Control: Work Out!

I, Dalton Lewis, am trying to lose 100 pounds in the next two years. I think that’s a reasonable goal. That requires hard work, willpower, intelligence and skill — or, in my case, I can wing it and use guesswork. I know that, growing up, I worked out regularly in gym class. I made sure to stay skinny. I remember we had gym class every day in school in which they made us run laps half the time and then play a game afterwards in which the gym class jocks rocked the rest of us. I always sat somewhere in the middle — never at the bottom or top. I felt sorry for the overweight kids, huffing and puffing, never dreaming that I would become one of them. I would. Twenty five years later I am that fat guy, huffing and puffing and trying to make something of myself.

Why is it hard to make myself work out? I only did ten minutes on the exercise bike today while watching NCIS: Los Angeles repeats on ion television — they even have a pun in their ad. They’re positively entertaining. So ridiculous, and so much fun.

I remember when I went outside in Las Vegas during the summer. I would jog over to a street nearby and do a few laps around the subdivision there. I would get tired and sweaty, but voices distracted me. I thought that I was getting framed. Someone framed my characters. Someone framed me. I couldn’t finish the run because I had to focus on the fake instead of the real. The fake seemed so much more important than reality — which was that I had failed as a novelist and as a person.

Then they gave me meds to get better mentally, but the doctor shook his head as he prescribed them. “These might make you gain weight,” he said. “I’m sorry when I prescribe these, but you might gain fifteen to twenty pounds. I’m sorry. These meds really will make you feel a lot better.”

I gained weight. The meds cured most of the schizophrenia, sure, but there were side effects. I felt sluggish. I found myself eating huge amounts of food — American portions, or way too much food. My body’s metabolism slowed to a crawl. They slow down your life. Now, I am forty-two, fat, and sad about it. I can hardly get around the house without getting winded. It’s bad.

Our diet is clearly to blame. We Americans add sugar to everything. We eat fatty foods. We eat candy. Our restaurants serve us fattening, sugar-filled meals, and we let them. We fucking pay them for it. We pay them to make us fatter. Think about that for a second. Why do we do that? I don’t know. I go to movie theaters and eat fattening candy. I go to fast food joints and eat burgers and fries, and I’m surprised when I gain weight. This isn’t complicated. Eat well or get fat. I have to finally admit that — that’s the first step to weight loss.

Thanks, and take care, friends.