Forty

I set out a year ago to lose some weight. I had no idea what a game-changer 40lbs would be.

Yesterday I grabbed a 40lb bag of dog food, took it out to our shop, tossed it over the top tube of my bicycle and rode up and down the road just to see how it felt. A year ago I could have conducted the same experiment without the bag of dog food because I was over 40lbs heavier. It's been a long journey, but the payoff has been wonderful.

I was almost always skinny when I was a kid and that lasted well into my 20's. When I briefly played football in high school I weighed 113 lbs. When I raced bicycles at the University of Kentucky, four years later, I was 6'2” and weighed about 180lbs soaking wet. I was always active and had a fast metabolism. I could eat like a horse and not gain a pound. It was awesome. All the pizza, burritos and beer I could consume - with no consequences. Oh to relive those days.

I started strength training for climbing around 1980 and became a gym rat. For most of the next decade I worked out religiously, gaining 15lbs during this period. This was the first time in my life that I had to work to control my weight. I can remember walking past restaurants in Lexington KY and having to really focus in order to not follow my nose to some gastronomic catastrophe.

After climbing came grad school. The combination of stress and lack of time for much physical activity involved in most graduate programs will put a dent in almost anyone's fitness regime. Then came the move across the country to a new career. Faculty in most academic fields are very busy people. I marked the passage of several decades with a gradually expanding waistline and declining levels of fitness.

Then came my sixth decade and some health challenges. In 2020 things deteriorated to the point that I no longer had the option of ignoring health issues. It was a brutal year, but the beginning of a journey to a much better place.

A few months after a hip replacement I stepped on our bathroom scale at home and it read 250lbs. I was horrified. I knew that I had to deal with my weight. I spoke with several of my doctor friends about recovery, training and diet. After listening to what they had to say and pouring through the resources they recommended for self-study, I decided on a combination of gym training, bicycling and a ketogenic diet to get things under control.