Author: Jake

Adventures at Planet Fitness

I have lost some weight, but I used to be really big. I was about 550 lbs. Even at 6’8″, that’s fat. Like most fat guys, I thought I’d get into shape. I’m also very cheap. Is there a place for fat, cheap guys to exercise? Planet Fitness.

I was fat even by Planet Fitness standards. If the gym was an actual planet, I was a fleshy moon. 

I wasn’t always so fat. I used to be an infant. But more recently, I was in reasonably good shape and under 400 lbs. That’s when I joined the gym. I only used the treadmill. I clamored on that machine and punished it for an hour while I walked and read some book written a couple hundred years ago by a Puritan. 

After forsaking all exercise and ballooning up to 550, I was ready to get my life in order. 

It was time to quit the gym. 

By “get my life in order” I meant budget. I noticed that I was still paying $20 a month for access to Planet Fitness. 

Gyms are clever. Signing up for a gym could not be easier. You can join online in a couple of clicks. Quitting is harder. You have to go there in person. I have to go to them in order to tell them that I don’t want to go to the gym. 

I went. I had to put it in my GPS. I wore my best 5XLT button down shirt because I thought I would have to argue. I didn’t. I said I wanted to quit. They agreed that would be best. 

I again weigh under 400 lbs. I also live in Kentucky. I would fit in at my local Planet Fitness, but I better not risk it.

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Trying on Speedos

I have a friend. I will not mention his name because he has the respect of his children and parents, but he will recognize this story. In high school, we were close. It was that time in our lives when we had a measure of freedom and very little responsibility. High school students get into trouble with that combination. They drink until someone gets alcohol poisoning, hook up until someone is pregnant, or party until someone grows a mullet. 

My nameless friend and I were different. I would like to say that we were the epitome of morality, so I will. We were the epitome of morality. We were the kind of young men adults admire. People looked up to us. Well, they mostly looked up to me because I am very tall (and handsome). 

I don’t know about my nameless friend, but my morality came from a place of superiority. I could avoid trouble and feel better than other people all by not doing stuff I wasn’t invited to do anyway? Sign me up. 

Abundant freedom and little responsibility still caused us to do some dumb things. I say “us”, but most of it was my idea. He rode shotgun while I slowly drove past the mall blaring “Who Let the Dogs Out?” from the speakers of my 1972 Mercury. (This was 2004.) We went downtown for the New Year’s Eve fireworks, got restless waiting around until midnight, and super glued coins to the sidewalk. We watched at a safe distance while people failed to pick them up. My nameless friend was inspired by this for a subsequent science fair project. 

One afternoon, we were again trying to fill our time without resorting to intoxication or fornication. We went to Dick’s Sporting Goods. We went through all the sections touching the sporting equipment. 

Then I saw it. Speedos. 

I was a “wear a t-shirt in the pool” kind of guy. However, this was a special opportunity. 

We each grabbed a Speedo and headed to the dressing room. I said “we”, but we were in different dressing rooms. 

I folded myself into the swimming device. I never felt so European. After admiring myself in the mirror for several minutes, the time came. 

We each stepped out of our dressing rooms and admired each other. I looked at the name of the store. We were in the right place.

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Not Hovis Approved

I spent way too many Saturdays at school. For 8 years, I was a speech and debate coach. Between October and March, I spent most Saturdays at a local high school’s debate tournament. Sometimes the tournaments were fancy, and I got to spend the day on a college campus like Stanford or Harvard. Most of the time I was stuck at a public school in the Denver Metro area like Cherry Creek, George Washington, or Chatfield. Tournaments start at 8 in the morning, but I’m required to be there before 7:30. They are not just boring, they are long and can easily last until 8 or 9PM. That was my life for nearly a decade. 

I often miss teaching. I do not miss debate tournaments. High schools are not built for comfort. If I wasn’t forced to judge a debate, I spent my time looking for a comfortable chair which were rare. The library might have one, but sometimes the library was off limits due to tournament activity. 

I was often forced to sit on furniture designed for high school children. I’m 6’8” and curvy. You could smoosh 4 or 5 high school kids into each other and still not match my formidable girth. The plastic circles attached to the cafeteria tables were only a tease. Maybe 30% of my ample posterior would be supported by such a “seat”. That left 70% spilling over the edges like when you push your thumb into play-doh. 

Some schools have tables and chairs. The school I taught at had these furnishings. While not overly pleasant, this configuration was acceptable. 

Desks were another story. Some desks had chairs and were not much more than small tables. I’m ok with those. Other desks have the chair attached. Why? Are these 2 items often separated from each other? The desk/chair combo also fails to consider that people are different sizes. Some freshmen have not reached 5 feet in height. While others are huge. I, for one, was 6’8” on the first day of my freshman year. If my school had desk/chair combos, I’d still be stuck in one. 

I went to several debate tournaments at Golden High School. It’s not as nice as it sounds, but it’s not that bad. It, however, lacks any adult seating. The choices presented to me were either sit in a desk/chair combo or stand. After I was sick of standing, I slid into a desk/chair combo. It was not the wraparound style that I was used to from elementary school. You know, the one that assumes every person is right handed. Instead, this was a normal chair attached to a small table-like desk. My back was firmly against the back of the chair. My belly spilled over onto the desk. It was not a good look, but things got a lot worse. 

I sat there cursing the shortsighted person who purchased these desks when the worst happened. The desk broke. The legs gave way. The desktop was still attached and trapped me. My weight was keeping pressure on the top of my legs because the desktop and the seat were connected. It was like a full body chinese finger trap. I could not get out. 

Maybe I could roll to the side? 

At debate tournaments, I am often in an empty classroom waiting for students. I could also be in a classroom with a couple of high school students. In my moment of crisis, neither was the case. I was in the coaches’ lounge, a classroom set aside for coaches to wait and consume processed foods. Am I lucky that people were there to help me or mortified that so many people witnessed the destruction of property via my weighty body? Honestly, neither. These people were speech and debate coaches. I don’t care about their opinion of me. They’re nerds. 

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High School Court Date

During my senior year of high school, I skipped school to go to court. 

My school was unique to say the least. Some schools call the student body a “family”. For my school it made sense. The year before I had 9 people in my grade. In order to fully field a football team, we included students who went to an “alternative” school which did not have a football team. One of the guys was late to our game because he spent the night at the hospital. He had the plastic bracelet to prove it. He wasn’t injured or ill. He was becoming a father. Few things are more “alternative” than playing high school football hours after witnessing the miracle of childbirth. He put a wristband over the hospital bracelet for protection. Not that he knew much about protection. 

That school officially ceased operations after my junior year, but another school took over the building. Many of the former teachers and students went to the new school out of nothing more than habit. 

This school was much bigger. My senior class was 24. 

My career ambition was to become a judge. The robes looked flattering, and I could swing a little hammer. While my rinky dink school could not adequately prepare me for a life of the law, it did have one peculiar advantage. I was well known and well liked. My reputation was spotless. 

One Tuesday morning, I executed my plan. I woke up early, dressed in my thrift store suit, and went to the courthouse. Time to witness the legal system. 

After parking my 30 year old car, I went through security. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this. The place was huge and uninviting. They must not get curious teenagers there very often. I looked for a welcome booth or a directory. Nothing. So I just wandered the halls. 

As I was walking outside of a row of courtrooms, a man grabbed me from behind. He had me in a backward bearhug. He quickly let me go, and I noticed that he was well dressed but a bit sleazy, a real life lawyer.  

“Oh, I thought you were Tony.” He said. 

“I’m not.” I said. 

“What are you doing here, kid?” He said. 

“I want to watch a trial.” I said. 

“You can watch my trial. It’s about to start.” He said. 

I watched the entirety of the trial about vandalism and had lunch with my new lawyer friend. The jury returned a non-guilty verdict at the same time school was letting out. 

I went home. A few hours later, my mom came home. 

“How was school today?” She asked. 

“I didn’t go. I watched a trial at the courthouse.” I said. 

“Ok,” She said.

The next day at school, I was called into the principal’s office. He asked me about skipping school. I told him what I did. My reputation preceded me, and I suffered no repercussions.

As a rule, I only skip school to further my education.

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5th Grade Football

My mom wouldn’t let my brothers and I play soccer because she thought we’d get hurt. I wanted to use the word “football” in the previous sentence instead of “soccer”, but I’m American. I don’t care that the sport of soccer is played with feet and a ball. When I say football, I mean helmets, pads, and tackling. 

Nevertheless, my mom wouldn’t let us play soccer. She thought the movements in soccer would damage our knees. She was probably right. I know that with my size and weight, I am a prime candidate for knee problems. I’m like a purebred Great Dane. Yet, here I am. Knees as strong as a camel’s. 

I never liked soccer anyway. It was a lot of running and always felt too European. 

By the time I was in 5th grade, I was huge. I was big not just for a 5th grader. I was big for a human. We just moved to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It’s a suburb of Tulsa and in this part of the country, football ruled. I was recruited as soon as I darkened the door of my elementary school. 

I asked my mom about playing. She said I could. After all, it was safer than soccer. As I entered the field, my shadow crossed over a coach. He slid his clipboard down to hide his excitement and said, “Lineman.” It wasn’t a question. I was a lineman. 

My favorite part of practice was the sled. It was 5 padded dummies in a row. We lined up in front of a dummy, got in a 3 point stance, and hit the dummy with a sustained push. If I was on the end of the sled, I could get the whole thing turned 180 degrees. Evidently, I could push a lot harder than other, normal-sized children. 

I was big, but I was also soft. I had some strength, but I also had a dumb haircut, a baby face, and glasses. I would take my glasses off to put my helmet on and then put my glasses on through the facemask. If I was interested in the ladies, they’d be swooning at the sight. 

Our games were on Saturday mornings. They began with an unforeseen and, in retrospect, odd ritual. Before the game, I had to weigh in. Just me. If I weighed too much, I was not allowed to play with the other children who were, I remind you, my age. Anyone could take one look at my chubby face and know that I was not some teenager trying to pull a fast one. I was just a “big ‘un”. 

I don’t know how close I was, but I always made weight. It didn’t really matter. I was a solid lineman, but even an exceptional lineman doesn’t change the course of the game. If I weren’t so slow, they would have let me do something else. It would take 6 of them to tackle me. The problem was that I was so slow, they could easily get 6 of them to tackle me. I was slower than frozen peanut butter. I was slower than the kid who thought chocolate milk came from brown cows. I was so slow that by the time I got to the showers after the game everyone else was already dry. 

My lasting memory of my first season playing football was the picture we took. I stood in the middle, at least 8 inches taller than every other player. I was also taller than a few of the coaches. My body looked like I do not belong in the same group as all of these children, but my round glasses and pudgy face disagree. My jersey has a big 50 on it. Later, I’d still wear a 50 on my clothes. For a few years, 50 was my waistband.

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My “Pudding”

Last week, I convinced my wife to make pudding for me. She is very supportive and never judges my dietary choices even when she should. The one exception is my pudding. I found an alternative recipe a few years ago that used applesauce. She was ok with that version, but I craved the real thing. 

I hear you asking, “You put applesauce in pudding?” The answer is yes and no. My pudding is not pudding in the traditional sense. My pudding is cake batter. I used to whip up a batch of cake batter with no intention of baking a cake. Then, I ate the batter with a spoon like, you guessed it, pudding. Unhealthy eating habits usually are more subtle than this. I didn’t care. My wife did. She was not concerned about the intense caloric load or sugar content I was ingesting. She didn’t like that cake batter contained 2 raw eggs. Salmonella was a risk. Obesity was a certainty. I tried to have my cake batter and eat it too. I substituted applesauce for the eggs. It was ok. I missed the real taste and danger that came with consuming raw eggs. I felt like an overweight Rocky. Instead of putting my raw eggs in a glass and drinking them, I put them in with cake mix, stirred thoroughly, and ate them with a spoon. However, both of us feel accomplished at the top of a set of stairs. 

I have been dieting for the last year. As part of my diet, I have cheat days. As an adult, I am no longer excited about Christmas. I have everything I need or want. Cheat days are another thing. I fantasize about the junk I will eat on cheat days all week. I tell myself, “You’re hungry now, but on Sunday, you can have Little Caesar’s.” Last Sunday was cheat day. It was glorious. I ate so many carbs. Then I noticed a box in the pantry, cake mix. 

“We should make a cake.” I said. 

Laura asked, “Are you going to bake the cake or just eat the batter?”

“Laura, I’ve grown. I’m going to bake the cake.” I said. 

She mixed up the cake, added the eggs, and preheated the oven. She poured the batter into 2 round pans. I then stole the mixing bowl and licked it clean. I was like a fat version of Golem from Lord of the Rings mumbling “my pudding”.

Most of the batter we made last Sunday made it into the cake pans. When Monday rolled around, I was back on my diet. After a few days, we threw the cakes in the garbage. I only wanted the batter. 

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I Toad You

As little boys, my brothers and I would play outside all day. Usually they did not let me play with them. They were (and still are) 4 and 5 years older, and I liked playing in the mud. They did let me play with them one time. We had Tonka trucks. These metal trucks were about the size of a dachshund. We also had a paved hill near our house. We put these two assets together and rolled down the hill riding on the Tonka trucks. Good clean fun. 

We moved from that area to a place in Granite City, Illinois. Our house was right next to a warehouse. Across the street from our front door was a solid brick wall. 

One Sunday, we came home from church, and a couple of neighborhood boys were near our house hitting something with baseball bats into the brick wall. My mom thought they were tennis balls. But one thing was unusual. Whatever the boys were hitting stuck to the brick. That’s not tennis ball behavior. 

Frogs. These little hoodlums were hitting live frogs with baseball bats into a brick wall. To say Granite City was a hard place to grow up is an understatement. It is named after a stone, and children kill amphibians in creative ways for fun. 

As if to underline this point, my brothers and I were in the front yard. I sat on the porch in a world of my own. This was usual for me. I had a bad habit of peeing my pants. Usually, I would just hold it for too long. I also wet the bed. I don’t like the term “bedwetter”. Wetting the bed was what I did, not who I was. If I was outside when my bladder failed, I covered my urine escapades with the hose by spraying myself. Then, I would need to change my clothes because they were wet with water and not urine. 

That morning, I was dry from both internal and external sources. My brothers milled about in the front yard. Then a boy on a bike came riding towards us. Without getting off the bike, he punched my brother Matt in the face. We found out that it was a case of mistaken identity. You were better off staying out of our front yard. You’d either be punched or batted into a brick wall. 

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Blog It Up

I’ve been reading a lot. It makes me want to blog. This will either be the first entry of many or a forgotten post on the top of a heap of unfinished projects. No matter which, it will be exciting.

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