Ready to ride

So, here we go.

Introductions are in order. I’m a suddenly middle-aged west-coast suburbanite, with a wonderful wife, four exceptional kids and three absolutely perfect grandkids, so far. But that’s not the important stuff – at least as far as this new blog is concerned.

I’m also a big guy. At 5-foot, 9-inches of verticalness, some would say I’m average height (just ask me). My wife and kids say I’m short. Eye of the beholder, people, eye of the beholder. At my height and weight, the actuary tables would likely say I should already be dead. I’ll put it this way, when I open the front door, life insurance salesmen run away. Screaming.

Simply put, I weigh too much. Scratch that. I’m fat. As in obese. A real porker. A corpulent fellow. A heavy hitter. Jumbo-sized, that’s me.

How heavy am I? Too. In all honesty, I’m not ready to post my current weight for all the world and my mother to see. Let’s just say I weigh way too much. Dangerously much. They don’t call it “morbid” for nothing, folks.

I will eventually – soon, I’m sure -- post a picture or two of me in glorious spandex garb (you have been warned) and you’ll be able to see how far I have to travel down my weight loss road.

I’m not just a big guy, all too often I’m a “Big Guy” – a term I absolutely HATE when friends, clients or random strangers use it to address me. I’m sure they think it’s cute and cuddly. I think it’s only slightly less painful than listening to an angry cat trapped in a box made of chalkboard walls. Because I know what they don’t dare say instead – “Hey FATSO!” or “Whas’up lard butt?” Or worse.

I used to work in the creative department of a big honkin’ ad agency on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. The head honcho of the agency would always greet me in the elevator with a hearty, “Jim! How ‘ya doin’ BIG GUY?!?” Of course, it didn’t help that he was a tall, scrawny, bean pole of a man who I’m sure had to draw a permanent marker line on his belly so he wouldn’t pull his pants up too high every morning. And yet, I’d always see him pound down twice the lunch I ever ate when with him. No one said life was fair.

Anyway, Mr. Insensitive would give me that stupid greeting every day, I’d grit my teeth, put on the best phony-sincere smile I could manage, and somehow avoid pushing him down an open elevator shaft. Some days I came close.

Where was I? Oh, yeah -- I hope to use this blog to chronicle my efforts to – for the umpteenth time – lose a ton (or slightly less) of weight, regain my health and energy (and youthful good looks, of course) and relieve some of the constant and unbelievable stress that is a daily result of being a self-employed freelance writer in an economy that – for all intents and purposes – bites wind.

Rather than go on another crazy, mind-numbing, super-costly and dangerously restrictive diet (more about those in a later post), I have committed to doing something wildly simple – ride a bike. A lot.

I’ll be paying close attention to what I eat, when I eat and how much I eat as well. I’d be an idiot not to. But, in the wisdom of so many who’ve gone before me, I know that it’s the old “calories in, calories out” battle that I have to wage.

I actually re-started my biking last month and am already beyond the initial saddle sore, I’ll-never-be-able-to-sit-down-on-anything-ever-again stage. Thank you, Lord. Starting out, I rode a whopping 31 miles in three rides towards the end of last month. So far in March, I’ve already ridden five times for a total of 52 miles.

I’ll wait for the “oohs” and “aahs” to die down. Hopefully, those numbers will be laughable before too long. (Yeah, yeah. I hear some of you laughing already.)

In coming posts, I hope to have lots to say (sorry) about where I ride, what kind of bike I torture with each and every mile, the trials and troubles of being a Rubenesque rider in a world of anorexic-ly thin riders, the agony of road bike saddles, and much, much more.

As I ride the streets of L.A. County, I often pass other plus-size cyclists (“Look honey … there’s one like me!!”) and am tempted to flag them down to ask where they found a jersey that fits, how they keep their featherweight wheelsets from taco-ing every other week, and other issues that “normal” weight riders never have to think about. Maybe this blog can become an online meeting place where porky peddlers like us can swap favorite routes, equipment sources, and fashion tips (!!) Or at least a place to encourage each other.

I think you’ll find that my writing alternates frequently between tears-of-a-clown humor, self-deprecation, painful transparency and a wide (pun) range of other emotions.
Hang on. It should be quite a ride.