A Weighty History

I woke up fat one day when I was in graduate school. I’m not really sure how it happened, but I think it probably had something to do with all you can eat biscuits and gravy at Hardy’s for $2. I’m not really sure how I missed out on all the stages leading up to fat, I just know that one day I woke up and was 211 lbs and only 5’9”.

So I decided to start running. The first day I ran 3 miles. My ankle hurt. The next day I ran three miles. My ankle and knee hurt. The next day I ran 3 miles. My ankle and knee and hip hurt. The next day I ran three miles. My ankle and knee and hip and back hurt. The next day I stayed in bed.

I ended up getting a job in a wilderness area, it required a lot of hiking and a lot of time away from civilization. I lost about 20-25 lbs, and transitioned from fat to just chunky. I would have lost more, but I figured out that cheese and summer sausage are edible for at least eight days in the wilderness. I also learned that some of those backpacking meals are pretty good.

I got down to chubby from chunky when I got a different job that I could ride my bike to and lost about 10 lbs.

I went from chubby to average a year or two later when my appendix ruptured. I lost about 15 lbs in a week – a personal best. I wouldn’t recommend it though. After I recovered about 6 months later, I went back to chubby.

I started bike racing several years ago and went from chubby, to average, all the way to svelt. It took a while, and there have been some ups and downs, but I have been svelt-ish for a while now.

This year I decided to train for bike racing. I think that I have transitioned from svelt, to thin. I am not really sure, but I think so.

I woke up 149 lbs on Saturday. I thought that meant I was thin, but I was wrong. My wife informed me when I got back from a ridiculously long ride that I was ‘disgustingly boney’. Wow, disgustingly boney – I have never been referred to as disgustingly boney in that context before.

I can’t lie, I am excited about being disgustingly boney – it means I am only a few lbs away from the next category, bike racer…