Weigh-in Wednesday: Dec. 20, 2023

I asked AI to make an image of an angry toe, and it mustered up this nightmare.

Someone should start a high school that has math, reading and writing, and also other useful life things like how to invest your money, how to hang drywall, and how to live an actually healthy life. I know there's already a Health class in high schools, but is it really all that helpful? Or is it more where they stick one of the football coaches so we can take conference this year? Health class should not be about the health of the special teams unit.

If I was named Superintendent of American Schools and put in charge of Health class, part of the health curriculum would involve listening to your body. One thing I learned as I've gotten older is our bodies are filled with interesting information, which you can only hear if you’re not constantly burping up onion rings.

For years, I told my body how it should feel. I'd eat and drink too much, and I told my body, you deal with it, I’m going to bed. But at 2 AM I'd be lying wide awake, my body whispering – don't ever do this to me again, you dirtbag. I know where you sleep. I know all your secrets. I’ll make your life hell. Stomach hurts? Too bad? Now you’re going to think about every poor decision you made in high school until the sun comes up. This is revenge, pal. Remember this. REMEMBER THIS.

Another way our bodies communicate with us is stress. When my stress levels are mounting, several tripwires are triggered. For example, if I am not getting enough sleep, I'll get an eye twitch that makes me look like I’m in a hostage video trying to signal to the CIA that the terrorists’ food is awful and my cot is lumpy. It doesn't happen a lot, but when I get the twitch, I know that's my cue to shut it down and get some rest.

Back pain is another stress alarm. I was able to make that go away, and I'll tell you how in a minute. Years ago, my back would just hurt out of the blue, which should not be happening. As a journalist, the most physically demanding part of my job is outrunning other journalists to the break room table when there’s free food. Back pain should not be a factor.

How I made the back pain disappear was through reading a couple books by Dr. John Sarno. In a nutshell, he's this doctor who believed that some of our pains are caused by stress, and pain is the body's way of giving us something else to focus on rather than dealing directly with what is stressing us out – kind of like a friendly-yet-painful distraction.

If your back is all locked up, you're thinking of that instead of whatever is really bothering you, such as how an 18-year-old version of yourself would be disappointed that the current version of you is a serial compromiser who traded your hopes and dreams for a beige suburban house and Jetta. The key, says Sarno, is to really get to the bottom of what’s bothering you. If the pain is being caused by your brain, it goes away.

I don't have back pain anymore, but my body still plays the distraction trick. Since my back pain disappeared, on three occasions I've been unable to bend my left toe or put on a shoe due to searing pain around the joint. I've been to two doctors, and neither was able to drill down to a physical cause. They both basically said, put on a walking boot and give it time.

Each time it happened I had a perfect storm of stress in my life. I feel like I can handle it all consciously, but the sea is roiling beneath the surface, and all that stress has to go somewhere, and, per Sarno, it will seek out your body's weak link, and is there is a joint we put more pressure on every day than our big toe joint? Nope. The big toe does a lot of work, which you realize only after it can’t do any.

Now when the pain comes, I spend a lot of time making my peace with whatever has been stressing me out. Because it's happened more than once, my wife has even come up with a name for it – Toe. She'll ask: How is Toe? Not how is your toe or the toe? Toe. It has a proper name. Like an unwanted guest who won’t leave our house. Which it sort of is.

I haven't figured out what to tell people when they ask me why I'm in a walking boot for a couple of weeks. It IS POSSIBLE that I strained Toe physically. I do work out, sometimes hard. I'm not lying to people when I say it happened after a long workout. It did. That's true. But it also happened at a stressful time. I know people are just being polite when they ask, so I can either make a joke about why I should never exercise, or I can give them way too much information about the mysteries of the mind-body connection. I'm not totally comfortable with either answer, to be honest.

You might be wondering, what does any of this have to do with losing weight? Not a whole lot, directly, other than to say, when it comes to our inhabiting these earthen vessels, I have found benefits to listening instead of telling. Maybe you can, too?

Drum roll, please...

Starting weight: 187

Last week: 181

This week: 180

Goal: 170

Losing a pound a week now!

Shout-outs

• Last week John wrote: “OK, so I joined in the fun this past few days, and I am now on day 6 of my intermittent fasting. I will say this is not my first go-round with this process. I have had success before with fasting and I find that is a great way to live, for many reasons you have mentioned. I just give up after a few months of it because, well... I like breakfast food. Anyhow, my life condones a black coffee only diet prior to 11 a.m. Especially, living in my (High School Teacher/parenting toddlers) schedule that I have built for myself. I find that if I have hunger pains... I just drink more coffee during the morning time. So, I'm not sure if this is exactly healthy as I am likely making my heart and body work with an unnecessary and unhealthy amount of caffeine. But hey we gotta have some vices, right? Anyhow, I will share my weight and goal mostly because if I speak it out loud to someone, I cannot lie to myself so easily when I brag to my wife that fasting works. I started last Thursday evening at 207.8 lbs. As of this AM, I was at 204.6, with a goal of somewhere south of 190 lbs. Anyhow, my greatest challenge is not consuming calories after 9pm... especially drinks loaded with empty carbs. I am really focused on happy hour, ijs. :)”

  John – I like breakfast food, too. A food writer I used to work with in LA said something that stuck with me, and I'm with him on this – breakfast has the best foods of any meal. It’s all the good things – savory meats, eggs that can be drowned in hot sauce, opportunities for yogurt and fruit, the possibility of burritos. Yet it exists in the food enjoyment wasteland that is the start of the day. It doesn't need to be this way. We must free ourselves of the tyranny of breakfast foods in the early morning. What is more glorious than breakfast food late in the day? It tastes like winning. Why do we deny ourselves? Let my omelets go!
  Congrats on dropping the weight. I hope you've been able to keep it going. As for those drinks – blanco tequila with a splash of lime juice is zero carbs, and for reasons I can't explain and choose not to question I don't feel it the next day after drinking it.

• Laura wrote: “Congratulations! Same here, so you must be inspiring me. I have to admit I am laughing at my computer after reading this latest post. The late comedian John Pinette (my favorite) had a skit about losing weight (most of them were about weight anyway) where he said people told them they could see it in his face that he had lost weight, 'What was I? The Kool-Aid man?' I was trying to find it on YouTube but could not, so if you ever have the time, spend it on John Pinette videos.”

  Laura – I found this John Pinette video about dieting. He's hilarious. Thanks for sharing. Toe says he loves it, too.

Do you want a buddy to check in with on some goal of your own? I'm here for you. Leave a comment or shoot me a message.