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Retired Guy

by John
(Arizona)

Along with extra gear he couldn't take with him, my son left two 6 lb canisters of a popular whey protein at the house when he left for a military specialty training school in Virginia.

He is big guy without an ounce of unnecessary fat on him, 6'3'', 220, and works out religiously because of his military duties. And he told me that he had at least two servings of of the mix every day in addition to eating a good diet.

He got on my case about being overweight and out of shape and made me promise that when he got back home he would have a dad he could hang out with and do cool stuff with.

That gave me a little over nine months. (I am 5'9" and weighed 230. That's compared to when I left the military back in 1969, and was at 170, and in the best shape of my life.)

He told me to do what he does: to use the weight bench and weights he had left in the garage and drink two or three glasses of the protein drink each day with fresh fruit juice, fat-free milk, or water, as either a dessert drink after my meals or right before or after I work out, and quit eating all my meals at the local fast food restaurants, and to stop buying refined or processed foods of any kind to eat at home and to start cooking my own food and eat nothing but whole grain foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, drink lots of water and have milk and yogurt and either fresh fish like salmon or tuna or halibut, etc., or fresh meat--beef, chicken, turkey -- and to walk off a couple of hundred calories more than I took in each day with a couple of brisk 2 mile walks: once in the morning after breakfast and at night after supper, as part of a daily exercise routine and I would lose fat and get back in shape.

And then he went with me to Barnes & Noble and bought me a weight-training book on how to use weights with workout schedules.

It's been a little over two months now. I kept a pretty good schedule for what the book called "core exercises" but not really as good as it could have been. And I didn't walk because where I live in Arizona, it's too hot to walk and not die. So, I just work out for right now.

At first I didn't seem to be doing anything but getting sore, and I didn't really lose any weight and in fact, I actually seemed to be putting on weight when I first started.

But in the past week, I noticed that even though I didn't seem to be losing weight as quickly as I thought I should -- 215 now-- I didn't seem to be as fat as I was and I put on a pair of waist size 35 Levis--and no, they weren't that loose, but I got them on without becoming a contortionist -- and I haven't been able to do that in 20 years.

I still have lots of fat, but I think I saw a hint of my upper ribs the other day!!!!

And I tried to do something I haven't been able to do in a very long time: pushups. I'm not going to lie and tell you that I could do as many as I could as fast as I could when I left the service, but I did enough to know that if I keep working out and doing what I am doing, I will be able to do as many in the time required to pass today's PT requirements for my military branch. And at 61, that makes me feel pretty good.

Plus, and this is probably too subjective to count, my mood has improved. I was pretty depressed with the way I looked and how I had gone to poop and was just a potbellied, old man waiting to die who grunted like a whipped hog getting loaded for the slaughter house every time I got up out of my chair; and I seem to have a lot more energy. I actually don't sit in front of the TV and vegetate any more--I go out and do cool stuff like competitive shooting at an indoor range, and I'm actually thinking of buying one of those wooden kayak kits from some folks up in Washington state, and going up there and learning to kayak and build my own boat up there).

So this isn't really a success story...I'm still too fat, but I feel stronger and healthier and happier and the other day, I actually had an attractive female someone who has known me a while tell me that I was looking good--but I discount the idea that she was suggesting that I was becoming attractive to her; rather, I think that she was just being supportive and nice because she knows my son is trying to get me to get in shape. But who knows? There may have been a suggestive twinkle in her eye!

Do I think the whey protein drinks are helping me? I don't know. But what I do know is that they taste good and they make great dessert drinks for my meals now that I had to give up cookies and brownies and key lime pie and german chocolate cake. I've been pretty good my calorie intake: I'm eating whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, and fresh meats and poultry and dairy, and taking in about 1800 calories a day which includes the protein drinks, and I feel great and I'm neither hungry nor stuffed.