! Absurd! How abnormal!
Everyone knows that real lasagna is pound-upon-pound of meat and dairy layered over white-flour noodles! I am sure that's been exactly how it's made, as handed-down generation after generation from the very first, and surely thoroughly-cooked, lasagna in ancient Italy or where ever the first lasagna dates back to.
In fact, it most certainly needs to come in a glass or tinfoil pan, and be cooked on high heat in the oven until the cheese bubbles and the top noodles become almost crispy from over-baking. That's what a normal lasagna is.
Hotdogs and hamburgers, the good old American food, are the same thing. Treated fairly, the animal meat and by-products that are ground up, formed into patties or tubes and char-grilled for all to enjoy were never meant to be fashioned out of brown rice, soy or mushroom blends! Preposterous! They're meant to have mooed, (or perhaps, as more recent news shows, at least even whinnied) at some point. Everyone knows that! My Uncle Rick knew that!
Uncle Rick was a die-hard red meat lover who proved to me that Man can live on a diet of red meat, no veggies and be cool. He drove a Corvette. He always had the latest electronic gadgets. He gave all of his nieces and nephews the best Christmas gifts, treated us all equally; he was the epitome of the cool uncle. The 70's bachelor living his life in the fast lane and without a care in the world.
Ironically, I related to Rick. I felt very akin to him, with similar personality characteristics as well as physical traits. I envied his record collection, his cars, his toys. I also related to his struggles. Whenever I started to exercise, I would think of the story he told me about the first time he took up running.
Rick had bought himself all the gear, as usual. He had the expensive matching two piece Adidas jogging suit. He had brand new white runners. I think he even got a fancy water bottle before water bottles were even a mainstream accessory. He was so cool he set trends.
He went out for a morning jog, made it a record breaking number of kilometers away and but then realized there was no way to make it home alive. He was so beaten, exhausted and sore he called my grandmother for a ride home.
Rick is the reason I prefer the treadmill.
I remember asking Rick one time why he didn't eat vegetables. He said he didn't like them, they made him sick to his stomach. Instead, he ate one of two things:
A) Two burgers, made of ground beef and hand-pressed into patties, grilled on a gas barbeque, or broiled in the oven, then served up on two fresh-from-the-bakery white flour kaiser buns.
or
B) Sirloin steak, grilled medium well and served with two indulgent slices of fresh, white bread slathered in butter or sweet dinner rolls dressed the same.
Either meal was accompanied with a Morton salt shaker and usually ended with brownies, cake or another sweet desert. Whichever Rick had for lunch was alternated for dinner. Every single day.
There was no variance. There was no interruption or hiatus. I don't think I ever saw Rick even eat a piece of fruit or so much as a vegetable by way of pizza. He simply didn't eat anything else. He was just that cool, like James Dean and his cigarette.
Rick was overweight, diabetic and unhealthy. But man, he was cool.
Much like James Dean, he also died way before his time should have run out, passing away from heart failure in his 50's. No surprise. Yet, we mourned him.
"How could such a sweet young man pass away so young?", the old aunties would weep.
Yet, it should have been no surprise to any of us. In fact, one could argue we were all guilty of murder, or at least manslaughter, for knowingly allowing a man to inflict hazardous damage upon his own health to his detriment. After all, everyone knows you need to get a well balanced meal. If Rick had been been a coke-head, alcoholic or even anorexic, there most certainly would have been an intervention. So why wasn't there?
Because it's normal, right? Mainstream media features men huddled around barbeques, gripping beers and telling war stories, anticipating the luxury of cooked flesh that was about to be served. How many of those commercials feature a man taking a big bite of a brown-rice-and-mushroom vegetarian burger?
Veggie burgers don't sell out stadiums at half-time for the Superbowl. They're for weird people. They're abnormal.
The question is, according to who?
As I journey into the land of Healthy Living, I find myself asking that question alot, and yet it seems to become more and more apparent to me that it's a matter of who you ask. Naturally, big businesses want you to buy more. Hence, they make everything look better, and shiny and new and exciting. Marketing 101. I find myself trusting the opinions of raw food, whole food and vegan diet experts that seem to become more and more frequently featured in the documentaries I find on food.
According to most of them, and by "them" I mean the experts on Food Matters, Hungry for Change, Fat Sick & Nearly Dead, Vegucated, Fresh, Farmageddon, Food Inc, it simply isn't healthy to ingest the majority of the packaged, processed foods that are put on shelves and heavily marketed to us.
But the biggest proof, for me, has been my own body.
Six full weeks into non-dairy, non-animal food consumption, with roughly 60% raw, and 40% cooked, I feel incredible. Everything I was led to believe about switching to organic, wholesome foods has come true. Now, I certainly don't have superpowers. I'm not getting younger. I don't look like The Rock, yet, but I'm healthy(ier).
My body chemistry has changed. I can tell a difference in my own sweat and, subsequently, body odour, at the end of the day or post-workout. I don't have near the stink that I would have had prior when I was consuming meat and dairy. There is definitely a difference in me post-vegan.
My skin is different. Fewer pimples, not nearly the oily sensation around my nose, chin and forehead that I noticed before, and acne that I had on my upper arms my entire life is clearing up.
I have more energy. Less lethargic, and less prone to desiring sleep, and I'm functioning on less and less coffee than ever before in my adult life.
I feel sharper. I don't feel as groggy, and don't have that haze or fog I need to lift or clear each morning. I don't need my afternoon jolt of coffee or sugar to get around the 3PM wall, and my mental state feels more alert.
My breathing has changed. I am no longer perpetually stuffed up. I don't have to clear my throat. I don't have inexplicable phlegm, no post nasal drip, zero mucus-y feeling in my ears, throat or sinuses. I feel like when I take a deep breath, I can feel the air in every pocket of my lungs. There is no fight to get oxygenated.
I recover faster. Previously, the days following a workout were intense. Muscles ached. That's how I knew I'd worked out hard. I'm now pushing my body farther than I've ever expected I could. And the next day, I'm back in the gym, with minimal familiar pain.
According to mainstream media, all of the above are abnormal symptoms and to feel normal, I could have headed to a drugstore and found something to take care of it.
According to the experts on aforementioned documentaries, I just need to eat responsibly and healthy.
So who is right? Who is telling the truth? The truth lies in reality.
The reality is, now I know what it is to feel healthy; I feel normal. For the first time in my life, I feel as if I am a well-oiled machine and in tip top shape right off the factory line. Agreeably, I certainly have a long way to go. I'm know I've not actually plateaued yet, but that is the best part. To think that in just six weeks I have achieved more in healing and self-preservation through simply changing my food sources than years of medication and off-the-shelf-over-the-counter prescriptions could ever, or have ever, done. Simply by eating right; by eating abnormally. According to the commercials they blast us with it's not normal to desire kale, but I do. It's not normal to want salad for dinner or vegetables for a snack or prunes and dates instead of candy bars. But I do.
I wish I could have helped my Uncle Rick embrace abnormal eating. I wish I could have helped him feel as normal as the mainstream diet he was led to believe should have made him feel. His chest pain leading up to his final hospital visit wasn't normal.
What is normal is to feel alive. To feel as healthy as nature intended. And if eating right, and honoring my own health by staying away from heavily marketed, tasty-but-deadly normal foods is the only way for me to stay this way, then I'm ok with it. I'll stick to being abnormally normal.
Abnormally yours,
FatGuy
Sure you have. We stand in line like cattle on a farm, waiting our turn at the end of the stall to have our purchases processed. While there, we have little to do but stand and look around, and occasionally flick our hair (those that have flickable hair, or any hair at all for that matter). We gaze around at the lights and sights. Sometimes we graze, sorting through the subliminally-planted, spontaneous purchase type foods marketed by deliberately and maliciously placing last in the store that come in the form of high calorie snack foods that taste fantastic.
And we size up other people and their purchases.
Hypothetical scenario. A cart loaded up with vegetables, fruits, and other non-processed items, primarily organic or otherwise "natural". What's the first thing we think of when we see that?
My money is on one word: "healthnut"
That, or "whackjob".
Normal people don't eat only fruits and vegetables. After all, how can they live if they don't get their protein? How do they expect to maintain muscle mass and over all health if they aren't eating protein? How "abnormal" of them to abstain from eating animal proteins and packaged, processed foods!
That gut check is still present weeks after my dietary switch to a plant-based lifestyle commenced. Why do I know this? Two words: "Raw Lasagna".
The Italian food lover in me reeled with disgust, appalled at the food travesty. Until recently, I'd never even heard of such a culinary fiasco! How on earth could one say that this was "lasagna"? The audacity! Absurd! How abnormal!
Everyone knows that real lasagna is pound-upon-pound of meat and dairy layered over white-flour noodles! I am sure that's been exactly how it's made, as handed-down generation after generation from the very first, and surely thoroughly-cooked, lasagna in ancient Italy or where ever the first lasagna dates back to.
In fact, it most certainly needs to come in a glass or tinfoil pan, and be cooked on high heat in the oven until the cheese bubbles and the top noodles become almost crispy from over-baking. That's what a normal lasagna is.
Hotdogs and hamburgers, the good old American food, are the same thing. Treated fairly, the animal meat and by-products that are ground up, formed into patties or tubes and char-grilled for all to enjoy were never meant to be fashioned out of brown rice, soy or mushroom blends! Preposterous! They're meant to have mooed, (or perhaps, as more recent news shows, at least even whinnied) at some point. Everyone knows that! My Uncle Rick knew that!
Uncle Rick was a die-hard red meat lover who proved to me that Man can live on a diet of red meat, no veggies and be cool. He drove a Corvette. He always had the latest electronic gadgets. He gave all of his nieces and nephews the best Christmas gifts, treated us all equally; he was the epitome of the cool uncle. The 70's bachelor living his life in the fast lane and without a care in the world.
Ironically, I related to Rick. I felt very akin to him, with similar personality characteristics as well as physical traits. I envied his record collection, his cars, his toys. I also related to his struggles. Whenever I started to exercise, I would think of the story he told me about the first time he took up running.
Rick had bought himself all the gear, as usual. He had the expensive matching two piece Adidas jogging suit. He had brand new white runners. I think he even got a fancy water bottle before water bottles were even a mainstream accessory. He was so cool he set trends.
He went out for a morning jog, made it a record breaking number of kilometers away and but then realized there was no way to make it home alive. He was so beaten, exhausted and sore he called my grandmother for a ride home.
Rick is the reason I prefer the treadmill.
I remember asking Rick one time why he didn't eat vegetables. He said he didn't like them, they made him sick to his stomach. Instead, he ate one of two things:
A) Two burgers, made of ground beef and hand-pressed into patties, grilled on a gas barbeque, or broiled in the oven, then served up on two fresh-from-the-bakery white flour kaiser buns.
or
B) Sirloin steak, grilled medium well and served with two indulgent slices of fresh, white bread slathered in butter or sweet dinner rolls dressed the same.
Either meal was accompanied with a Morton salt shaker and usually ended with brownies, cake or another sweet desert. Whichever Rick had for lunch was alternated for dinner. Every single day.
There was no variance. There was no interruption or hiatus. I don't think I ever saw Rick even eat a piece of fruit or so much as a vegetable by way of pizza. He simply didn't eat anything else. He was just that cool, like James Dean and his cigarette.
Rick was overweight, diabetic and unhealthy. But man, he was cool.
Much like James Dean, he also died way before his time should have run out, passing away from heart failure in his 50's. No surprise. Yet, we mourned him.
"How could such a sweet young man pass away so young?", the old aunties would weep.
Yet, it should have been no surprise to any of us. In fact, one could argue we were all guilty of murder, or at least manslaughter, for knowingly allowing a man to inflict hazardous damage upon his own health to his detriment. After all, everyone knows you need to get a well balanced meal. If Rick had been been a coke-head, alcoholic or even anorexic, there most certainly would have been an intervention. So why wasn't there?
Because it's normal, right? Mainstream media features men huddled around barbeques, gripping beers and telling war stories, anticipating the luxury of cooked flesh that was about to be served. How many of those commercials feature a man taking a big bite of a brown-rice-and-mushroom vegetarian burger?
Veggie burgers don't sell out stadiums at half-time for the Superbowl. They're for weird people. They're abnormal.
The question is, according to who?
As I journey into the land of Healthy Living, I find myself asking that question alot, and yet it seems to become more and more apparent to me that it's a matter of who you ask. Naturally, big businesses want you to buy more. Hence, they make everything look better, and shiny and new and exciting. Marketing 101. I find myself trusting the opinions of raw food, whole food and vegan diet experts that seem to become more and more frequently featured in the documentaries I find on food.
According to most of them, and by "them" I mean the experts on Food Matters, Hungry for Change, Fat Sick & Nearly Dead, Vegucated, Fresh, Farmageddon, Food Inc, it simply isn't healthy to ingest the majority of the packaged, processed foods that are put on shelves and heavily marketed to us.
But the biggest proof, for me, has been my own body.
Six full weeks into non-dairy, non-animal food consumption, with roughly 60% raw, and 40% cooked, I feel incredible. Everything I was led to believe about switching to organic, wholesome foods has come true. Now, I certainly don't have superpowers. I'm not getting younger. I don't look like The Rock, yet, but I'm healthy(ier).
My body chemistry has changed. I can tell a difference in my own sweat and, subsequently, body odour, at the end of the day or post-workout. I don't have near the stink that I would have had prior when I was consuming meat and dairy. There is definitely a difference in me post-vegan.
My skin is different. Fewer pimples, not nearly the oily sensation around my nose, chin and forehead that I noticed before, and acne that I had on my upper arms my entire life is clearing up.
I have more energy. Less lethargic, and less prone to desiring sleep, and I'm functioning on less and less coffee than ever before in my adult life.
I feel sharper. I don't feel as groggy, and don't have that haze or fog I need to lift or clear each morning. I don't need my afternoon jolt of coffee or sugar to get around the 3PM wall, and my mental state feels more alert.
My breathing has changed. I am no longer perpetually stuffed up. I don't have to clear my throat. I don't have inexplicable phlegm, no post nasal drip, zero mucus-y feeling in my ears, throat or sinuses. I feel like when I take a deep breath, I can feel the air in every pocket of my lungs. There is no fight to get oxygenated.
I recover faster. Previously, the days following a workout were intense. Muscles ached. That's how I knew I'd worked out hard. I'm now pushing my body farther than I've ever expected I could. And the next day, I'm back in the gym, with minimal familiar pain.
According to mainstream media, all of the above are abnormal symptoms and to feel normal, I could have headed to a drugstore and found something to take care of it.
According to the experts on aforementioned documentaries, I just need to eat responsibly and healthy.
So who is right? Who is telling the truth? The truth lies in reality.
The reality is, now I know what it is to feel healthy; I feel normal. For the first time in my life, I feel as if I am a well-oiled machine and in tip top shape right off the factory line. Agreeably, I certainly have a long way to go. I'm know I've not actually plateaued yet, but that is the best part. To think that in just six weeks I have achieved more in healing and self-preservation through simply changing my food sources than years of medication and off-the-shelf-over-the-counter prescriptions could ever, or have ever, done. Simply by eating right; by eating abnormally. According to the commercials they blast us with it's not normal to desire kale, but I do. It's not normal to want salad for dinner or vegetables for a snack or prunes and dates instead of candy bars. But I do.
I wish I could have helped my Uncle Rick embrace abnormal eating. I wish I could have helped him feel as normal as the mainstream diet he was led to believe should have made him feel. His chest pain leading up to his final hospital visit wasn't normal.
What is normal is to feel alive. To feel as healthy as nature intended. And if eating right, and honoring my own health by staying away from heavily marketed, tasty-but-deadly normal foods is the only way for me to stay this way, then I'm ok with it. I'll stick to being abnormally normal.
Abnormally yours,
FatGuy
Friday, February 1, 2013
Instant Persona Non Gratification
With exception to a few "slender" years, I've been fat my whole life.
Big boned. Thick. Of good stock. Whatever you want to call it, I've been built for power, not speed. I'm the stereotypical endomorphic body type, right out of the text books.
And I was a lazy kid.
Don't get me wrong, I worked hard; I just did not enjoy health and fitness. I was deterred at a young age. Sometime around puberty, when growth spurts were taking off, I developed serious leg cramping and knee aches. They were diagnosed as Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, or as I put it, "a perfectly great excuse to get out of those lousy windsprints" that everyone hated in gym class.
The problem was simple: I was empowered as a child to make my own decision between potentially damaging joint pain and the pain one experiences when challenging their body to push and exceed current limits. When I faced the discomfort of exercise, I pulled out the doctor's note excuse.
"Teacher, I have to stop - my knees hurt."
That sounds wrong for so many reasons. And it was.
If only I could go back in time and slap that child and make him run. It would have done him some good. In reality, not running caused far more damage long term than any short term knee pain would have been.
As such, youth is wasted on the young. Then again, not too much has changed in some ways. For example, the number one personality flaw I've had my entire life is my need for instant gratification. If there was not an immediate benefit, I grew frustrated. I was the child who expected that after thirty minutes of piano practice I should be able to play Mozart's K545 Sonata in C major, completely. Without mistake.
The same went for the guitar. And then golfing. And darts. And basically anything I've ever done from swimming to weight lifting to tennis to cooking. If I couldn't do it well, I gave up. Without mastering the basic, fundamental techniques. Sadly, that personality flaw... that very huge personality flaw... has never subsided. Imagine my shock when I learned that people study the same skills for years, such as a sushi chef who will dedicate years of apprenticeship just to perfect rice! Inconthievable!
I remember playing outside with my childhood friend, Andre. Andre was the stereotypical athletic kid. He had the pennants hanging in his room for a team in every league of every sport. He could play just about any sport we tried. He always seemed to be full of energy. He never just sat and watched TV. Never ran out of breath or broke a sweat. Come to think of it, I don't think he even had sweat glands. Naturally, when he wanted to go throw a football around in the park, that usually meant I ended up huffing, puffing and drenched in sweat, suffering like a rainbow trout in a dry creek bed. He didn't even breathe. Come to think of it, I think he was an android.
Andre broached the subject one day. We were having a lovely time playing "50 yard Olympic Runner", a game I most certainly enjoyed because I hadn't suffered enough yet in Life by that point. After losing the dashing race to the demon spawn that he was for the 279th time, or so it felt, the suspected offspring of Satan suddenly blurts out, "You don't run properly. You have a short step and you don't swing your arms enough."
Five years later, a similar situation occurred during high school basket ball practice. I was the token fat-guy benchwarmer who never scored a goal, never saved the day, and never impressed the cheerleaders. In fact I think the night I quit suddenly during practice, no one even cared or noticed. I wasn't any good at it, so I didn't want to do it anymore.
I have become tempered somewhat by age, maturity and experience, with experience meaning enough accumulative failures add up to outweigh the instinct to give up and finally wanting to accomplish something. I look back and realize that taking on new tasks and doing something new, uncomfortable or even painful is simply a decision. I just have to want it bad enough. Suddenly, 25 or so years later after suffering alongside Andre the Robot, I can run.
Nothing has changed. It's still hard. But I haven't give up. I've pursued results and I haven't given up, because I am no longer that person who needs to see instant results every day; that person is persona non grata (Latin). No longer welcome in my life. I don't need to run a marathon on my first day.
Tonight, I completed my 2nd day of Week 5 of the couch-to-5k program #5k101app by @toddlange. I was drenched, huffing and puffing. It hurt to practice my new skills but, practice is teaching me how to orchestrate my own Sonata, in whatever Key I choose to be in. I'm not concert-level yet, but I will be.
The best part about completing Week Five Day Two was proving to myself that Week Five Day One wasn't a fluke. Not to be cliche, but if I can do it, anyone can. Even if you have bad knees.
Carpe diem,
Fat Guy
Big boned. Thick. Of good stock. Whatever you want to call it, I've been built for power, not speed. I'm the stereotypical endomorphic body type, right out of the text books.
And I was a lazy kid.
Don't get me wrong, I worked hard; I just did not enjoy health and fitness. I was deterred at a young age. Sometime around puberty, when growth spurts were taking off, I developed serious leg cramping and knee aches. They were diagnosed as Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, or as I put it, "a perfectly great excuse to get out of those lousy windsprints" that everyone hated in gym class.
The problem was simple: I was empowered as a child to make my own decision between potentially damaging joint pain and the pain one experiences when challenging their body to push and exceed current limits. When I faced the discomfort of exercise, I pulled out the doctor's note excuse.
"Teacher, I have to stop - my knees hurt."
That sounds wrong for so many reasons. And it was.
If only I could go back in time and slap that child and make him run. It would have done him some good. In reality, not running caused far more damage long term than any short term knee pain would have been.
As such, youth is wasted on the young. Then again, not too much has changed in some ways. For example, the number one personality flaw I've had my entire life is my need for instant gratification. If there was not an immediate benefit, I grew frustrated. I was the child who expected that after thirty minutes of piano practice I should be able to play Mozart's K545 Sonata in C major, completely. Without mistake.
The same went for the guitar. And then golfing. And darts. And basically anything I've ever done from swimming to weight lifting to tennis to cooking. If I couldn't do it well, I gave up. Without mastering the basic, fundamental techniques. Sadly, that personality flaw... that very huge personality flaw... has never subsided. Imagine my shock when I learned that people study the same skills for years, such as a sushi chef who will dedicate years of apprenticeship just to perfect rice! Inconthievable!
I remember playing outside with my childhood friend, Andre. Andre was the stereotypical athletic kid. He had the pennants hanging in his room for a team in every league of every sport. He could play just about any sport we tried. He always seemed to be full of energy. He never just sat and watched TV. Never ran out of breath or broke a sweat. Come to think of it, I don't think he even had sweat glands. Naturally, when he wanted to go throw a football around in the park, that usually meant I ended up huffing, puffing and drenched in sweat, suffering like a rainbow trout in a dry creek bed. He didn't even breathe. Come to think of it, I think he was an android.
Andre broached the subject one day. We were having a lovely time playing "50 yard Olympic Runner", a game I most certainly enjoyed because I hadn't suffered enough yet in Life by that point. After losing the dashing race to the demon spawn that he was for the 279th time, or so it felt, the suspected offspring of Satan suddenly blurts out, "You don't run properly. You have a short step and you don't swing your arms enough."
Five years later, a similar situation occurred during high school basket ball practice. I was the token fat-guy benchwarmer who never scored a goal, never saved the day, and never impressed the cheerleaders. In fact I think the night I quit suddenly during practice, no one even cared or noticed. I wasn't any good at it, so I didn't want to do it anymore.
I have become tempered somewhat by age, maturity and experience, with experience meaning enough accumulative failures add up to outweigh the instinct to give up and finally wanting to accomplish something. I look back and realize that taking on new tasks and doing something new, uncomfortable or even painful is simply a decision. I just have to want it bad enough. Suddenly, 25 or so years later after suffering alongside Andre the Robot, I can run.
Nothing has changed. It's still hard. But I haven't give up. I've pursued results and I haven't given up, because I am no longer that person who needs to see instant results every day; that person is persona non grata (Latin). No longer welcome in my life. I don't need to run a marathon on my first day.
Tonight, I completed my 2nd day of Week 5 of the couch-to-5k program #5k101app by @toddlange. I was drenched, huffing and puffing. It hurt to practice my new skills but, practice is teaching me how to orchestrate my own Sonata, in whatever Key I choose to be in. I'm not concert-level yet, but I will be.
The best part about completing Week Five Day Two was proving to myself that Week Five Day One wasn't a fluke. Not to be cliche, but if I can do it, anyone can. Even if you have bad knees.
Carpe diem,
Fat Guy
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