For the longest time I felt dull and listless.  I imagined that this was the way that life worked.  You grew older and you ran down on energy. The thing is that I so readily accepted this because it was so easy to slip into that mindset.  The vicious circle was that I would eat junk food which sapped my energy, which made me want to do nothing, which made me somewhat depressed which made me want to eat.

Took a lot to break that cycle.  Took even more to keep it broken.  Those first few weeks…  Coming home after just half an hour of walking at night, bathed in sweat, achy, tired.  But you have to commit and you can’t expect instant or even near instant results.

For weeks I kept going out, I researched and researched health and fitness and my eating habits on the net.  I learned that a healthy person takes about 10000 steps a day and a fit person about 12500.  I bought a cheap little pedometer and found that I took about 2500 steps a day.  Some figuring and measuring and I determined I had to do at least 5 miles a day to be healthy or 6 and a half miles a day to be fit, so those became my initial targets.  Walk in the morning, in the afternoon, and night.  Add it all up and come up with my targets.  Later I would do that in one go but that took a long time.

Eating came next and in many ways it was tougher.  I read up on what minimum amount of calories I needed a day and came out with 1800 to 2000 per day.  I was around 3500 to 4000 a day.  An immediate cut in my calories.  I tried to negotiate with myself as to junk food.  I got the health guides from the restaurants and tried to come up with 1800 calorie menus but the thing is that those health guides may be right about the calories but it’s calories with a lot of starch, a lot of sugars, a lot of fats.  Three of the toughest things to burn off.  I had to get myself away from these things and that was a long, long battle.  In some ways it continues to this day.

The thing is that you don’t really see a result.  You can try to go the weight scale route and get super happy when you lose five pounds and depressed again when you gain back three but I put a stop to that early on.  No need to stress my emotions on top of everything.

My scale of success was how I was able to increase my daily mileage over time.  How I one day just broke out and began running, how I stopped coming home out of breath and feeling half dead and started coming home more relaxed and energetic.

I never got that magic moment when I could proclaim “you’re healthy!”  I have started getting those looser clothing moments, I have begun to see some definition in the bulges, and a lift in my mood, but I doubt that I will ever be able to say  that “I’ve made it”

I’ve always wondered how a person differentiates between self improvement, things meant solely to improve your life, and conceits, things that just feel good or make you look good.

I would like to think of myself as wholly pragmatic (most people would) but that isn’t so.  I have done many things in my life just for pleasure’s sake and usually with consequences.  However I hope that I’ve finally outgrown this.

All I can do here is review some of these decisions.

Health

I never appreciated the amount of abuse that I put my body through in my younger days.  By my late thirties my body was a wreck.  I didn’t realize it at the time but my metabolism was working in overdrive to keep up with the massive amounts of calories that I was shoveling in.  One day it quit.  I began piling on the pounds, I was pre-diabetic and getting dizzy spells and realized my body needed desperate help.

My body has responded well to exercise and self control (far, far better than I have to right to expect) and I am now on my way back.  Now below the weight that I once considered acceptable I am hoping to reach my own weight goal by the Fall and the accepted weight norms by next year.  Whatever happens, this is likely be part of my lifestyle from now on.

Hair

My mother always wants me to do something with my hair.  As if some exotic or new hair style will distract from the male pattern baldness that I see in my brothers, my dad, and every other male on both sides of the family.  All I can do is keep it short as that seems to look best.

I don’t fear baldness.  I fear the “comb over” stage that comes in between.  Of becoming one of those old men that needs wigs, or transplants, or whatever to cling to their youth.  I hope that I can be brave enough take it all off when the time comes.

Beard

Admittedly a conceit.  I’ve always had a boyish face and perceived it as a minus.  i never cared for that perception among my peers as I thought it made them take me less seriously.  So I began with a mustache and graduated to a beard years ago.  I may want to look younger one day and may shave it off but for now it stays.  People know me by the beard and expect it.

Jewelry and clothes

My dad bought me an engraved silver bracelet for graduation.  Never wore it.  I loathe fancy things.  They just seem so prissy and unnecessary.  I do wear my Aggie ring but as a sign of fellowship to my fellow former students.  i do also have a nice watch, which hasn’t had a new battery in years and probably needs one.  Shows how much I use it.

In clothes I have become much more practical.  Going from what was considered stylish and up to date to just wearing what feels comfortable has been a blessing.  My life is simplified by not having to keep up with trends and fashions.  I recognize the need for such types of clothes from time to time and I keep a suit handy (which is probably too big now) but other than that it’s a basic closet.

Life decisions or a lack thereof

I’ve wasted so much time on minutiae, little trivial matters, things that really weren’t worth my time.  Chasing after a good time on the weekends, chasing petty little material goals, keeping company with people that weren’t worth my time.  These experiences have given me a wealth of stories to tell but they haven’t really contributed that much to my situation.

When I got into social networking and started reconnecting to folks that I knew from way back when and they told me their stories of families, careers, and goals met I looked at my life and started to wonder where the time had gone.  I started realizing that I had been living and reliving the exact same weekend for years.

I know that I never became a drug addict or an alcoholic or ended up in a bad marriage or any of the other serious pitfalls in life but I could have done so much better with what I was given at the time and that’s a painful realization to make.

I’m not saying that I have it all figured out and planned now or that it’s going to work out as I envision it or that it may not change.

I do however say that I am more awake now than I have been in years.