Dieting

I used to be really skinny as a kid.

When I hit 21, I put on some weight. That year, every part of me got bigger, not just the waist. My shoulders, arms and legs all expanded. When I was 19, I had joined the Marines and my uniforms fit fine for a year or so. But by the time I hit 22, nothing fit except my shoes. I had to replace all of my dress uniforms.

As a young man, I drank beer during the week and bourbon on the weekend. I wasn't what anyone would call an alcoholic. I didn't drink every day and didn't get drunk every time I drank. I just liked an occasional beer, and on the weekend, when I didn't have a date, I went clubbing.

When I got married, I mostly stopped the hard stuff, except occasionally with my wife, when we went out. And I cut back on the beer, at home. For a few years, I worked in a place where the men would go out to drink after work. I drank a lot more beer then and put a strain on my marriage. But eventually, things settled down again.

During that time, I started carrying around a little more weight than I should have. The problem was that I never really took it off. I got up as high as 230 about six years ago. At that point, I realized that I'd need to take some of that weight off. I just really cut back on everything.

I knocked off about 50 pounds, to about 180. I hadn't been that low in decades. Since then, it's been creeping slowly back up. I was up near 210 a few months ago. Now I'm back down to 200 and trying to take off some more.

My parents were both pretty thin their entire lives, so I can't blame them. My father was retired for about 30 years, didn't do much, drank pretty steadily until he became diabetic, and didn't gain a pound. I must be a throwback to one of my grandparents.

A big problem for me is that when there's enough food for seconds, I'll have seconds. My wife always cooks too much, so I always have seconds when she cooks. If I cook for myself, I always cook too much, too. That's why, starting about six years ago, I began eating small Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen dinners. I have these 5 or 6 days a week with a piece of bread. The other days, I'll make something different or my wife will cook.

It's helped both of us because Kathy doesn't cook a big meal when she's cooking for herself. Sometimes, her meal is mostly a salad.

The only problem now, and one of the reasons I started to put the weight back on, is that after six years, I'm starting to get tired of the frozen dinners.

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Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others. - Samuel Johnson