LOSING FIFTY POUNDS!

I used to be a writer, a bookworm, a sedentary person. I figured that's just what I was, what I am, what I always would be. I was kind of an academic, a would-be scholar, but I never did read "The Brothers Karamazov," so I was hopelessly illiterate. Truth to tell, I never read the Iliad or the Odyssey either. In my senior years, though, I am getting around to studying the Greek classics. I learned about them second hand from my Freud studies, but that's another story.

I was sedentary. I ignored all the good advice to exercise. I saw other people exercising like gerbils or hamsters on a wheel in a wire cage. A lot of wasted energy. They ought to be putting that work into the energy grid instead of just adding hot air and additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. All that huffing and puffing merely contributes to the greenhouse effect and global warming. Millions of exercising Americans must be as much of a danger to global warming as the internal combustion engine. It takes greenery to add oxygen to the atmosphere.

I figured my body was nothing more or less than an oxygen gathering machine so that this reader and writer could think. I thought the main thing in life is thinking. Let others do the action--- hand-to-hand combat on the front lines, chopping firewood, farming, hunting, raising livestock, so that I can eat. My life was eating and reading, writing and sleeping, with occasional intervals of expressing affection to dear ones, then back to my keyboard.

It seems the task of man is to be born, learn, pass on the knowledge--- and die. What more is there? Oh, yes, reproduction. Got to have heirs to pass on civilization. Why? Wherefore? I just take it for granted that that is what we do. I was so sedentary, what with all my reading and writing, eating and sleeping, that I gained a pound a year for 50 years. I was a member of obese-America, fat. Therefore, according to statistics (I learn about them while reading), I am prone to heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, a shortened and sickly life, interfering with my plan to pass on my knowledge indefinitely. Also from reading I learned that I was in denial, and for a physician and a psychiatrist, that's a no-no.

So I made up my mind. If I could gain a pound a year for 50 years, maybe I could lose a pound a week for 50 weeks! Bright idea! But could I do it after a lifetime of crash diets and overkill gorging? Yes, I was 70, time to get smart, wise up and get healthy. Only I had to overcome years of denial and endless rationalizations. I didn't need to have a lot of muscles. I was not a hunter or lumberman, a warrior or Olympic athlete. I was a worrier, but that did not involve moving the body. I didn't even pace. I could worry while completely still, preferably in the recumbent position.

The books said that best way to get healthy is to exercise in addition to dieting (aka eating healthy). No more Big Macs or Whoppers. No more pizza or ice cream. Bring in the fish and fowl, slice them and dice them and put them over assorted greens. Not too much salad dressing.

I bit the bullet, joined a health club and did the exercise bike and weight machines. I hated it. After I while it was not so bad. After a while it was pretty good. After a while, I looked forward to it. I had a body! It was getting strong. Maybe it's good to have a strong body to go with a strong mind. I needed a strong heart-lung apparatus to feed my brain with oxygen and glucose if I was going to go on thinking, learning and teaching.

Riding my bicycle, a newly greased old Raleigh, I am discovering the outdoors. My indoor life was books, music, objets d'art, television, videos, and my second best friend, the frig. Occasionally, I would look out the window and see greenery and sky. There was a world out there that was almost foreign to me. You went outside for some purpose. You came back in as soon as possible. The outdoor temperature varied from below zero to steambath, but indoors it was always 72 with just the right humidity.

Riding a bike outdoors reveals a whole 'nother world! There are beautiful, venerable, stately Dutch elm trees, over a hundred years old, each one unique. They are my favorite. Then there are the usual assortment of maples, oaks, birches, locusts, sycamores. And the flowering bushes include roses, of course, rhododendrons and azaleas. The perennials, such as peonies, lilies and hydrangeas, add to the list, as well as the usual annuals, the impatiens, geraniums and marigolds. It's beautiful out there, and the moist air has a fragrance to it. And you can feel breezes, sometimes a gusty wind.

In addition to the flora, there's an abundance of fauna. Who says we are displacing the wildlife? There's wildlife all over the place. Our animal neighbors are good at adapting to us, mainly squirrels and crows. The squirrels, black or grey, scurry about, waving their tails, the black birds flying hither and yon to the treetops. I don't know what the ravens are squawking about, but I don't hear "nevermore." There are also rabbits and an occasional proud looking ring-necked pheasant, flaunting himself. I encounter crowds of sparrows and starlings, grackles and a robin here and there. Of course I love the cardinal best, but I don't see him often enough to suit me, or the feisty bluejay or cute black-eyed chickadee. Around our house there is a wren, even an occasional hummingbird. The suburbs fit right in with nature, not displacing it at all. And we humans are part of nature, aren't we? We don't displace it, just add to it. I don't think we are that much of a burden to the ecosystem; it has a lot of depth and wisdom built into it.

I didn't know much about the outdoors just staying indoors, reading books, making up stories and trying my hand at poetry. The poets got outside into nature; otherwise they would have lost their passion for life. I must say I recommend exercise to the physically retarded and the outdoors to the bookworms. My health has improved greatly and I look forward to many more good years if I'm lucky. More years will enable me to pass on my knowledge to others, which I'm trying to do write (pun intended!) now.