The Fat Penguin

One of the things that has irritated me the most about my weight gain over the years is how it limits my clothing choices.  Both from the availability standpoint (see the previous Kohl's story) to the fact that a lot of clothing just doesn't look as nice on me anymore.  I love clothes.  I even love dressing nice.  But now, dressing up seems to only remind me of how fat I feel and does not make me feel any better.  Case in point, my company held their Annual Awards Banquet a little over a week ago.  As part of this, the company paid to have us outfitted in tuxedoes.  In my youth, I would have been thrilled to wear a tuxedo!  Of course, my color choice might have been different from the black conservative tux we were wearing.  lol.  As always, putting on the tux made me feel worse than not wearing the tux.  As I told my wife, I looked like a fat penguin!  She, of course, disagreed and told me how nice I looked... as did most of my friends and co-workers that night.  But, I don't believe them.  Not that I think that they were lying to me.  But, I just know I don't look good.  Maybe nicer than I look during the day, but not good.  And, I appreciate the compliments, despite my doubt.  But, I realize they are similar to the "good game" compliments I would give my son after a basketball loss.  I meant it, but I knew he didn't believe it.  And, I knew it fell on deaf ears.  So, as proof of my claim, here is the pic...

Now you can't deny the resemblance!  Okay, okay, maybe this is not fair to the Emperor Penguin.  He actually looks a little slimmer than me to be honest with you and he seems to be getting frisky with my wife, Lori.  So, the real picture is below.  When we received this picture in the mail, I think a little bit of puke came up in the back of my throat.  I was disgusted and this incident was another reason for the blog you are reading.  I don't see the tux, I only see that neck, that face and that big fat penguin!

Well, today was the first day that my body and mind did not agree.  Of course, my body is correct when it tells me that I don't have to make up for 10 years of neglect in a week's time!  My body wanted to take the day off but my mind sat through two youth basketball games anxiously awaiting getting to the club.  When I got there and started on the treadmill, the body continued it's fight and said I will give you about 20 minutes but you are going to pay for it.  My thought was if I could get even 20 minutes in it would be better than nothing.  At the 20 minute mark I thought it simply wasn't long enough and I had to do 30.  Well, 41 minutes later I got off the treadmill...  a little more tired than yesterday, but still glad I stayed on the extra time.  Lower numbers... 2.33 miles and 445 calories.  But, still a positive day. 

My weight?  Well, it creeped up ever so slightly from yesterday.  Yeah, I learned that even half of a Sesame Chicken meal is not the best choice (even worse of a choice when I looked at the leftovers today and realized that my half was closer to 60-65%!).  Never lie to yourself, it doesn't pay.  But, I ate good today and I just finished cooking up some carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower for the week. 

Now the soreness in my connecting tissue in my shoulders is starting to yell at me as well.  But, I am ignoring it.  I think it's telling me "good job", it just doesn't want to have to tell me again!  Until tomorrow...