Yearlong goal is mere 5 pounds away

Ten months into my slow march toward fitness, I'm 5 pounds from my goal.

Having lost 65 pounds, I'm now down to 205.

I feel good. And I like the way I look, despite several readers telling me they think I now resemble "that one guy from `Ghostbusters.'"

Uh. Thanks.

The blubber isn't melting off as quickly as it once did. But maybe that's because there just isn't as much of it anymore.

Still, I expect to declare victory when I check in with you in October. That will put me a full month ahead of schedule.

Yes, I'm proud of this accomplishment. (Maybe next year I'll tackle moral courage.)

But I've got to tell you. This isn't how I thought it would go.

I never set foot in a gym.

I never stocked up on food-supplement powders and potions.

The closest I came to fasting was an occasional reliance on cans of Carnation Instant Breakfast for about half my day's nutritional intake.

I never made myself throw up.

And I never expected to write one of these updates at a time when I would want to apologize for dwelling on something so unimportant in the greater scheme of things.

But I started this, and I'm going to finish.

Sure, I expected to succeed. But in the back of my mind, I feared it would require drastic measures.

I thought that, at some point, I would essentially have to give up any thought of being a functioning member of society and devote myself almost exclusively to the difficult job of burning fat.

You know, work out 10 hours a day and limit myself to a daily diet of three nuts, four berries and 16 glasses of water.

It never came to that. Instead, I discovered the miracle secret to losing weight.

Come closer. Lean in. I'll whisper it to you.

"Eat less and exercise."

What did you expect me to say? Ab-blasters? Ginseng?

Last Thanksgiving, back when I started, I knew that the old doctor- recommended, no-gimmicks approach would work. I just didn't know how well or for how long.

Well, I'm here to tell you. My experience suggests that small, balanced meals and daily exercise can change your life.

Somehow I don't think any product endorsement offers will be coming my way.

"I used common sense to discover a slimmer, sexier me." - P. Turner, 46, Spokane, Wash.

As I've said before, I'm no expert. And your mileage may vary.

But if I did have any tips to offer, it might be these:

Eat a filling breakfast.

Lately I've been having a big bowl of oatmeal (made with 2 percent milk and a glug of maple syrup), a banana, a fat-free yogurt and some fruit juice.

Thanks to that start, I'm halfway through the day before I even begin to think about being hungry.

Find exercise that you enjoy.

OK, I know that's a cliche. It's also the truth.

When minor knee and shoulder problems prompted me to make walking home from work the centerpiece of my exercise strategy, I had my doubts. Would I stick with it? After all, it's four miles.

But you know what? It has turned out to be one of the best parts of my day.

Last week, a friend asked what I do to decompress after work. I answered that, thanks to my walk, I'm pretty much decompressed before ever arriving at my front door.

My shoes are getting worn out, though.

I've surrendered a measure of my anonymity by having my picture appear at monthly intervals during my year of downsizing. That's made me a bit self-conscious about eavesdropping in search of "overheard" items for my Slice column.

I have no desire to be in a restaurant and have someone at the next table lean over and say, "Hey, Newspaper Boy, wanna mind your own business?"

But that public exposure has had its upside, too.

Being stopped and chatted up by pleasant strangers has become a regular feature of walking home.

It's not every day, mind you. But it happens regularly. And each time, I've gone away with the feeling that I have a new friend.

It's sort of a small-scale version of what I had hoped would take place at Bloomsday.

Ah, Bloomsday. In terms of this little slenderizing campaign of mine, the confusion that kept my fellow Downsizers from getting together that Sunday morning remains my single biggest disappointment.

Before Bloomsday, I regularly heard from a decent percentage of the 1,000-plus readers who signed up to join me in a quest for a healthier lifestyle. After Bloomsday, that torrent became a trickle.

Still, the mail has delivered some success stories.

Fifty-one-year-old Bob Boyer, a grade school teacher in Spokane, signed up to join me in my nondiet diet back in January. He started doing a phenomenal amount of walking. He adopted a no-snacking food regimen emphasizing fruits, vegetables, healthy carbs and beans.

Over the summer, he transformed himself. He's lost more weight than I have.

When his school reopened a few weeks ago, people were amazed.

"I had many positive comments from my co-workers," he wrote. "The principal introduced me at the first faculty meeting as one of the new teachers.

"One of my former students, a sixth-grader from Rwanda with limited English-speaking abilities, said, `Mr. Boyer, you grew smaller.'

"I feel so much better physically and have a higher energy level. Spokane's dreary winter will be a trial, but I hope to maintain."

He's not alone. At the fitness club where Debbie Bridge works out, they have made a poster featuring "Before" and "After" pictures of her.

"They have entitled the poster, `Amazing Shrinking Woman,'" she wrote.

Linda Hastings e-mailed: "Hey Paul, I think I saw you walking up Grand ... I wanted to stop and jump out of my car and say, `Look at these pants (pulling them away from my body about 4 inches)!'"

Careful. That could be a traffic hazard.

But enough about these other people. Let's get back to me.

Early this month, I went to visit some Shriners Hospital employees who had formed a weight-loss group. Sitting in on one of their good- natured meetings, I was reminded of a simple truth.

People really want to talk about this stuff. Our bodies matter to us.

That same day, walking by Manito Park, I was approached by an elderly woman with a sweet smile. She said she had been waiting for me.

She told me I had inspired her to make changes that helped her feel better and record less scary blood-sugar scores.

In that moment, reducing my collar size didn't seem like the Downsizing project's biggest achievement.

Others who have staked me out just wanted to talk. Have I ever mentioned that a lot of terrific people live here?

Several readers have asked, "What are you going to do when it's winter and you can't walk home anymore?"

I'm not sure. I might see if my knee is up to resuming my stairs regimen at work. Or I could explore options for walking indoors.

We'll see.

I'm almost more concerned about upper-body exercise. If my iffy left shoulder continues to make even a dozen push-ups a problem, I could start to worry.

I suspect I've already lost some muscle mass. And that thought makes me wince.

My self-image has always included the sense that I have halfway decent upper-body strength. I would like to hang on to that, if you don't mind.

I'm happy about trimming down but have no desire to be skinny.

So rest assured. It's not my plan to keep losing weight until people start whispering rumors about my health.

Right now, I'm looking ahead and I can see the finish line. I'm guessing I haven't weighed 200 pounds since Jimmy Carter was in office.

That won't really mark the end, though.

I expect that I'll stop trying to shed weight once I actually get down to my goal. But I won't be going back to my old eating habits.

If I did relapse into my snackathon patterns, my heart and joints might sue.

The other day, a bank teller was looking at my driver's license. It sports a picture taken in 1999.

That license lists my weight as 230, a big, fat lie. It was probably closer to 250 then. And the picture definitely shows it.

The teller glanced up at my new, not-so-wide face. She noticed the change.

"Wow," she said.

"Yeah," I said, slipping the license back into my wallet. "Wow."

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
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