Fat Man III: The DeFatManification

Posted on by Luther M. Siler

So all last year I worked at a job where I was too fucking lazy to bring my lunch to work 95% of the time and so I spent a shitload of time eating fast food every week.  Then I got sick in September or October or whatever and I’ve basically been sitting on my ass at home for the last five months.

I have lost substantial amounts of weight twice in my life.  In grad school I got down from 240 to 200 pounds through a combination of diet and exercise.  The exercise?  Swimming.  I love to fucking swim.  I don’t even care that it’s exercise.  So I will do it.  Daily, if necessary.

A couple of years ago I dropped from 260 to 220 through, almost exclusively, diet.  Why no exercise?  No pool.

I weighed three hundred and four fucking pounds when I got on the scale this morning.

swimming-pool-lap-lanes-26847247.jpgI have been laboring under the mistaken notion that South Bend lacked an adequate lap pool.  There are two that I am aware of in town: one is at the YMCA and another is at a local neighborhood rec center called the Kroc Center.  Both have, to put it mildly, hours for lap swimming ranging from inconvenient to “why the fuck are you even bothering?”

Last Thursday I discovered the existence of a heretofore unknown third pool at a facility that has been here for the entire time I have lived in South Bend but which was previously somehow hidden from me.

I am deeply angry that this place has been out there being all perfect for my needs and this is the first that I’ve heard about it.

Their lap pool is open the entire time the facility is open and, at least for my hours of activity, the facility may as well be 24 hour.  On Friday I took a tour of the gym.  This morning, after a meeting with my doctor (believe it or not, this place waives the enrollment fee and drastically drops the monthly rate if you can get your doctor to claim there’s a medical reason you need exercise.  I’m very very fat!  I need exercise!) I signed up.  And I went swimming.  I made it 10 laps in a 25-meter pool; at my most fit I could do a mile without stopping.  I then spent ten minutes in a hot tub and went home.

I’m done with this bullshit now.  I’m so fat, at this point, that buttoning my pants can get me out of breath, because I have stupidly short arms and the way I have to shunt my gut out of the way to deal with my pants actually compresses my lungs.  There is a chair in my house that I occasionally avoid sitting in because getting out of it again can be so obnoxious.  I have other stories, some more embarrassing; I think you get the idea.

I’m done with this bullshit now.  I turn 40 in a few months.  I can either get control of my shit again or I can be dead by 45.  Those are my fucking choices.

Enough.

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Luther M. Siler

Teacher, writer of words, and local curmudgeon. Enthusiastically profane. Occasionally hostile.

6 thoughts on “Fat Man III: The DeFatManification”

  1. Your tone reminds me exactly of how I felt when I finally decided to lose weight. It was just like “ENOUGH!”

    I too have stupidly short arms. But luckily women can easily find pants without buttons 😛

    Anyway, just thought I’d offer some inspiration. I remember feeling how you feel now, and I’ve since the lost the weight and feel awesome. So you can do it too 🙂

    Best of luck to you.

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  2. I read dori’s second paragraph as dirty. then I understood that’s not what she meant.

    I’m not really here to help, bahaa.

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