Hobbled. Mentally and physically! This is how I diagnose my situation, my crisis of the moment. I am in my ratty underwear early on a Sunday morning, half-lying over the kitchen counter and half-sitting on one of the counter stools…. Read More ›
Pudgy Me
The Trail
The weather was cooler now. He looked down the wide, tree-covered path as it disappeared into the forest and took a deep breath. He stretched his arms across his chest, ran his hand through his hair, and started running. He… Read More ›
Boston
“So, you’re alive.” Shaun, my old mountain-climbing friend, the guy who had a heart attack way back when, is standing over me as I try to do sit-ups at the gym. “Barely – ” I make a feeble attempt at… Read More ›
Relapse!
Oh, Life is not worth living. Full of horror and death. Struggle and degradation. Pestilence. Why bother, my brothers and sisters. Why bother. Oh, how I am suffering! The weight is back and back with a vengeance. Why have I allowed this… Read More ›
Nutrition
Changing my diet only made sense when nothing else made sense. As much as I wanted to lower my weight, I had reached a point where it rose and fell like waves in a rolling sea. It was my wife, Karen,… Read More ›
My New App
I downloaded a new application for my smart phone that’s a doomsday or death app. Interestingly enough, my friend Shaun, the mountain climber, told me about it while we were lifting weights at the gym. Ever since his heart attack, he… Read More ›
I Have Come to Realize
I have come to realize that if my weight-loss plan is to exercise, then it is imperative that I follow the plan and exercise. The only way this plan works, I have discovered, is to do it, to exercise, to burn… Read More ›
Gods and Garbage Men
My week starts at my old gym, the Health and Fitness Center, where for three nights I am “killing” off the past versions of me, the endless images of me’s exercising around me, the gym-geezers and obesity-bees of me, all… Read More ›
Albert from Hell
Sitting in my old jeep in a brightly paved parking lot outside a boxing gym located in a new, brick-and-glass storefront building – one of many, mostly-empty storefronts – within a large, postage stamp of a shopping center that has… Read More ›
Quantum Enigma
I am such a simple guy. My thoughts are not on wars, or political struggles on Capitol Hill, or even bad weather events that seem to dominate our lives. No, my attention is squarely on calories, and, most recently, what… Read More ›
That Damn Gym
That damn gym. Gulag 17 more like it. My wife, Karen, and I joined this facility about four or five years ago, knowing it wasn’t as much a “typical gym” as a health and fitness center for people who are… Read More ›
My Butt is Killing Me
My butt is killing me. I am sitting on a soft, throw pillow on my favorite easy chair, and, nevertheless, my butt is the primary source of my pain, a throbbing thump pulsating up and down my backside no matter how… Read More ›
My Bathroom Scale
Why is it always such a struggle? I am sitting in the early morning light drinking coffee and wondering why I am fighting with my body, once again. Every morning I weigh myself before I come downstairs. Often it is… Read More ›
Moping Around
I have been grieving lately and though I haven’t experienced a death in my family (thank god!), or in my circle of friends (whew, you never know with that group!), or with any of the cats in my house (bummer!),… Read More ›
jonathan giles 