In the grand old tradition of “Sesame Street:”
This article is sponsored by the letter:
Or, if you’re inclined to prefer the dulcet depictions from these gentlemen:
The YMCA.
Two years ago, if you’d suggested that I’d regularly carve time to head to my area Y, you’d have gotten a blank look – if not a guffaw.
Exercise and I had never been friends.
One clueless gym teacher after another allowed popular boys to captain teams, assuring that I’d be among the last chosen. My general clumsiness didn’t help. And few things in life are more humiliating than being on a Little League team (because your dad told you to try it for a season) and being called out on strikes.
By your dad.
The umpire.
Because once you’d been hit by a pitch, you decided you’d never get that close to the batter’s box again.
And that was before high school, when daily gym class at an all-boys suburban Chicago Catholic school became torture. Routinely groped by a sophomore jerk, berated by peers for a lack of athletic prowess, petrified to join the class in the communal shower.
Suffice to say that “physical education” trained me not to pursue physical fitness for the next several decades.
So, what changed?
In early July 2021, I stepped on a scale and realized I weighed more than I ever had.
At 5-foot-9½:
I weighed 189.5 pounds.
We think that we might be able to account for the half-pound.
189 And 1/2. And I looked it.
More importantly, I felt it.
The results of nine months of pandemic-induced baking and consuming. A friend’s recent sudden death. The losses of bowling, movies, concerts, restaurants, museums and everything that made life more than work and sleep.
As I recalled that both my father and my paternal grandfather had been hospitalized because of cardiac trouble, I knew I couldn’t keep going the way I was going. Changing my eating habits was part of the equation. But I knew I had to make peace with my past and find a way to enjoy exercise.
I realized that walking was the one routine I’d enjoyed through the years.
The one impediment was weather. If it was rainy, too cold, too hot, snowy or icy, I’d put off the walk.
I needed a place to go where the weather didn’t make a difference.
That’s when I remembered that the area Y had a discount for employees in our school system. That discount brought the cost down to reasonable – at least, to my mind, the equivalent of a number of snacks that I planned to forgo anyhow.
What was left before I exercised?
Only the old demons to exorcise.
In particular, I needed to make peace with being naked in front of other men and with the internalized homophobia I still realized I had, decades after coming out. In essence, I was worried about what they would think of me if I looked at them one second too long, got too close in a locker room or involuntarily responded to a visual attraction.
At least I knew I had a secret weapon.
In my backpack, I carried an iPad filled with hundreds of songs.
I could stream them through my hearing aids and calm any nerves I had just by focusing on the musicians.
(Even the Village People!)
In August 2021, the day came for me to visit and see if the Y and I were a good fit.
I entered the locker room with some trepidation but did my best not to let on.
And found out:
.. that no one – no one – cared.
On any given afternoon, a few dozen guys are changing in a room with hundreds of lockers. It’s not wall-to-wall manhood, and the guys dress and undress in a casual, “let’s move on” way. Some are chatty; most aren’t.
And even though the YMCA stands for “Young Men’s Christian Association,” the guys at my Y would, let’s just say, challenge the word “young.” (I’m not an outlier.)
I think it took all of two days to realize any fears I had were unfounded. Indeed, what I’ve gotten from the “Y” is more than I could have imagined.
And more than just staying at my goal weight of 165.
By opting to go at least twice a week, I’ve restructured my approach to work.
If someone needs me after school on a certain afternoon, I’m there. But I head to the Y afterward or, if it’s simply too late, I’ll go the next day. What I have stopped doing is making a habit of several extra hours at my desk, accompanied by compensatory visits to the snack machine.
At the Y, I sometimes use stationary bikes, rowing machines or elliptical machines.
But I prefer the track, and it’s where you’ll find me listening to a dozen songs from any year between1970 and 1991. I suspect by the time I’m finished creating faux Casey Kasem year-end countdowns, I’ll be at 2000, which seems fitting.
A good walk to good music always puts me in a more relaxed frame of mind than where I was when I walked in.
And, lastly: the community.
Honestly, I don’t know most folks by name.
But I’ve been there enough now that we recognize one another via head nods or a quick smile as we pass on the track, in the hallway or in the locker room.
Especially in the COVID age, I never realized how much I would appreciate this small but significant connection.
Is it fun to stay at the YMCA?
Ours doesn’t have residential facilities – I don’t know if any do anymore.
But I can say with gratitude that, whenever I’m there, it’s fun today at the YMCA.
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That’s great that you got back into a routine that’s good for your physical, mental, and social health.
I definitely need to find a new routine.
For most of my life, I have lived in highly walkable urban neighborhoods. Like you, I’ve never been good at sports (and actually got out of gym class in high school by helping an art teacher clean out her studio!). Yet I love walking so much. I’m the Forrest Gump of pedestrian traversal. I. Just. Keeping. Walking.
When I moved to VA, I started driving a lot more. I lived in a nice, walkable area in Old Town Alexandria, but drove everywhere else. I didn’t like this change, but then, during the pandemic, we decided to move to a place with more living space–which meant a more suburban residential area.
While it’s great to have twice the room that we did (in our older place we couldn’t even be in the kitchen together, it was so small), I really miss the old walkable neighborhood. I’m not literally trapped, as I can drive anywhere I might want to go, but to me it feels like I’m stuck on an island surrounded by residential complexes and highways. It saps my soul.
We’ve since decided that we will look ahead to possible better places to move, but that’s more long term. For now, I just need to attend to my health in a way that’s sustainable, at least until I can enjoy a more walkable community.
I’ve always hated the artificial nature of gyms, but I will at least say that the right soundtrack can make a lot of difference on a treadmill or elliptical machine. The Pixies (and also, Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP) can summon fire from me and push me to limits that I never knew I had.
First of all, hat’s off to Chuck for the hard work. Great job!
Second, we’re also thinking of moving to somewhere more walkable. I don’t understand zoning laws that permit only single family housing. It forces people to drive everywhere. My neighborhood doesn’t even have sidewalks. Everyone knows it’s a problem but the city never seems to have the money, though it looks like we’re coming up with the money for a new football stadium.
Check out these YouTube channels: Not Just Bikes, Strong Towns, City Nerd They each talk about improving transportation and land use. Interesting stuff.
Just watched the first video on the Not Just Bikes page and wow, I have been through that many times. I immediately thought of my recent attempts to walk around Orlando, FL. My area isn’t quite that bad, but almost. We have plenty of areas with no sidewalks.
It just blows my mind that so many places have opted for anti-design rather something that meets the needs of humans and our communities.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!….**tears**
I’m the same height as you, but I haven’t been that low since 2013, when my wife was pregnant with our daughter.
During COVID I did push as high as 220, but I’m now flirting with 200.
That’s great that you’ve gotten down to 165, there’s no way I could ever be that light again!
I hate working out. I especially hate the thought of working out in a public place. There are few things that I can think of that repulse me more. I’m sure it is mostly self-conscousness, but not just about weight–I certainly could stand to lose 20 lbs. It’s also self-conscousness about not knowing how to use the equipment…and not knowing the latest athletic fads. I’ve always thought that sports is rampant with fads…which exercises are now cool to do, and which ones are passe…which equipment/clothing is en vogue and which equipment will make you look out of touch…which diets are best now, and which ones aren’t. Plus exercising in public is like dancing in public…actually I’d rather dance in public.
But I know logically in my mind that is a dumb line of thinking. Even you mentioned that nobody really cares about what I’m doing. There are a lot of other aspects of life that I don’t care how weird people see i am. But for some reason, exercising is just the hardest.
And for the guilt…Mrs. Crawford would like to work out, but doesn’t have the courage/enthusiasm to do it herself. She could have a husband that could be a good cheerleader and lead her to the gym and work out with her. I am not that guy.
I would seriously rather sing in public than work out any day.
BUT that being said, I am not against exercise, and I know losing pounds pretty much universally makes people feel better in all sorts of ways. I am happy that it’s working out for you!
Oh, and the YMCA is still a healthy institution here. One county over in Lebanon, Ohio, I think is still the largest YMCA in the US. People flock to that place from surrounding areas.
I have to add: I can NOT stand working out.
Don’t get me wrong, I love exercise/sports, and I still play them as often as I can. But unless there’s a winner and a loser, I’m not into it.
So any type of “working out” for the sake of working out is a non-starter.
I have a tennis match tonight. Walked 10 miles playing golf yesterday. Play ping pong every day at school (believe it or not, you can work up a sweat!).
Running? Biking? Lifting heavy weights?
No thanks 🙂
Good on you Chuck. I think it gets harder as we mature to lose weight so a great achievement especially as you had to overcome some not so pleasant memories to give the Y a go.
Upto 30 I was very active. My diet was appalling but I did so much running and walked everywhere that I could eat what I wanted and remained thin.
When I came back from my year of travelling I was down to around 140 pounds (I’m 5′ 8″). On my return a combination of persistent tonsillitis resulted in my tonsils eventually being removed on my 30th birthday so I couldn’t do any exercise plus overdoing it on all the good stuff I’d missed for most of that year meant that 16 months later I was a touch under 200 pounds.
Which gave me the shock to do something about it and I got back to 160 – 170 which is the range I’ve mostly stayed in for the last 15 years. Started to go up last year but I’ve got it in hand now.
When covid lockdown hit here a fitness guru called Joe Wicks started live PE lessons every Monday to Friday morning on his YouTube channel which took the country by storm. It was meant for kids and their families but in our case mini J gave up on it after about a month but me and Mrs J kept it up all the way through first lockdown. Despite succumbing to more comfort eating I still came out of that lockdown fitter than I’d been for many years. Didn’t manage to sustain that once restrictions eased but it was good while it lasted
I took the lockdown seriously. I hit an all-time high 164 lbs.
I got into the habit of eating three large spoonfuls of Greek 0% fat plain yogurt, and adding fruit, a rotation of banana, strawberries, honeydew melon, cantaloupe, or pineapple. Sometimes up to three times a day. It worked.
As it turns out, that veggie patty sub at Subway actually is more fattening than a cold cut trio.
It worked.
I can wear my collection of Threadless t-shirts again. Oh, how I missed you Darth Vader and your penchant for topiary.
I know that exact shirt. I don’t think they make it anymore so wear it with pride.
I also have a Star Trek-themed shirt. Spock as a pug.
A Threadless afficiando! They’re not well known over here so I can wear my threadless t-shirts knowing its likely I’m not going to cone across anyone else wearing one. The import duty can be hefty but even with that it works out good value buying in bulk. Got two drawers full of them. I’m not into labels but it appears I might have a bit of a Threadless addiction. So much choice, not enough days to wear them all.
One of my old favorites was the Communist party t-shirt. Which I wore while on holiday in San Francisco and was glared at for an uncomfortably long time by an elderly gentleman who perhaps didn’t appreciate the sense of humour of Lenin, Stalin & co in party hats.
I had/have several of their shirts but stopped buying them once my son got into them so he could have his own thing. Still, it was hard not buying the one that says, “A city built on rock & roll would be structurally unstable.”
That was one of my first!!
A true classic.
I have The Bearshevik Revolution.
Love this for you. I need to get back into an exercise routine in the worst way (which is generally how I exercise). I made some major changes last year, and I have gone from passing three different walking tracks between my job and my home to living and working where they apparently don’t believe that feet are for anything but pressing the brake and gas pedals.
I would love to say that I bought a treadmill and kept up with my exercise. But I try to tell the truth, at least most of the time.
Looking trim there Chuck. Great job!!!
We’re fortunate to live in a very walkable city, and Mrs. Pauly and I take walks fairly regularly. We have sidewalks and parks and greenbelts and everything.
The only problem is the trees throughout the city are old and not well maintained. A mom of a toddler was killed by a falling tree branch last year, at a park just a couple blocks from my house. When all those atmospheric rivers hit a couple months ago, we had lots of downed trees throughout the area, many of which still haven’t been picked up yet.
I guess there are worse problems to have. But even nice places can fall apart without proper maintenance.
Amazing! You look great, Chuck.
Thank you for sharing.
I had the same fear of athletics/sport/working out, from somewhat similar childhood experiences. It took a lot for me to get past all that when I finally (*gasp*) jumped on the Peloton for the first time. I’m happy I did so (after my wife’s gentle but persistent nudging), as I have stuck with it and am feeling great.
First: congrats on the grit getting towards your health goals – that’s inspiring and impressive.
I’ve always been an “exercise guy” – for a few reasons:
I’m a bit vain, and want to stay fairly fit (harder as I get older).It’s the cheapest therapy ever – you can block out a lot of other junk and just focus on the next mile / rep / lap. Really helps me start my day.See #1
As a biker, I have a deep appreciation of how absolutely terrible the roads are in Los Angeles, and might actually get up in the City Council’s face about making them better one day (baby steps – just committing to writing Alt. #1 blog comments on a regular basis was a pretty big deal)
I’ve only had one “holy crap” naked experience in a gym locker room before. Mostly, as you noted, most people just want to get changed quickly and move on. I took my boys (probably 7 & 5 at the time) to the Y for their weekly swimming lesson, and the family changing room was a mob scene, so I pulled the kids into the men’s changing room.
A gentlemen just about crashed into us coming out of the sauna sporting the largest penis I have ever witnessed in person (like: wow), and my youngest’s head was totally level with this incredible specimen. The guy was super nice about it, but both my kids’ faces were saying “Holy cow – you seeing this, Dad?!” Super quiet car ride home that day.
Great column as always, Chuck! I got up to 215 lbs. during the pandemic, which even on a 6-foot-2 frame is obese. I never thought I’d get that heavy, being so skinny much of my life until middle age hit and my metabolism went out of whack. I do work out now 4-5 days a week, either aerobic or weights, and while I’m not yet back under 200 I’m getting there. Oddly enough, because I do Les Mills workout classes, that’s how I recognize a lot of today’s music, since I usually play oldies in my car. It’s weird and funny how sometimes I’ll hear Imagine Dragon and go, “Oh yeah, that’s the one where I work on my chest!”
As mt58 always says, “Good on you, Chuck”
I won’t bore you with my background but I’ve been able to lose ten pounds a decade for the past forty years.
The best info for losing weight for those of us in the teaching profession is to walk twenty minutes for every two or three hours you sit in a chair.
I know that sounds inconvenient but if you figure it out, it really works.
I’m glad you found out about the YMCA. They were a fixture in my youth but they have all but been extinct in our fair state.
Stay with it my friend, it’s worth while!
Way to stay at it Chuck; looking good, my man!
I had the fortunate/unfortunate coincidence of having my female mid-life crisis (aka that menopause crap) start within a few months of us going into lock down mode back in 2020. So it just looked like I put on the covid 15 pounds weight like everyone else!
But now as my midlife annoyance continues into year 3, and my metabolism has obviously changed, I don’t think it’s going anywhere. My hummingbird metabolism rate days are done. I do try to stay active enough in the yard, that’s my gym. My fellow gym patrons are my neighbors, lol. The way this non-winter is going here in the Mid-Atlantic, we’re gonna have to get our mowers out like a month early. Ack!