on the rim

 Just a quick post today. The milestone passed is not a certain amount of weight lost. It is a weight that I have not weighed since December of 1988, when I hired in at the FAA. I have also gone from being "Morbidly obese" to simply "obese", at least according to the generic male BMI chart. Now I know that  the BMI chart should be taken with a grain of salt, as it doesn't account for anything like actual muscle mass etc. I remember a class in my early college tenure at Mo West, where the instructor spent his summers as a trainer at the Dallas Cowboys preseason camp. He mentioned that Randy White, the great defensive end, was considered morbidly obese (according to the BMI chart), and he had a 5% body fat. Honestly I didn't believe the scale which is in the exact same spot when I weigh. But it became painfully obvious when I put on my Scout pants this morning for the Interfaith Devotional at the Soaring Eagle Camporee, and it was all I could do to hold them u...

As I have expanded my track walking to include scaling the bleachers, two thoughts have occurred to me. 1. It seems like the higher I get on the bleachers the more gravity has an effect, and... 2. Actually bending the knees on the steps makes me realize that the way I walk has been my saving grace with my weight over the years, and I can only credit one thing for that. In the August leading up to my sophomore year in high school, we had the opportunity to get on the field and learning the finer points of field and street marching. No bent knees, but a glide step. If your instrument bobbed, you did a lap. I thought about that this year as I was watching the Paola band director giving guidance to his band on the field while I was walking the track. They weren't getting a proper formation marching off the field, and he was perplexed, as I walked by, I mentioned he should have them do a lap. Yeah, no,  Do you know how hard it is to hide a sousaphone's movement while practicing?  S...

I thought long and hard about this post, as to whether or not it should even be done. In the end, it is obvious the choice I made. I have embarked on a new journey. One that I have really been on several times in my life, as have millions of others. The path is one of weight loss. Of shedding who I am, for who I should be. I struggled on this path for a year and a half, thinking that anything would be better than the one that I ultimately chose.  I have a friend who demonstrated great faith in God, and with the help of family and good coaching was able to see miraculous results. I wish that I had that kind of faith in myself to let God prevail so completely in me. But maybe I do, just a different path. I have tried numerous diets, I even worked with a doctor once for six months, and while I was eating the prescribed food, I lost weight... to a point. At that point, I plateaued, and no matter how much exercise, no matter how little I ate, I was stuck, still categorized as morbidly o...