Today I Was "Pete Breslin"

When I graduated High School, my friends and I spent a lot of time at the local park.  We would work whatever jobs we could find, go home and eat dinner, and then around 6:30-7:00 we would meet at the park on the basketball courts.  There was a bunch of us who were between 18 and 22, and even some old guys who were in their mid to late 20's...and then there was Pete Breslin.  I may have been the only one playing who actually knew his name.  He was a very close friend of my father and was best man at my parents' wedding.  He was also, at that time, about 43-44 years old.

The rest of us showed up in our 80's haircuts and our leather hightops.  Pete would be there in his crewcut and what resembled the Chuck Taylor canvas Converse sneakers (when they were not fashionable).  He was not real tall but he was a real solid guy with a lot of energy.  I don't know how often he was picked first to play, but he wasn't picked last by those who knew him.  He certainly got picked before I did.  He was well respected by all of us because he never slowed down, was always passing, and he would score on you with ease if you let your guard down.  The one thing you never got from him was a break.  He played you hard.  The only thing you could forget, if you wanted to beat him, was his age.  Forget that.  He did.  He played like he was 20.  If you were going to have a chance, check your ego and his age at the door.

The group that played in the pick-up games was pretty much the same group all the time.  We all knew each other.  Every so often though, some guy no one knew would show up.  Usually it was a pretty good player who was just stopping in to sharpen up.  One thing though never failed.  They always thought they had one up on Pete.  It was the age thing.  Their ego's couldn't take it.  I even saw one guy shove Pete in anger once and Pete didn't give an inch.  He didn't say anything, but he stayed right in the guy's face.  I can remember going home and telling my dad and he snickered and said, "they better not mess with him, he works out all the time and is in better shape than most of them, and if they think he's a pushover, they will be surprised."

And my dad was right.

So there I found myself today, the 4th of July, playing a game of something called Speedball with the 16-24 year old set of nieces and nephews.  My son Nick, aged 13, also played.  Most of these kids were high school and college aged.  They all laughed and asked me if I wanted to play.  I thought about it for a short second and smiled to myself, "sure, I'm in this one."  I will confess, I needed Speedball explained to me, so I got a briefing on the rules.  They picked Captains and began to choose sides.  The college aged boys were picked first, then the 16 year old boys.  It was about this time my nephew Matt was saying, "take Dick!"  Nothing.  Then the college girls were picked.  Right before the youngest kids were chosen, I was picked.  Matt was laughing and mumbling, "..a sleeper pick in 8th round!"

Now, I run probably 15-20 miles a week depending on my time availability.  I am 85 pounds lighter than the last time I did anything physical with these kids...and that was about two years ago.  I will tell you this, I was ready to go.

I am not going to go through a play by play here.  The game is played like a combination of soccer, and lacrosse only you carry and pass the ball with your hands, not a stick.  The nets are tiny because you can throw the ball in to score.  The game was split into two halfs, each consisting of about 45 minutes of straight running.  The ball was being passed and kicked.  I played hard, scored more than my share of goals, and I made all those kids forget my age.  I was jumping, throwing, diving, and at the end, I scored the winning goal.  I know the kids were kind of amazed and surprised at my ability to play well and beat the big kids.  More surprised were my relatives who are my own age, and who know really how much it takes to be able to go at that physical pace for that long.  One guy even said, "well...I guess YOU'RE in real good shape these days!"

The coolest thing of all though, was that my 13 year old son played a real tough game against kids a lot bigger and a lot older than him.  I saw him take a kicked soccer ball in the face from point blank range and get up, and later, he took a hard body hit from a college age guy while passing me the ball for a goal.  He showed a lot of guts and it was a great thrill and proud moment to be able to play with him.  I felt like I was watching him mature in front of me.  I was playing two levels down and he was playing two levels up.

Today wasn't about showing everyone else that I could do it.  It was about transcending age for a moment.  It was about showing myself that I could do it.  I have worked real hard to get back into the condition I am currently in.  I want to enjoy being able to run, play and compete, at any age.  I always enjoyed it in the past and I don't like thinking that Father Time can take that from me.  When we were done, everyone had sweat through their clothes.  There were bumps and bruises, sore muscles and just plain exhaustion.  My nephew Chris had brought a huge 20-something friend to the family party, he was also named Nick, like my son.  He looked at me and said, "good game out there man, I haven't worked out this hard since college, I feel old."  I said, "old? I'm 48 buddy, that's old."  He laughed and said, "yeah, that IS old!"

Not today though.  Not today.  Today I was "Pete Breslin."

Next: Dealing with reality

Now 'Fat' is a contest?

This is the title of the article…”Woman wants to be world’s fattest.”

I don’t even know what I am supposed to think of this. I know what I DO think. Should I share? My vote is yes. You can read along if you want to.

Is this what we have devolved to as a culture? We are finally going to celebrate being fat? No, correct that. We actually already do celebrate BEING fat. Just look around, we are swimming in it. I went to a concert at a Casino a couple weeks ago. The ‘70% of us are overweight’ statistic may actually be too low! But, are we finally going to start setting the goal as ‘getting fat?’ This is an accomplishment right? I always thought that we should be striving to do the extraordinary, the difficult or the challenging. This is like setting the high jump pole at 6 inches and hopping back and forth in the hope that someone will hang a gold medal on you.

Is there anyone who has to put effort into getting fat in the U.S. of A.? Is it really that hard? Not when I look around me every day. This ‘sport’ doesn’t need any more participants, casual or professional. It is replacing baseball as our national pastime. Food, food, and more food. All food, all the time. Can’t have one stinking event without food or snacks. Isn’t trying to be the best at getting fat, at this point, just redundant?

So what is the gist of this article that has me disturbed?

In New Jersey, Donna Simpson, 42 year old mother of two children aged 3 and 14, is trying to increase her body weight from 600 to over 1000 lbs. Breaking down the 1000 lbs, she literally is trying to weigh as much as one mother and about twelve 70 lb kids. At what point does our government, the one that thinks it should have a hand in everything, step in to do something?

First, this woman is psychologically unstable. How do I know this? Because she is knowingly doing something detrimental to herself and to those around her. She is also trying to rationalize doing it. That is a pretty good definition for the condition. She says she is doing this for a book deal and a reality show. Apparently, someone somewhere is willing to put this on TV. What is next? Televising creative suicides? How about Pay-Per-View for criminal executions? We could pay off all the expenses of Obama’s ‘stimulus’ packages.

Second, she is endangering her children. She won’t be able to properly care for them. They will actually be taking care of her when she can’t get out of bed. Also, she is setting a terrible example of health for them. She is going to expose them to ridicule from their friends and anyone else that has eyes. Lastly, if no one has mentioned this, she could accidentally eat them.

Lastly, she is doing something for which we, through our group medical insurance coverage plans, will ultimately become financially obligated to take care of. Smokers bother me for the same reason, but I will save that for another day. We will all ultimately pay the tab for her morbid obesity. Also, God forbid, when this celebrated ‘competition’ draws other fans and participants, we will have to pay for them too.

Why isn’t my government protecting me from these people?

I don’t want to impinge on anyone’s personal freedoms. But when their choices impinge on MY personal freedoms and my wallet, I wave the checkered flag. You are done. Or I am done. Or both. We are way overdue for some kind of health insurance guideline that has these kinds of people paying their freight (a word which is actually a combination of two words, freaking and weight). If they are going to be this obese, super obese and morbidly obese, they should pay extra for their health insurance so we who are not grand can pay less. I have worked really hard to get myself into a physical condition that will make me happy and improve the quality of my life. I will not pay additionally for those whose goal it is to do exactly the opposite.

If they do not HAVE health insurance, we should apply a fat tax. They would have to get on a scale at the grocery store, or fast food stores, and based on their BMI (body mass index) be taxed extra. The woman in this article would only be able to buy about 10 grapes…at about $25 each. They should also have to pay for two seats on an airplane and at baseball stadiums if they need two seats. You are responsible for your own big ass.

No coddling. No enabling. If they want to live this way…they have to make sure the rest of us don’t have to pay for their lunacy and suicidal tendencies.

So why am I so mad? Here is why. It is simple math. If 70% plus of our country is overweight and expanding (both individually and statistically), then my opinion is a part of the minority. If any of you know anything about politics, that means that we health conscious folks will be at the mercy of the large. We have as much a shot at getting equity in this situation as an oily seagull in Louisiana does of finding a clean ocean.

My goal is to get up every day. To breathe. To smile. To work. To take care of my kids. And to do it without relying on the rest of you to make it happen.

Her goal is to be so fat that she is useless to society. Swell. Let’s celebrate that.

Next: Young again!

My Year Being Thin: Judgement

We judge.

I know.  We hear it all of our lives.

"You can't judge."
"You shouldn't judge people."
"Who are you to pass judgement?"

We are all human.  It is in our nature to judge.  No matter what you have been told, our own survival, according to Darwin, is based on choices that help us navigate our way through life.  Those choices are made based on judgements we make.  Our survival, which is based on thousands years of evolution, is predicated on the basic rule that we do not have the time necessary in life to assess every person we meet and make an educated judgement on them.  We do not have time to know their motives, their ethics, or their deepest fears and neurosis.  We have to make our judgements quickly.  In some cases, cases of self preservation, very quickly.  This means we are going to judge people first and foremost by that which is most obvious to us...their appearance.

So we judge.  Now comes the painful part of this.  We are going to BE judged.  That's right.  When we look at others and make those choices about them, they are doing the same thing.

"Why are they judging me?  What did I ever do to them...?", you say.  It gives one perspective doesn't it?

It is a cruel reality that the first judgement a person makes will be on your appearance.  The second judgement will be on your behavior.  The last judgement only occurs after significant exposure to you.  That is the only way someone can get to know the real person inside your shell.  So 90% of the people are going to judge you based on your appearance.  If you are fat, and I know this from experience, that can be uncomfortable.  For some, it can be downright frightening.

Most of you reading this are trying to be thinner.  You are trying to lose weight and the goal for most of you is to look and feel better.  Some of you remember what it felt like to be thinner.  Some of you don't.  Some of you have no idea how it will feel to be thin because you have truly never been there.  Deep down, we all know we are being judged on our looks first.  We learn that at a very early age.

So keep 'judgement' in mind when I tell you one of the big lessons about losing weight that you will experience in year one.

YOU ARE GOING TO BE PERCEIVED DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE YOU ARE A THIN PERSON.

I don't mean they will look and think about you being thin.  They won't.  I mean the perception of who you are as a person, now that you are thin, will be different than it has been in the past.  I also don't mean just a little differently.  I mean a lot differently.  The bigger you were, the more radical the experience will be for you.  I also do not mean to imply that 'different' means they will see you as thin versus fat.  People are not just going to look at you and see a thin, or thinner, person.  They are going to assess you differently, react to you differently, and ultimately make judgements about you that are different than what you have experienced.

Here is something you should know.  Looking and feeling great is an advantage.  It is an advantage socially.  It is an advantage professionally.  It is a success tool that can give you a definite edge.  That part you probably know.  Now, the strange part, and the part you sometimes can only learn by moving back and forth along the appearance continuum, is that looking and feeling better than you look right now is not something everybody wants for you.  That's right.  Not everyone is going to be happy with your new found thinness.

As I said before, we judge.  Life is a competition.  We look at people and judge because we want to know our chances.  We all do it as a natural reaction.

"Can I compete or not?"

Making a dramatic change in your appearance will change the competitive assessment.  If you are a woman and your girlfriends have always seen you as a jolly fat pal, they have not had you on their radar as competition.  Now they do.  Expect that they will first be excited for you about your weight loss, then the catty remarks may begin.  This doesn't always happen...there are good people and friends out there.  But you can expect levels of this within social circles.

If you are a man, and you have a strong presence at the office, expect similar experiences.  If your personality is strong and you are well spoken, but you also are a very large jolly guy, you will find that being thinner suddenly means that the funny remarks that everyone used to laugh at are seen as biting sarcasm.  This happens when you transform from being a jolly colleague to a professional on-the-job competitor.

I mention that first because it is the opposite of what you probably thought would happen.  Everyone should love the new thin you, right?  Welcome to reality.

There are many benefits as well, particularly if you are always meeting new people professionally or socially.  People will assess you differently right from the first meeting.  That first impression will be distinctly different and create different opinions about you, even if the opinions are not valid.  Perception is all too often the reality for people.  I will use myself as an example.  I have changed jobs 3 times since 1997.  I have, however, applied for new positions more than ten times in that same period.  EVERY time I was hired, I was thin.  I NEVER got the job when I was fat.  Don't say it...'that's discrimination.'  Again, welcome to reality.  How you take care of yourself, if you are two small clicks from being obese, typically will tell people about your feelings about yourself, your discipline, your judgement, etc.  They leap from that to the first opinion about you.  They do not make the same excuses for you that you make for yourself.  They don't have time.

So you have it.  Judgement.  Perception.  Your year is going to be very different.  Not all good but certainly more good than when you were a large person.  It is going to be fun if you approach it with an open mind and allow people to react the way they need to.  You can change you, but you will never change them.  Some will support you, some will wish you were 'you' again.

Be happy where you are when you get to thinness.  As Harry Chapin would say, 'it is a better place to be.'

Congratulations.


Next: Your new outlook and coping with everyone else