Wow, Wednesday Weigh-In again, this week's topic is "Rock Bottom"

When did you realize you had to do something about your weight/health?

2 things happened, almost at the same time, first, my partner was diagnosed as having high cholesterol and was given a prescription for Zocor. The second thing that happened was very sad. Within a period of month, we heard about the passing of 3 men who were close to my hunny in age who dropped dead, suddenly, of a heart attack. One of them was a man who's name I won't mention who he had worked for years ago (I won't mention his name because the guy was an asshole and I don't want to disrespect some dead guy in a public forum). In early December, we were both devastated to hear of the sudden passing of Zal Yanovsky. Most folks know Zal from his days with the Lovin' Spoonful but here in our town, he was a fixture in the downtown core and a charismatic businessman (he and his partner Rose Richardson own/ed Chez Piggy and Pan Chancho). Finally, when I heard about Joe Strummer, on the eve of Christmas Eve, the shit was good and properly scared out of me. I sat in front of the computer and sobbed, for hours. First Zal, then Joe Strummer. Joe Strummer! How could one of my childhood idols be dead, at 50 no less. It made me feel numb and sick and typing this and remembering that day, the tears have started pouring down my face again.

We had talked about getting fit before this point. We even bought the recumbent bike in May and had started to make changes to our diet but it wasn't something we were too serious about. There is a reason why people say "serious as a heart attack." I knew that we were heading down a bad path, that unless we made some dramatic, permanent changes to our lifestyle, it would be us who would be having heart attacks. I didn't want that, I decided that I wanted to live to be really good and old. Disgustingly old and be disgustingly healthy. I wanted to be one of those little old ladies in pink track pants and those flowery Northern Reflections wind breakers who power walk around the block while we're all heading off to work. We gave ourselves the Christmas Holidays to digest the whole thing but I knew that on January 6, that was it. The change was going to begin...and it did, on January 6, 2003. Four months later, we're still sticking to it and doing really well. My hunny's cholesterol is at a healthy level and there's talk that he may be able to get off the Zocor eventually. We want to grow old together and this is the only shot we've got at making that happen. I'm not going to fuck it up.