‘The only reason I’d go for a run is if someone is chasing me’
-John Aubin (the scrawny young version)
I know, the quote above isn’t really mine, I’ve heard it tons of times before, and used to think it was really funny. I thought it was hilarious in college, when my roommate would get ready to go for a run, to spout out that gem. She would run and be healthy, I would hang out on the couch and play video games, watch TV, surf the internet, and if I got real bored, maybe I’d study. It was a fun times.
A funny thing happens when you get just a little bit older. The life style catches up to you. It happens both gradually, and all at once. It would be hard to explain, but luckily anyone over 30 has some idea what I’m talking about, and if you are young enough not to have experienced this, I have some bad news for you, it is coming.
It hits different people differently, but in my case, well I’ll just say it, I was a disaster; a fun disaster, but a disaster none the less. I was always a scrawny kid. And as I grew into an awkward teenager, I was still scrawny, but the awesome kind of scrawny, where you can eat anything you want, as much of it as you want and it didn’t matter. Through high school I used to lie about my weight and say I was 140lbs. I was really closer to 130 than 140, and I was 6 feet tall. I always knew it wouldn’t last, but I was looking forward to putting on a few pounds. I thought there would be a window in between my teenage scrawniness and being a fat bastard of an adult. I looked forward to those in between years.
So, college happened. College was the perfect amount of fun. I did enough work to graduate comfortably, but let’s just say I never let the books get in the way of a good time. And the best part, being a scrawny guy in his early twenties is just like being a scrawny teenager. You can consume anything and it doesn’t matter! I remember this because it was about the time the ‘Atkins Diet’ swept the nation. The staples of my diet were beer and poutine, and I was still scrawny. I was over 140lbs now, but still skinny as a rail.
Now, I should mention, that I understand some people are tormented by their body image. I am not one of those people. If you are, I in no way mean to make light of your struggles, which I am sure are significant. Thankfully it is not plight I have to deal with. When I was a scrawny teenager, while I would have preferred to be built and strong, I was happy as a scrawny teenager. I continued to be happy as a hard partying college student in his early to mid-twenties, who was still skinny. And I continued to be happy as I drifted into the adult world, with an adult job and adult responsibilities. In fact, I was even happy with my body when I realized I wasn’t the scrawny teenager I used to be. I was fine with the fact that I had grown into a fat bastard. Who doesn’t like a jolly fat guy?
The problem was my body wasn’t happy with me. How could it be? Sure I drink less beer than I did in college, but that’s really more of a statement about the amount I drank in college, rather than my habits at this point in my life. I also hadn’t gotten any exercise since high school. After all, ‘the only reason I’d go for a run is if someone was chasing me’. I used to walk to the Tim Horton’s to get a cup of coffee on my lunch breaks. There is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I counted that walk as exercise. And there is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that that 300 yard walk to Tim’s was the ONLY exercise I was getting at the time. If I was being honest with myself, the last real exercise I had gotten was in high school.
I know it’s wrong, but you know how you sometimes see a stranger in public, who happens to be overweight, and I mean crazy overweight, and you wonder how they got there. Well they got there by doing what I explained in the last paragraph over a long enough period of time. The red flags were there. I kept growing out of my pants (it’s a lot cuter when a kid grows out of something than when a grown up does). It got harder and harder to climb the stairs to my apartment (I mean I could do it, but I should be able to do it without breathing hard). And then on a family trip to the cottage, my mother pointed out that I had a bigger belly than my sister, who at the time was very pregnant.Also I was lying about my weight again, only this time I was saying I was ‘a little under 200lbs’, but in reality I was over.
I finally decided to do something, and in the summer of 2011, month before my 30th birthday, I went out and got the first bit of exercise I had gotten since high school. I went for a run. I was not fast, and I probably walked further than I ‘ran’, but I did it. I got the dreaded exercise. I ran without somebody chasing me. I learned a valuable lesson. Exercise SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!! I hurt so bad! I missed my couch and TV and Video games! I loved my sloth lifestyle!
So here I am making a lifestyle change and hurting. I hated the exercise at first, but quitting wasn’t going to change my expanding waistline. So a few days later I ran again, and again, and again. It has been about 3 years now. And I am by no means a picture of health, but I’m at least health conscious. I try to run at least once a week, for about 10kms. I consider it a good run if I can do the 10kms in under an hour. I even ran a half marathon.
I also realized that I had other habits that weren’t helping. For example, eating a bag of chips in one sitting is not smart. So I have actually started eating better. I stopped eating chips altogether, and then a few months later, I stopped drinking pop. I have started cutting out little unhealthy things one at a time. Small and manageable things, that after a few months you rarely even notice. This month, I stopped putting sugar in my coffee.
I can’t say I’ve lost a bunch of weight or anything like that. I’ll never be a scrawny teenager again, and that’s OK. My waistline has not really shrunk, but it certainly hasn’t grown. And I still have my share of bad habits, but I can honestly say I am as healthy as I have been in years. My body is happy with me again! I may have a bit of a beer belly still, but I am no longer a fat bastard.
Here we have adult John, aka fat bastard John. It's an action shot! It's too bad it's not a video, because that would have been hot! This is the John that needed to start exercising.
This is a flashback to high school John. Scrawny John. Singing in my high school band. Yes, we were awesome.