Weight

To my son Tommy,

A week ago I mentioned that my fat butt weighed in at 292.  I promised that I would make a couple small sustainable changes and lower my weight.  My choices in my life are no longer about just me, and I owe it to you and your mother to get and stay at a healthy weight.  I am pleased to report that this morning I weighed in at 282 which suggests a ten pound loss.

I say "suggests" because I know there are tons of factors that could sway the scale.  I figure on a crappy bathroom scale, and figuring other factors like time since last meal or drink, that the scale could be off by plus or minus three pounds at any point.  That means at even at the worse case scenario, where my weight was exaggerated to the high side on the first weigh in and to the low side on the last weigh in, it at least shows I am headed in the right direction.

My changes have been simple so far.  One of the most common factors of overweight people is they do not eat breakfast.  I made sure I ate something small for breakfast most every single day of the past week.  I also skipped, as I suggested I would in a post a week ago, a calorie ridden drink a day.  This saved me a couple hundred calories a day and three dollars a day that stayed in my pocket rather than going to the convenience store bottom line on the way to work.  I substituted free coffee (served black) at work.  Through out the day I went back to more water consumption.  I also added what I call wall push-ups to my morning schedule.  When I stumble out of bed and into the shower, I put my hands on the back of the shower wall and push away in a push-up form.  Got myself up to fifty of these much easier versions of push-ups this morning.  So small sustainable changes have got me some results.

The key now is not to settle in and say that is good enough.  Luckily your mother is going on a health kick too fueled by her nursing education and knowledge.  It has been proven that if your mother and I don't do things at the same time, we both fail.  This was proven with how many times we tried to quit smoking before and it wasn't until we did it at the same time that we succeeded.  So with her help, I can continue what I started in the last week.  Maybe by the end of the week we can actually find time for both of us to hit the gym for a couple minutes each week.  Of course we can use a hectic schedule as an excuse not to, but there is really no excuse.

As I said before, these changes in our life are not necessarily for ourselves.  Though we will reap the short term benefits of better fitting clothes and better health, you will reap the long term benefit of more love over more years from your longer living parents.  At least that is what we hope.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo