exercising my rights

My writing pattern has become rather sporadic recently.

There are a lot of reasons for that. And, I may write about them in a future essay. But the primary reason has been a return to a more sane lifestyle.

Several years ago, I decided that I needed to pay more attention to how I was navigating through life. My long-time friend Leo Bauman visited me in 2015 and converted me to the benefits of weight loss. He had recently taken off quite a bit of weight through exercise and a better diet. 

His missionary work did not fall on unplowed ground. I had been considering dropping a few pounds. Not only because I feel better when I weigh less, but also to deal with two conditions that are easily controlled with both diet and exercise.

Leo starts each of his days with a four-mile walk and then an hour of exercises in the pool. That seemed to be an easy start for me -- at least, the walking. Barra de Navidad's flat topography and light traffic make it a pedestrian utopia. A round-trip on the andador from my house to Highway 200 is exactly four miles.

That lasted for about a week. Bit by bit my daily walk increased until I was covering 15 miles each day. Sometimes, 20.

My diet became almost as obsessive. I threw out all of the snacks in the house to reduce temptation and started eating foods recommended by all sorts of medical organizations -- even though I did not suffer from their pet diseases. Nancy Dardarian over at Countdown to Mexico also recommended that I try intermittent fasting.

I did. And the combination of the intermittent fasting, my restricted list of foods, and my compulsive walking had the exact effect I wanted. I lost over 50 pounds in the matter of three months. And they stayed off for years because I had managed to change what I ate and how I exercised.

Then, one day in December 2018, while cruising off of the Mexico coast, I abandoned the project. I have no idea why. I guess I simply did not care about the goals any more. Or maybe I was tired of people asking me in a whispered voice if I had cancer.

The result was predictable. I started eating what I should not. I stopped walking. The weight came back. My blood pressure spiked. My glucose tests could have passed for maple syrup.

There was no real epiphany that made me see the light. No Leo brandishing the Gospel According to Jason Fung. One morning earlier this year, I decided to return to the method I had customized for myself in 2015. And it has worked. Pounds are off; medical conditions are under control.

Because I have not been weighing myself, I am not certain of my weight loss. (On my last routine, I weighed myself daily.) But I feel better. And that is important. I have also purchased new belts because I ran out of notches on the old ones.

But the best evidence is in the photograph at the top of the essay. On my monthly trips north to Oregon over the past fifteen months, I have stopped at the Columbia Sportswear store in Bend to replenish my wardrobe -- which has taken on a marked outdoorsy look. 

I bought a stack of exercise shirts -- some black, some gray -- without paying much attention to the label. Yesterday I did notice. And chuckled. Perhaps, too smugly.

I had purchased nine or ten "Trim Fit" shirts -- what we used to call "Athletic Cut." I know the label because there was a day until the late 1980s when I wore nothing but. Then I edged into "Regular Cut." Before long I was filling the limits of "Corporate Cut." At some point, I started wondering why Haggar did not sell shirts.

It is nice to be back where I once was. The goal now is to stay there -- or to take off a few more pounds.

Mexico is the perfect location to be healthy.