Losing weight, gaining ground

It was sometime in early March when I decided that with just over a month until turkey hunting season and me feeling like a bloated sloth, maybe I should do something to get physically ready if I wanted to be tying my turkey tag on a gobbler in April.

The first thing I did was to drag the bathroom scale out, dust it off and step on it.

"Is the bathroom scale broken?" I yelled out of the bathroom, to anyone within in hearing distance.

When nobody answered, I picked the thing up, shook it a couple of times and then stripped to my shorts and stepped on it again.

"Hmmm, that can't be right." I muttered to myself.

I kicked the scale and readjusted the needle to dead on zero. When I stepped on the scale one more time the needle zoomed up to 225 and stopped right there.

Yikes! I knew I had "wintered over" well, but not that well.

I had been up to 215 a couple of times before, but never 225. It was time to get serious if I was going to be climbing hills and fording streams in search of a big tom in the near future. So in an act of shear desperation, I joined a gym. And not only did I join the gym, I hired a personal trainer to get me started down the path to fitness and firmness.

In retrospect, both were good decisions, but after one week with the masochistic trainer I was ready to strangle him. And I would have too, except I couldn't raise my arms above my shoulders. Heck, it hurt just to pick up a pencil. But I stuck with it and, with a concerted effort to start eating better, the pounds started dropping and I started to feel better and better.

Flash ahead a month, to the opening of turkey season. I was then 13 pounds lighter, and as I walked up and down the hills in search of an elusive gobbler I didn't feel half bad. The aches and pains of all the weightlifting the trainer had me doing were now just a fading bad memory. And by adding an every-other-day regimen of walking a mile or so, I really was feeling pretty good.

I was eating lots of salads and fruits and vegetables and chicken. So much chicken, in fact, I was starting to cluck. But I was seeing results.

Flash ahead to the end of turkey season, in late May, and I was down 23 pounds. I still hadn't killed a turkey, or the personal trainer, but I was definitely lighter and in better shape. At that point I had thanked the PT for his work and put together a program of light weightlifting and walking on my own. Combined with some diligence in sticking to eating healthier, which included passing on all of my favorite deserts and snacks, I was still dropping weight. More importantly, I just felt better.

Since then, I have built up the duration of my little workouts and am walking three to four miles three times a week. I have continued to lose weight, 35 pounds so far, and as I glance ahead to the fall hunting seasons I am actually looking forward to it more this year than any other. I used to dread the idea of climbing some of the hills we have hunted over the years, but I know this year it is going to be a lot easier to scale the mountains, and chase the dogs through the pheasant fields, minus the extra flab.

And, while I feel better and healthier, my physician says that is actually the case. In my annual physical a couple of weeks ago, the doctor said my blood pressure -- which had been on the upper end of the acceptable range -- is down right where it should be and everything else looks great.

Now that I am in my early 50s there's still this nagging question of when I should have a colonoscopy, but that will work itself out in the end. (Just a little colonoscopy joke there. I know it is serious business and will get it scheduled soon.)

My wife says that my snoring is virtually gone, and the problems I have been fighting over the past few years with acid reflux have all but gone away, too.

Funny what a little weight loss and exercise will do for a person. About the only thing it didn't do for me was help me tag a turkey, which was the reason for starting all of this in the first place! Oh well, there is always the fall season. And I'll definitely be ready for that.

* Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.

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