So Who Else gets to turn 40 on Friday the 13th?

(What’s that, Nelson of Springfield? Ah yes, “Ha Ha!” Thank you.)

The year 2011 saw several major chances in my life. Certainly one of the biggest was when my maternal grandmother (or as I sometimes called her, the younger grandmother) died on August 9th at the age of 95 (I say younger grandmother because the paternal one lived to be 100). While the loss of a grandmother is sad, everyone losses grandparents. Two thousand eleven is also the year when I went on a serious diet.

In mid-May I had a little heart scare: my heart was racing and a trusted friendly co-worker (co-working friend?) drove me to the ER, and while I was “fine”, that underscored for me that I had to make some changes. My heart and lungs would always be compromised under the best of conditions (am asthmatic, with a hypoplastic right lung…surely you know how to use Google), and there I was, a male, approaching 40, taking high blood pressure medicine, and was overweight (there’s even been talk of sleep apnea). At one doctor’s office (as an asthmatic with acid reflux, I have several doctors), I weighed at 211 pounds (and according to the National Institute for Health, someone with my height of 5’10”, with that weight, he’s branded “obsese”). It's also not a good sign to get light headed when you laugh, especially since nothing is really that funny anymore: I was light-headed because I was not getting enough oxygen and I knew it was because it was too much of a burden for my heart and lung.

Some of my friends haven’t seen me in person in years and probably remember me as being very thin. For years, I was very underweight, something like 100 pounds at 15; at 23, I was probably 130 pounds, and at five foot ten inches, that is quite slim. People would think my mother starved me: she didn’t, but throughout my teens and into my twenties, I had a fantastic metabolism. I remember as late as 1995, I wore a pair of jeans with a 28” waist; 15 years later, I certainly was NOT wearing jeans with a 28” waist, because by the time I turned 28, that fantastic metabolism started to lose ground. Like losing grandparents, this wasn’t something unique to me: aging is the lot of the living.

Whatever dim opinions I hold for the presidential consort, I knew that change had to begin with me. This in part was inspired by some of my favorite divas: by Baroness Thatcher, who is currently portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film The Iron Lady, and by the late Dame Elizabeth Taylor. Other than being larger than life English women honoured (wink to my Commonwealth friends) by the Queen, these ladies have little in common. However, these women took the trouble to make amazing changes in themselves (Thatcher, in order to gain authority and gravitas, changed her voice and demeanor, not unlike how a man might change his voice and demeanor to become a female impersonator; Taylor fought against substance abuse, as well as her own weight), so why oh why can’t I, sang the voice of Judy Garland in my brain. I’m no Iron Lady, nor do I have violet eyes, but I’m mindful of the principles of Thatcherism (“Pennies don't fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth!”), as well as insights in Elizabeth Taylor’s own diet book Elizabeth Takes Off: for me, these icons both stress personal responsibility, something that echoed with my own very right wing background. Cause and effect, said Angela Bassett as Buddhist convert Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It, begins when you be the cause to bring the changes in your life; Belinda Carlisle certainly shared a similar experience in her own journey that included weight loss, substance abuse, and Buddhist conversion. (Ok, diva overload here: let’s move on.)

So I got out the credit card, went to a diet place (I remembered an ad over the radio, but I could’ve easily gone to the Yellow Pages…if I actually knew where there was a phone book), and signed up for year-long program. On May 16th, clocking in at 209 pounds, I began the shedding process that has mostly entailed curbing the calorie intake (down to the area of 700 to 1000 calories a day…and yes, I’m aware of how stark that is: let’s say that I followed it more religiously than a Swedish Lutheran but less fanatically than a Polish Catholic), plus supplements. And water. Lots of water.

A few weeks into the diet, I had a moment that confirmed for me that I was going in the right direction. I was hanging out with friends and remade the acquaintance of a handsome young man with whom I would hang out back in 1996. He didn’t recognize me at first, and when he did, it was quite obvious that he had to really dig through his memory, and I knew why: he knew me when I weighed 135 pounds, and here I was, with more than 60 pounds gained since we really last saw each other. It stung (especially since he’s one of those good looking guys who stayed good looking, even after 15 years). I don’t blame him: over the past several years, I looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself, so why should he?

Oh, it stung. Yes, I was ashamed of myself, and as my namesake Dr. Phil might say, I earned that fat. Well, rather than using my pity party as an excuse to leave the diet, I kept with it. Obviously, it’s too late to be a Bel Ami wetdream wondertwink (never was one anyway), but I could shed the weight and at permit myself some good grooming and attain something decent. Life is for the living and I wasn’t dead yet.

By the middle of June, the changes started becoming apparent; by July, it was very obvious and when I saw my family, I had to say, “Yes, I’m on a diet…I don’t want to talk about it too much now.” In fact, that has been my approach from the beginning: I didn’t want to post online “Down another 3 pounds this week”, so I’ve refrained from sharing that joy of signing the 10 pound board, the 20 pound board, the 30 pound board, the 40 pound board, and the 50 pound board, which I signed at the beginning of November.

I wanted to be someone who started this and just kept at it and didn’t want to talk about it until it was too obvious to ignore it. I know that a lot of New Thought/New Age/self help people stress the importance of a support group, but my inclinations took me into this other direction. I have always admired those that did stuff without talking about it, and it reminded me of the book The Magic of Believing, a self-help book first published in the 1940’s, with insights that would later be echoed in The Secret. One lesson, perhaps not expressed in The Secret, was that if you have plans and begin to put them into action, don’t share them with others, lest their envy and the Evil Eye attempt to wreck them (my words, not the author’s words). While I’ve not done much magic (I read the book in 1997), I will say that this approach (with the diet) has worked for me for the most part. I can respect myself for walking the walk rather than talking the talk, especially more so since I didn’t talk much about it. This was my spiritual quest, one that I call Extended Lent, or EL for short: no, I’ve really not conquered sin, death or the power of the Devil, but then Jesus didn’t die on the Cross for me to lose weight: like Thatcher reminding us to earn pennies on earth, I had to lose weight by my own effort.

Another part of this change was that my red hair had to go: ever since 1987, when I read Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy, with its references to “red gold” and a “rose-gold witch”, and when I first saw Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” video, I just loved the idea of having red hair. In fact, like many born of Danish descent, I was born a red-head. Fortunately, my closest friend is my hairstylist and he was able to find a good red color for me; unfortunately, by 2011, my brain came to associate my red hair with being overweight—the brand was tainted and it had to go. Over the autumn months, as red leaves fell from the trees and the temperatures dropped, so I too shed my red hair in favor of a color which, though not full flaxen blonde (my wise stylist friend advised against that: always trust the stylist), proved to be a good color, one that was also befits my Scandinavian ethnicity.

Throughout the diet, this EL, I tried to be creative (celery with mustard isn’t a bad snack, but hummus and cottage cheese taste better); often I would permit myself air popped popcorn sprayed with butter substitute, or microwave popcorn (neither were technically allowed…again, more religious than a Swedish Lutheran and less fanatic than a Polish Catholic). Before church service on Christmas Eve and lunch with my mother on Boxing Day (another wink to my Commonwealth friends) I did not have a cheeseburger except in August, when my family was gathered after my grandmother’s funeral; the funeral reception itself was actually catered by Kentucky Fried Chicken, and then I tried to eat more of the green beans and drink lots of iced tea rather than indulge in the mashed potatoes and gravy (as you can imagine, it was not easy). I didn’t have pizza until a party at work in September (it was so good! I was grateful they didn’t go cheap and get CiCi’s!), and haven’t had another slice since then (although I certainly have craved it).

By the end of the summer, a friend I made in 1994 called me and we went out to eat: I didn’t share much with him about my diet, but I’m sure that he could see that I still weighed more than when he last saw me (perhaps in 2002, when I was weighing around 145 pounds). While I was quick to order a chicken Caesar salad (something I get at many a restaurant), I did have some of the fries that he ordered as an appetizer. It felt good to reconnect with this friend and not feel as ashamed as I did in May when I reconnected with another friend.

The holidays did see a delay in some weight loss (indeed, November is a month that includes not only Thanksgiving, but also a niece’s birthday) and in fact there was some serious yo-yoing those weeks. However, that yo-yoing was also a time when I still managed to lose five pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Certainly timely for the season, one of the sweetest gifts and something for which I was thankful was that when I looked in the mirror, I actually started to recognize myself. Not half bad…more like two thirds good, actually.

November was also the month that I began to incorporate exercise into my days. Now, for the record, I hate exercise. Actually, that’s not right: I phucking hate exercise. Fortunately, I have access to a fitness room at my apartment complex and one at work, and being mindful how when I get home I just want to vege and watch TV (I seriously earned those 60 pounds, dammit), I opted for the latter and started using the fitness room at the office, meaning that sometimes I don’t head for home until after 7 pm.

Now, when it comes to working out, I’m fairly clueless. I’ve asked people and while I watch their demonstrations, it doesn’t quite “click”. One co-worker simply said, “Just get a magazine…any one of them…and choose what you like.” Still not clicking. I use an Ab-Slide and some bar bells and a treadmill, maybe 3-4 times a week, with probably a quarter to a third of the time spent in the locker room, undressing from office clothes, dressing into gym shorts, undressing out of gym shorts, showering, toweling, and prepping myself to get back out in the world with the office clothes. The shower stuff, I like. Wish I wasn’t alone for it…eh, probably for the best.

Alas, I will not be able to sign the 60 pound board by my birthday, but wow, to have lost this weight! I’m currently in my “healthy range”, although I still want to sign that 60 pound board and keep my weight in the lower figures of the healthy range so that when I enjoy those favorite foods again, the damage can be handled better. The longterm weight should be 155 pounds…but how I will miss pizza, lamb vindaloo, bacon double cheeseburgers, Goa shrimp, asti spumante, lasagna, pancakes, etc.

On the positive side, back in October, I made the decision to stop taking my high blood pressure medicine. Ordinarily, it is not a sound practice to just arbitrarily decide to stop taking medicine, but 1) I started these pills when I weighed more than 20 pounds than I weigh now; and 2) between the diet place and the specialty clinic where I get my shots every two weeks, my blood pressure is regularly monitored. So far, so good: the blood pressure is still at a very healthy number.

So, for my birthday, I’ve taken the day off. I will run some errands, get my shots, and take in a matinee of Beauty and the Beast in 3-D: I cry every time I’ve watched this Disney “tale as old as time” (which I first saw as a sophomore at university in November 1991: by September 1992, I had seen it 9 times), so it is only fitting that I see it on the Friday the 13th when I turn 40 (I’m already crying). Then I’m going to hang out with my best friend the hair stylist (who is himself in seriously awesome shape in a way Lady Thatcher would approve: he earned it) and has, beyond the hair coloring, been very supportive of me throughout this adventure in purgatory (I say "purgatory" because it’s not really hell but I sure ain’t made it to heaven yet), and several of his friends in Omaha, including the friend from May who barely recognized me, as well as the friendly co-worker who drove me the ER a few weeks prior to that shameful afternoon.

So this is middle age? Bring it on.