I ain’t gonna lie to you. This has been a rough winter.
No, no, I haven’t had to manually disimpact myself or suffer the fatigue and constant illness as acutely as Leah has, but being cooped up inside with a teensy, tiny baby took its toll mentally and physically.
I went to the doctor two weeks ago to see what he could do about a persistent sore throat I’d been dealing with for 10 days or so. I hopped up on the scale on my way back to his office and had the nurse read me the news: 199 pounds. Sure, that’s fully clothed with shoes and my jacket and my iPod in my pocket, but still. Six feet, one inch. Two hundred pounds. And I know I was heavier than that recently. What happened here?
A little background. I’ve always had an ability to put away atypically large quantities of food. Same with my brother. And my dad. We’re not huge people, but we were born with metabolisms that could turn a large meat lover’s pizza into a bathroom break in about three hours. When Scott and I were still in grade school, my dad would take us to taco places and burger joints and order literally heaps of food, much to the shock and awe of the knobs behind the counter. We were each very active, and everything we ate burned off quickly and without too much effort.
But life intervenes. Days spent at a 9-to-5 sitting in front of a computer and less and less time to get out and exercise or cook good meals — coupled with a metabolism that’s slowly but surely succombing to the ravages of age — are conspiring to add pounds to what used to be a pretty svelte frame.
“Wait,” you say. “You insensitive clod! Think of how much your wife’s body has changed in just the last year. You think you got body troubles?” True, Leah’s body has gone through changes that I couldn’t have even imagined a year ago. Though I can’t know the true depths of her despair at the loss of her nice flat stomach or her cute little inverted belly button, I’ve been witness to the short bouts of depression brought on by her transformation.
Thing is, Leah’s got something I’ll never have, and never had. I may have a gut that could process a gallon bucket of roofing nails, but Leah has style, and grace, and looks that stop traffic. If she were one hundred pounds heavier and wearing a potato sack and mucking boots, she’d still be one of God’s most glorious creatures.
No, I have considerably less to work with, and so it’s time to get serious about getting back down to a fighting weight of 185. The days are getting longer, and the bike’s just come back from the shop. Before long, honest-to-goodness fresh vegetables will be showing up on the shelves at New Pi. With a little work, I’ll be able to come up with a schedule that’ll let me get some exercise in and still get to work on time and spend plenty of time with Ava and Leah.
The game, as they say, is on.