Two Years Ago I Was a Junkie Waiting for the End

Lest I forget.

I'm so immersed in what I'm doing and feeling good about it that I can seldom remember what things were like two years ago. But it's important that I do remember. It's one of the purposes of this blog.

It's been two years since I met with a nutritionist and agreed to start taking small steps to right the sinking ship that was me.

Today I cross-country skied with my wife for 90 minutes. It was fun and we didn't want to come in even though our bodies were spent. Two years ago I was just beginning to walk my daughter to the preschool around the corner. It took ten minutes each way and I was sweaty and exhausted when I got home. I spent the two and half hours that she was in school resting for the trip back. I hated winter. I hated having to walk her there. I hated that my body was so useless.

I was my body's bitch. It had total control over me. I had none over it.

Two years ago I was eating until my stomach hurt from being full. I was eating high calorie, high fat food that made me feel tired, irritable and unfulfilled.

Today I ate some of the foods that caused me so much trouble back then. I had nachos for supper and chocolate for dessert. But I did it in moderation.

I had mostly salsa instead of sour cream and I sprinkled the cheese sparsely on a plate of chips half the size of what I might have had in my previous life. I stopped eating when I was full, not when my stomach became uncomfortably stretched. When I encountered chocolate, I just had a small sample and enjoyed it instead of wondering how much of it I might have, how I could get the most possible, or if anyone was watching.

I haven't cured my eating problems, I've only begun the work, but I'm under control. Each day I gain more control and knowledge of what's going on with my eating. I'm practicing better eating habits until my mind and body finally accept the more appropriate ways of behaving.

Two years ago I was ashamed to be in public. Two years ago I had no inclination that I would ever be doing the things I now enjoy and thrive on: Cycling, jogging and cross-country skiing. Two years ago my kids barely had a father. Now they have a playmate and a dad.

Every once in a while I have a flashback. I remember not being able to climb the stairs in my house, how I used to use a shopping cart to hold myself up at the grocery store, or how I felt after using junk food as a meal.

I was a junky, eating things that made me sick and not being able to stop harming myself.

Exercise quickly helped me gain the strength to take control. It empowered me to take the reins of my disease. Far faster than the speed at which my waistline shrunk, I became more and more able-bodied.

I have years of hard work and learning ahead of me before I can claim any sort of long-term success but I'm enjoying the journey. And the way I now think about myself and my future couldn't be more different than it was two years ago.

Two years ago, I was disabled from a disease that isn't very well understood. It's complex and difficult to manage. What I do know absolutely and one hundred percent is that exercise is the fool-proof way to pin my menacing disease to the ground. Waiting for the count to ten to declare victory will take a very long time and it will present challenges that I have yet to imagine.

But I'm stronger than I've ever been in my life and I'm ready for whatever lies ahead.

The 2XL Shirt at the End of the Rainbow

A 5XL Shirt (courtesy the Internet)

Oh, the lofty goal of "2XL." Why is 2XL significant to the severely overweight male? It's because you can walk into most stores these days and buy that size off the shelf. You would shop like, you know, a normal person would shop.

With each X comes two clothing sizes, or 4 inches on the chest usually. I had got up to 5XL a year and a half ago and I was running out of Xs. Even the Big 'n' Fat stores didn't sell beyond 5XL, at least not in my city. Some U.S. stores online go beyond that. I always was a bit surprised by that since it was so easy to get to 5XL, but then I wondered if people just didn't die off anyway before they outgrew that size.

People, including medical professionals, ask me the big question: What was it that got you to finally do something? That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Running out of Xs was one of the reasons, I suppose. That and getting to a point where I was gaining weight and doing less. Part of a viscous cycle where I lost all control, even when I tried. I saw a downward spiral that would end badly.

My crazy dream was to fit into a 2XL shirt one day. I could walk into a store one day and pick out a shirt I liked then select something from the back of the rack with two Xs on it. 2XL seems SO tiny, so everyday, so...healthy. So much a bloody fantasy.

Well I'm here. I arrived earlier this month. And it's not what it I expected. I'm still huge. The fact is, 2XL is still very big. Being 2XL is by no means a healthy size. I was mad at retailers for not catering to the large, but they do. 2XL is for very overweight people. Most men don't go beyond 2XL.

I know clothing sizes are becoming larger as our population as a whole gains weight, but I was still surprised that my current size fits into most 2XL tops. There are a lot of people who haven't even noticed I've lost any weight at all. I'm pretty sure I've lost at least 100 pounds of fat (I've gained a tremendous amount of muscle just from moving my body so my overall weight may not quite be down by 100 pounds yet, but my size certainly is.)

I've had relatives say, "You should probably lose some weight." Um, are you blind? Is a person so large at 5XL that one hundred pounds of fat is not noticeable?

A year ago, when my exercise counselor at the time cautioned me that the human body will work against me to gain weight back and wanted me to temper my weight loss goals, I told her that I didn't want to be thin like so many overweight people do. I told her I wanted to be 2XL; I wanted to just be healthy. I had little vanity in my goals since I was happily married with kids and not planning an affair.

But now I must revise my goals. 2XL is just a point on the journey. It's nice to buy "regular clothes" and feel like you're more a part of society, but it's still way too big. Although the good feelings of going from 5XL to 2XL are indescribable and many, my motivation now is to lose weight so I can do more.

I've had a lot of fun and really started to live my life since I got in shape. But I want more. I don't want the weight of excess body fat to hold me back. As my son--my partner in adventure--gets into his tweens now, he's doing more and I want to keep up to him.

But at least now, I can stop worrying about the letter X.

What does the "Ideal You" Look Like and How does S/he Live?

Is the "ideal you" like celebrities or supermodels?
Or is the "ideal you" who you are now?

I write this blog for the benefit of myself and for people like me: the very overweight. I know a lot of you are sick of me going on about how exercise "saved my life" and are wondering when I'm going to talk more about eating. I've got lots to say about my eating issues and I promise to open up about them as I discover and think about new revelations.

The fact is, though, I feel pretty good these days. I rarely feel like I have anything wrong with me. My only annoyance is going to stores and trying to buy clothes that fit. I'm still too big for even oversizes available at department stores.

Honesty is a central part of my blogging. I like to spill my guts and not hold back. So I have to tell you that it bugs me to hear people talk about that next pound they're trying so hard to lose.

My question to you is: Why are you trying to lose weight?

It's a legitimate question and I'll give you my honest answer at the end. Is it because you want to be more healthy? If that's the only answer, then my response is, based on what happened to me, you'd get more healthy by going for a walk every day than starving yourself and worrying about every calorie.

Let me make a list of reasons of why I suspect people want to lose weight. I compiled this list from discussions with people struggling with their weight and from reading I've done recently (about what people struggling with their weight say.)

• I want to fit in.
• I want to be attractive.
• I want to be loved.
• I feel like a failure being fat and it's embarrassing.
• People think I'm a joke.
• My doctor says it's not healthy.
• Society says being fat is wrong.

If you've been overweight all your life like I have, then you've probably had some of these things ingrained in you. It's hard to change your own attitude after so many years of believing something. It's like being told up is down and down is up. It simply can't be true that being fat is okay.

I lost most of my excess weight once (295 to 170 pounds.) I felt great but I was disappointed in the skinny me. Contrary to my life-long expectation, being skinny didn't solve all my problems. It didn't give me happiness and it didn't give me all the babes I thought I deserved because I was now a stud! Being fat, it turned out, wasn't my problem. So as you can guess, the weight started to come back on.

What does the ideal you look like? Have you envisioned him or her? Is s/he the same person as you are now or a different person? Is s/he just a skinny version of yourself who also sits on the couch all day but is somehow happier? Does the world somehow change if you're thin? Is the sky the same colour if you're thin?

Are you more loved? Are you a better person? Are you more respected? Consider these questions and think about your true feelings on the ideal you.

I'll share with you some thoughts I've had over the years on the ideal me. The ideal James is the happy man in TV commercials. He rock climbs, kayaks and he hosts social gatherings (possibly with ice-cold beer.) He has sexy barbecues. He travels. He may even skydive, because the ideal James lives every moment to the fullest. He has many friends and is the perfect father. He is loved by all. All women want to have his babies.

The latter, of course, is not a very realistic goal for anyone. Is Brad Pitt any happier because most women find him hot? Confidence in one's sexuality does not equal happiness. I think of all the horrible women over the years I might have ended up with if I looked like Brad Pitt. Fortunately, my wife (the best woman in the world) has modest standards (or gets drunk far too easily, you decide.)

Does the perfect you exercise? Is the perfect you a fitness freak? The best looking people in the world, as well as the most powerful tend to be fitness enthusiasts. They tackle life by doing things--fun, exciting things that go far beyond sitting on the couch. 

So if I may presume that the ideal you is a person who moves her or his body a great deal, why can't you do it now? Why do you have to obsess about weight when right now you could be going for a walk and building on basic fitness that can improve a little every day? Right now, you could be doing what the ideal, thin you would be doing. You could be living your life, even if that means a short walk to the light post down the street and back is all you can do. At least you're getting some fresh air and doing something huge for yourself. There might be a dozen reasons why you ate poorly today but, if you're at all able-bodied, you probably don't have any valid reasons why you didn't do something physical for yourself.

If you love yourself, set yourself free and get moving! If you don't love yourself, see a counsellor and begin working on what's really wrong with you, because it's not your waist.

If your excuse is that it's too much work, I ask you how is it that you are willing to diet? Dieting is one of most difficult and complicated things people embark upon. Losing weight and keeping it off is complicated. It's a giant pain in the ass to obsess about it night and day. Improving your fitness is simple and fool-proof. It's easy by comparison.


Unlike dieting, the less you think about it, the better.

Why not start being the ideal you today and re-examine why you want to lose weight in the first place? I'm not saying you shouldn't lose weight. I'm not saying you shouldn't eat the best you can. But one part of what you need to do is complicated and one part is easy. One thing is prone to failure, one thing is fool-proof.

Having said all that, in full disclosure, I do want to be smaller. Here are the reasons I currently want to lose body fat: I feel if I have less excess fat on me I can move around even more and therefore do even more in my recreational life. In other words, I can have even more fun. Secondly, I want to buy clothes that fit more easily. Shopping for clothes is the only time I feel abnormal nowadays.

In every other way, I'm ideal.

Achieving and Surpassing My Winter Goal

It's amazing to me how quickly I've been moving from fantasies, to dreams, to goals, to achievements and beyond. Cycling moved quickly that way for me in the summer. At first it seemed nearly impossible or something that would take years to achieve. I came up with tobogganing with my kids as my winter goal this year and I'm amazed, as I was with cycling, how fast I moved from a dream to an everyday, no-big-deal, occurrence.

I noticed last night that I wasn't looking at my heart-rate monitor watch on a regular basis. Only once did I glance at it to make sure I wouldn't push my heart too far. When I did look, it was a little over my target maximum of 85%, but that's okay. I knew what was happening. My heart, and hill-climbing muscles were all getting stronger and more efficient, to the point that it was no big deal to walk up that big hill.

This means I felt like a normal, fully-capable person, for the first time in many, many years. Maybe even more capable than some sedentary thin people my age. This feeling is very different than what I experienced on the same toboggan hill a year ago with my kids. Then, I stood at the bottom of the hill and watched. Occasionally, I'd sneak halfway up the hill, slowly and with long pauses to rest, and shoot some pictures of my kids having fun. It was ingrained in me that I couldn't do what they did. I was ostersized from the world of the healthy.

After a couple exhilarating runs down the long toboggan hill last night, I stopped near the bottom, looked up at the surreal, artificially-lit winter scene, felt the strong but harmless winter wind in my face, and thought that I hadn't had this much fun since I was a kid. I later found myself alarmed by this realization. How much had I really missed out on all my adult life? And how much more fun should I be perusing in my future?

I'm not sure the answers to these questions yet, but I do know, a day spent without being active is a day wasted.

My Big, Dumb--WRONG--Preconceptions

When I started to hit my exercise stride (so to speak) early last summer, there was one thing I dreaded: Summer ending.

I was focused on the silliest of things. I dreaded cool temperatures, let alone cold temperatures. I had it in my mind that I needed to accomplish much of my fitness and weight-loss goals by mid-August, of all times. That's not even the end of Summer, even in Saskatchewan.

Beyond that, I was hell-bent on getting my weight down to 325 pounds by October 30th. I had it ingrained in me that I couldn't be active after Halloween because the cold weather has kept me in in the past. 325 is the weight limit of my home treadmill and I wanted to make sure I could use it in time for winter. It was my summer ending safety net. I didn't reach that goal. I fell short by ten pounds.

But here it is, mid-December, and I'm outdoors getting my usual exercise and loving it. My only challenge is the occasional near-slip, but there are products (traction aids) you can buy to alleviate that problem.

With the right clothes and knowing how to layer, there's no reason not to keep living as per usual when winter comes.

However, deep snow and -40 wind chills are two things that I'll have to wait and see I how deal with those. But just remember, people do go on expeditions to the South Pole and sleep in tents. I should be able to walk around the block and not complain.

Forgive Me, I'm A Bit Eurphoric

Winter Goal 2011: Accomplished! (And I lived!)

We haven't had a whole lot of snow and it is nastily cold out but my son and I hit the slopes and I tobogganed today for the first time in 25 years.

It's a great workout. I strapped on my heart rate monitor and I'm glad I did. A slow walk up the hill easily gets my heart rate up to 85% of max, where I like to limit myself. I had to pause for a moment or two now and again and slow down to keep my pulse in check, but I was amazed at how well I did. And I expect, like any new exercise, it'll get easier and easier as my body quickly adapts.

Last year I thought I was a hero for walking up the hill a couple of times during the winter but I did it really slowly, pausing to "watch the sledding" every now and again. And I didn't dare put my sedentary body on a sled.

For the last five years, since my first born was old enough to go sledding, I stood at the bottom of the hill envying him, as well as my wife who did the tobogganing. I thought for the first time in many years about the last times I went. It was just after I finished high school and some of my friends would head to the very same hill my son and I went on today.

I remember being dragged there on a really cold winter night and we had the hill all to ourselves. Remembering that night, I'd always be impressed with myself for going out on such a cold night and having fun. Everyone had a blast and I thought of that night often. Today was almost as cold and, as an overweight middle-aged man, I certainly could have stayed at home and had another predictable, safe day. God knows most of the children of Regina opted to stay indoors and play video games. But not me, I got out there, not knowing what might happen.

I put on some cheap winter boots that I bought today from Walmart on credit (don't blame me for being poor) and my deluxe MEC balaclava, stopped by Toys R Us and bought a wide plastic sled and headed for the hill.

My first ride down was surprisingly non-eventful. I seemed to go slow (the snow wasn't very packed down and there's still some grass sticking through.). My son sped ahead of me on his Norwegian-made sled which I wish I had when I was a kid (It has a fun fur seat, steering wheel and brakes on a plastic frame.) I marched up the hill with lots of energy an zest. Really, you don't stop hill-climbing save for the few moments it takes to hurtle down the slope. The subsequent runs were much faster and were a challenge for my recovering back. But what a blast!

My son was nonplussed. I thought it'd be a big deal for him since he's always asked me to to do this (and cycling.) It was just another day on the toboggan hill for him. I'm sure he'll remember it though.

It occurred to me today, after I did the math, that my father was my age (46) when I was born. He died twenty years later and throughout that time, his health steadily deteriorated, mostly due to a weak heart. He was somewhat overweight and had smoked until I was five but he never exercised. That's going to be the difference maker for me and for my kids.

I couldn't have even imagined in my wildest dreams my father going tobogganing with me when I was a kid. I don't even think he went with my brothers who were born eleven and twelve years before me. And all this wouldn't be possible with just weight loss alone.

It's a common theme on this blog that exercise empowers me to do so much more than would be otherwise possible, even with weight loss alone. Just having the confidence in my body to sit down on a sled wouldn't have been possible without having changed my body with fitness and strength.

So the dreaded Winter season has arrived and the side walks are slippery or impassable for walking or jogging. But for a workout--a great workout--all I need do is grab a kid and our sleds and head a few blocks East to the toboggan hill.

I'll keep you updated!

Today I Begin My Intensive Mountain Training

How I envisioned our
tobogganing hill last year

Today, at my clinic's gym, I began my training for accomplishing my winter goal: Tobogganing!

I've never gone sledding with my eight year old son even though I've always wanted to. I would simply watch from the bottom of the hill or slowly make my way to the middle. Getting up the hill was too much of a struggle to do in public (heavy gasping of breath, moving very, very slowly to get there.)

I walked up the hill in question (known as Mount Pleasant, an old landfill site) a few weeks ago before the snow came. I seemed to do okay although I started to get out of breath and had to take it slow. It'll be more of a challenge finding my footing as I go up the snowy slopes with my son.

Today I did my first workout on the treadmill with a significant incline. I pumped that bad boy up until my heart rate reached 85%, about 8% incline for those keeping score. I look forward to gauging my improvement on this task by watching the incline get higher over time while my heart rate stays at the same level as it was today.

The other important part of my preparations for the upcoming tobogganing season is selecting a sled, one that won't break when I sit on it. The first thing that came to mind was a Krazy Karpet style sled because they're so thin, there's nothing to break. However, I've never been a fan of Krazy Karpets because you can't steer them and bumps can be painful underneath.

I think I'll go with something in a saucer.

Who Do We Aspire To Be? People In Car Commercials? The Answer Just May Be Yes!

Have you ever noticed how outdoorsy people are in car commercials? Not pickup truck commercials and not luxury car commercials but regular cars and SUVs. They're always heading somewhere with a kayak on their roof and a few mountain bikes attached to the back. They're fit, healthy and extremely happy.

It's no secret that ad agencies have always appealed to us by depicting the people we want to be, not the people we are. Even Depends adult diaper commercials show the elderly lawn bowling or going on brisk walks on the beach in track suits. It's got me wondering: What is the person I aspire to be?

Obesity puts a limit on the possibilities in life and after awhile you start to downsize your dreams, having given up on your body. Now, I'm finding, I'm starting to open up my thoughts on what I can be, knowing now that anything is possible. I doubt I'll ever climb Everest, but there's so much more possible with me now than there was a few months ago. And as I continue making progress, even more things will be possible.

Did I ever aspire to be the family with a kayak on their roof running off for a day of fun activity in nature? I think I did. It's been for so long that my aspirations have been crushed by the weight of...my weight. Cycling again is something I never thought possible and lamented not being able to do. Well I'm back and it's fantastic! A couch is nowhere to spend your life. Happiness IS being active. It IS getting out there and doing things the sedentary body cannot.

Many years ago I hit a bit of a bump in my life and decided to take off on a solo vacation to Hawaii. (My airline ticket was only $399 return!) I was going through my fitness phase at the time and bought a little tourist book on Hawaii. The book suggested a place to rent bicycles and the author highly recommended renting a kayak at a certain park. I had  never been on a kayak before but he wrote that this kayak outing was suitable for beginners. After an hour long bus ride there, I found that kayaking was not permitted due to lack of water in the small stream. I was DEVASTED. I thought my whole vacation was ruined. To this day, I have never kayaked.

But I did have a bike for the whole time I was there. It was a tremendous way to explore a tourist destination. You pick up so much more on a bike, all your senses can take everything in. (I imagine scooters and motorcycles are good too but maybe not as good.) I cycled along the coast to a beach destination and when I returned, I was so high on the experience I cycled and cycled through Honolulu. And when I got back to the hotel, I promptly got the flu.

Nevertheless, I swore I would do this sort of active, outdoorsy thing every chance I could and that I would embrace the outdoor experience for everything it had to offer. Instead, I spent a great deal of time on chairs and couches watching my life pass me by and putting my health at great risk.

I've been eyeing up kakaks at the store the last few months. Such preposterous thoughts wouldn't be permitted with the old James but there's so much out there for the new me to discover.

I'll start with going tobogganing with my kids for the first time and take it from there. Maybe some mountain biking on nature trails (they're building one all across Canada, you know), some hiking and possibly even some kayaking could be in my future.

A few months ago I didn't think I had a future of any kind, let alone the one I'm now starting to imagine.

The Fire in My Belly

When I started this process, I think the Tanita body composition scale said I was something like 200 pounds over-weight. I had a BMI of nearly 50. I really have yet to improve upon those numbers that much. Maybe more importantly of note, I had lived an ever-deteriorating sedentary lifestyle (how could I not have with those numbers?)

Over the two years prior to the start of my change I more and more often felt disabled. It's not that I was lamenting not being able to run a marathon, but that I couldn't do normal, able-bodied person things like stand up for an extended period, for example. I began to avoid everyday, common situations that might be too physically demanding for me. A social invitation had to be analysed: Could I fit in the booth at that restaurant? Could I handle being outside in the heat at a barbecue? I was feeling less and less capable. I was concerned that I was becoming truly disabled.

A severely overweight person misses out on a lot of things. Lacking speed and agility on the playground as a kid was only the beginning of my life's problems, not to mention the social stigma of being overweight (I wonder if it's any easier nowadays since there a lot more kids with weight problems.) The one time I tried out for organized sports when I was a child, I was sent home for being too heavy. There was a weight limit on the pee-wee football team. I could give you a thousand such examples. I  won't give them all to you at once, but I'll spread some of them out in other posts over time.

A fat person grows up feeling shackled, unable to do everything that a normal (healthy) person does, unable to live life to the fullest, unable to do everything they want to. Every day growing up they are more and more conditioned into believing they are not equal to the healthy majority.

This is why there's a fire in my belly. An exercise fire. I am determined to change my body to make it the healthiest, strongest, most capable I can. And walking's just not going to cut it.

I've been told for years by medical professionals to walk. Walking is healthy and is an excellent exercise for anyone of any age and any fitness level. But it only goes so far in changing the body to make it all it can be. I yearn to be more fit.

The fire was stoked last night when I went on a bike ride with my young son through every nook and cranny of our subdivision. It was casual, it was easy and I felt like I did when I was a kid. It brought me back to moments and evenings of riding my bike when I was young and the feelings of freedom and the fun that I had. Throughout the years, and through many bicycles, I've often felt I had a special relationship with my given bike of the day that involved bonding and trust. I once again have that relationship with my bike. If that sounds hokey, you've never been a passionate cyclist.

Those around me through the years have sometimes categorized me as someone who won't grow up. A very few frustrating people have thumbed their noses at me every time I did or said something less than serious. I pity this type of serious, constrained, often joyless person. There's nothing wrong with having fun and letting your guard down as an adult. There's nothing wrong we staying young. I've been a happier person and a better person for it.

But a person with a serious weight problem frequently misses out on those good feelings for all kinds of reasons. We often feel restrictions from being socially ostracised, not being able to participate in everything that life has to offer, or simply from the mindset you develop where you think you can't or shouldn't do a lot of things because of your weight. I never allowed myself to swim in public, for example (more on that on another day.) Is there anything more fun than playing in water? I missed out on that.

My medical professionals always seem to be telling me to take it easy and concentrate on changing my lifestyle in a lasting way. They remind me to be patient. But once the shackles start coming off, you want it all. If a person confined to a wheel chair for much of his or her life could suddenly walk, I'm sure they'd want to run. And run and run! That analogy might be a little overblown, but I hope it helps you better understand how I feel.

I do worry that, like with so many other things with me, it'll be all or nothing when it comes to fitness. I fear that I might not have the time or enthusiasm some day and just stop (again.)

For now, though, my life-long profession is that of athlete. I want to become a little more fit every day and start taking back what I've missed out on. That means jogging, cycling and having access to equipment at the gym. At the core of my fitness routine will be walking, but there's so much more my body is capable of, and it's exhilarating to discover that every day.

Goal Completed and I Feel Like a Million Bucks!

My son and I cycled the length of the longest bike path in my city at dusk tonight (about 18 KM total). This has been a goal of mine for many weeks. Before that, it was a dream.

We had to push hard to beat the fading twilight. I got a great workout because my heart rate stayed up in the 80% range for most of the trip, which took about an hour and ten minutes.

I try to cycle on cool evenings because I get exhausted easily by the heat, due to my excessive weight, I assume. I learned that I need to take more than one bottle of water with me on these trips because my large body needs more hydration than a regular sized person.

I can't tell you how amazing I feel right now. And it's not just because I completed an important goal, erasing the ghost of a past humiliation (not being able to go with my seven-year-old son last Fall when he first completed this marathon bike ride alone), but because of how perfectly healthy and invigorated I feel.

The storm that chased us the other night must have got me in good shape for tonight because tonight I did NOT feel like a morbidly-obese man (which I still am).

I didn't feel like an obese man.

I didn't feel like a fat man.

I didn't even feel like a middle-aged man (which I am.)

I felt like I did fifteen years ago when I was 29, lost all my excess weight and was in the best shape of my life. I felt like I could go on forever on this beautiful August night (provided I had more water!)

The fact that I did this, the fact that I feel so remarkably good physically at this moment seems like a dream.

If I keep going, if I never stop, I'll never wake up from this dream. And that's what I have to do.

Bike Ride Leads to Electrifying Bonding Experience With My Son

My son, his trusty bike, and approaching weather.

I've been looking for motivation to do more cycling. I've upgraded my bike to (possibly) support my weight, I'm training at my clinic's gym to have the strength to do it, but for some reason, I'm still a little hesitant to "get on the horse," as it were.

Part of the reason may be that it can be difficult at first if I'm not warmed up. Doing a few minutes of slow jogging after 15-20 minutes of walking doesn't seem more than a progression of what I'm already doing.

Biking can involve a getting the heart rate up fast and, frankly, I have to dig the thing out of the shed, fill my water bottle and don extra shorts, gloves and a helmet. And part of me wants to preserve my bike until I'm lighter.

Starved for entertainment, I decided tonight was the night I was going to tackle the Devonian Pathway in my city. It's a multi-use pathway that spans about 8 KM or so, covering much of the city. Last fall my son, who was still six years old, rode the entire pathway by himself. It was part of a parenting philosophy I've embraced to give my children freedom so they can learn not to be fearful and to solve problems on their own. In short, it's an anti-helicopter parenting philosophy. There's a movement, check it out.

I let my son do it because he's quite smart for his age, knows more than most GPSs when it comes to geography and he really wanted to do it. Normally I would have gone with him on my bike but I was unable to due to my poor physical condition. It would have suited him fine if I was able to go, it's not that he was asking to go alone, but he was eager to attempt it, even without me or his mother riding with him.

I followed in a car but due to the nature of the terrain, I wasn't able to keep constant watch on him. I had a few nervous moments waiting for him to appear at the next check point but he always did, with a big smile on his face, pedalling like crazy (he only lost his training wheels two months earlier.)

I couldn't do what he was doing and I regretted it. At the time I didn't even dare to dream that I ever could attempt something like that again in my lifetime. Tonight, I set out to put that skeleton in my closet behind me. I decided we'd do the path tonight. I figured it'd take an hour or so round trip.

However, storm clouds threatened. There was a line of rain pouring out of the sky to the west of the city. The trail starts at the West end of the city and it seemed like it might hit us. My boy, now seven, pushed me to continue. "We can always turn around Daddy."

We got about half way when the lightning got a little too intense and a little too close. I changed my mind about the storm missing us. My son convinced me to turn around and make the fifteen minute trip back to the van, even though we'd be going into the storm.

I was wearing my heart rate monitor strap that happens to work with my old bike computer from fifteen years ago. I can see my heart rate on the little computer screen, below my speed, distance, etc. As we pushed hard to beat the rain clouds and lightning, I could see my heart rate rising to the 85% level, the maximum my doctor recommended I go.

I began weighing the risk of heart attack vs the risk of being hit by lightning. Maybe it didn't matter because a friend later joked, "lightning is nature's defibrillator." I kept my heart rate at 85% even though I wanted to pedal harder to possibly save my life. (OK, it wasn't that bad!)

As the skies grew even darker, the wind blew harder and the rain began to pelt us, I told my son that in all the years I've cycled (avidly until my early twenties when obesity came, and again later when I got fit for a period) that I had never cycled in a thunderstorm. The first time was with him.

I was really impressed with my son. He watches the weather channel a lot and we worry that he might be scared of severe weather but he was cool as a cucumber. The kid who runs in the house to change as soon as he gets water on himself outside on a hot day didn't even want to change into dry clothes when we got home.

I suspect he will remember this evening fondly for the rest of his life. I will too. There's nothing like cheating death to bring a family together.

It's also a good way to get a wicked workout.