Eat Less and Exercise

I wanted to carry the ball, so I tried out for defense

2009-08-24T09:39:00.005-07:00

With the arrival of 1973, life resumed its more normal pace, and childhood continued as expected.

When we moved to Farmers Branch, the little suburb of Dallas was winding down its limited growth as a result of being completely surrounded by other cities. But just across Josey Lane, the McDonald's corporation built another of their ubiquitous restaurants. It amazed me, even as a child, that the time from the first appearance of constuction equipment to opening of the restaurant could be measured in weeks. I'm sure it took longer overall, but it sure sprang up fast to my young eyes.

It was at this McDonald's that we saw a posted sign indicating that Bomber Football was having tryouts. This was the local equivalent to Pop Warner Football. Prior to that day, I only barely knew what football was, but I tried out and was allowed to practice with the team for a limited time afterward. I knew nothing of the sport, but I knew I wanted to carry the ball, so when the coach told us that people trying for offense should go in one direction while those wanting defense should go in the other, I had no idea which way to go. I guessed defense.

I didn't make the team. It occurs to me at this point in my life that there should have been enough teams for everyone to play when you're talking about nine year old children, but that wasn't my decision, and I just didn't know what I was doing.

I decided to solve that problem. The city had built a beautiful new library down by the local creek, and there I found my bible: "The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football," published in 1973. It was a beautiful book. It started with a year by year history of professional football including the signing of Pudge Hefelfinger to play for money in Pittsburgh, the formation of the NFL, the competing leagues of the AAFC and AFL that eventually contributed teams to the NFL. It had lists of coaches in order by most wins, including the three who had won more than 100 games at that point. And it included a detail description of all six Super Bowls. By the time 1974 arrived, I understood the game, and I understood the history of my local team, the Dallas Cowboys.

As 1973 ended, I even got to attend my first professional football game. It was the opening round of the playoffs, and the Cowboys were hosting the Los Angeles Rams. It was our first visit to Texas Stadium, so we didn't really know the ins and outs of getting into the game. As we arrived at the stadium, it was already time for the national anthem. Friendly ushers were handing out small flags to all the fans in attendance, and as the song ended, we realized that we were at the wrong end of the stadium. Our seats were end zone seats (for the playoffs, these lower deck end zone seats were sold for the jacked up price of $8), and we entered at the other end. So we walked around the concourse to our section and found our seats.

By the time we sat down, the Cowboys were up 14-0. Apparently, Dallas kicked off, but the Rams fumbled the kickoff. On the next play, Staubach threw a touchdown pass. The Cowboys kicked off again, and on the first play from scrimmage, John Hadl threw an interception which was followed by another Cowboys touchdown. It was a fun game, and I think it was the last time a Cowboys postseason game was blacked out in Dallas. I was hooked.

It occurs to me that I remember plenty of details of that school year as a fourth grader. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Adair. I remember the progressive design for the school with partitions for each class that allowed an entire grade to join together for larger lectures. I remember entering a contest for arts and entertainment that included a section for drama. My play was a couple of pages of lame dialogue followed by several pages of transcribing the Declaration of Independence. It should have lost in the first round, but fortunately, no one else entered a play, so I did a lot of winning at lower level rounds. Oh, the success with no competition!

It was at this age that I first found myself getting bored by school. Having been set back a grade to keep me with kids my own age, school was never a challenge for me. They couldn't give enough homework to make life hard enough because the other students just weren't up to it, so I spent my grade school years caring only about the things I did in my spare time. I played soccer, baseball, football (oh, the football!).

Today's Weight Loss Tip

Get a DVR (digital video recorder). One of the main reasons for my incredible weight gain was my need to watch all of my favorite shows, and I scheduled my life around them. To be fair, I also gained weight with my DVR in place, but along with that DVR, you need to examine how you watch television. The DVR allows you to record programs as they air but watch them on your own schedule. If you combine that with lowering your daily dose of TV to a couple of hours (including your morning viewing), you can enjoy all the programming you need, and you never have to miss an episode of your favorite show just because you went to the gym.

Next time, junior high arrives, and the circle of friends grows.

Life in the New Home

2009-08-17T09:10:00.002-07:00

So we moved into the house on Marsann, and it was a fantastic house, beautiful on the inside and the outside. It had plenty of room for us to be kids upstairs, and for the first time ever, we had our own television upstairs, and it was a color TV, too. Life was good.

School started about a half mile away at Farmers Branch Elementary. I returned to the third grade, for good this time, with Arnie and Linda attending the same school. Michael went to R. L. Turner and started working at the Whataburger that had just opened a little to the north of us.

A side note here. The intent of this story is to allow me to recall my life story, tell a few humorous bits and generally entertain whoever would happen to fall into the story. It is not my intent to dredge up old horrors that no longer impact my life, but my life story would be incomplete without at least mentioning one particular tragic aspect of it. With that in mind, I'll dive in here.

In 1972, I turned eight years old. My cousin (and thanks to adoption, now my brother), Michael, was 15. It is a sad fact of my youth that at this point, I was a molestation victim. Without going into details, I'll say that this is not a case of someone misinterpreting potentially innocent behavior as something sinister. And this is not a case of remembering something years after it happened. What he did was terribly wrong, but an eight year old boy is too young to realize that.

I know that people worry about the scars that result in a life that is touched by a crime like this, but I have to credit my overly logical mind for making that job of coping a little easier. It did not leave me unable to relate to women later in life. It did not make me prone to devaluating children. It didn't even make me hate gay people (though I did have quite the bout of homophobia that did not get cured for another 11 years, it was completely unrelated to this incident). And the crime, most certainly, was not the reason I got fat.

The crime was committed over a period of about a week before it was discovered by our parents who were now in the unenviable position of being the legal guardian of both the criminal and the victim. Michael was moved out of the house immediately, and I'm not sure of how his life turned out other than to know that he returned to California. There was never a criminal prosecution, and I can only hope that his transition to adulthood eliminated his tendency to commit the crime, but I really don't know. And since it really was not an impact on my life, I don't care, but I also don't care to ever find him again either.

And so that episode of my life ended. There would never again be so traumatic an incident, and I think the low key way my parents handled it helped to make sure that I didn't spend a lifetime dwelling on it either. I returned to childhood.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

When you start your exercise regimen, you'll want to focus on doing cardio workouts to burn the most fat off, but as you start attaining your goals, not only will this produce less consistent results, but you'll want to improve other aspects of your body. By the time you are halfway to your goal, you should start lifting weights to improve your muscle tone. If hiring a personal trainer is out of the question, look for a friend to help direct your training regimen. Start at a couple of days per week, and increase it as you get stronger. By the time you're ready for an increase, you'll be more qualified to give this advice than I am.

Next time: childhood is blissfully mundane.

Moving, Moving, Moving

2009-08-13T10:54:00.007-07:00

Okay, we didn't move that much. Oh, and my apologies for my promise of what would be in this post. I'm pushing that back to my next post.

Living in Farmers Branch meant finding all sorts of new things. There was the school we were attending while living in the rental house, and there was finding a church to attend. The irony of that second one was that we only occasionally attended a Church of Christ while we lived in Los Angeles. Sure, I have vague memories of going to Sunday School there, but they are just that: vague.

Upon arrival in Texas, we found another Church of Christ to attend, and this time, attendance was more regular. Well, kind of. Actually, I learned the process of pretending to remain asleep on Sunday mornings just long enough that there was no longer enough time to get ready for church. Why no one used their alarm clocks, I'll never understand.

In time, the family decided to change churches, and we ended up at Valwood Park Baptist Church, headed by Joe Mosely. It was a wonderful and inclusive church that helped me understand my role and beliefs. True, I didn't retain them throughout my life, but they were a significant part of my life at the time. I still did my best to avoid going though.

During the first couple of months in Texas, we had a regular weekend activity of visiting new home developments to take tours of homes for a potential permanent home. It was actually quite exciting to keep visiting new homes set up for young families, and when we found the house we would eventually buy, I remember going through the shell of the home that was already built and seeing the upstairs, planning out which bedroom would belong to whom, and generally getting excited about something new again.

Since it was a new home, Mom and Dad were given a whole list of options to choose from related to colors as well as an allowance for purchasing light fixtures. Sadly, it was 1972, and Mom just loved that avocado green for the kitchen. If the current owners of that house have never changed those countertops, they're just insane.

In the middle of all this, we had an odd addition to the family. Dad's brother, Jake, had passed away a few years earlier (I think), and his kids, Jennifer and Mike, no longer had parents of their own. Jennifer was old enough to care for herself, but Mike was still only 15 and needed a home to live in. He had been staying with other family for a while, but that was said to be less than ideal. We would find out why later.

So Mike came to live with us. The most obvious impact to me was that I no longer had a room of my own since Arnie joined me in my room to make room for Michael. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted. My memories of Michael on most points is rather spotty, but I clearly remember wanting to impress him being such an old person and yet still kind of a kid of Mom and Dad's.

As summer arrived, the new house was completed, and we moved in. My room was directly over the garage. Now that was a serious miscalculation. We didn't have an automatic garage door opener, and whenever Dad left for work, he would lift it with a strong flourish that would send a huge rumble through the floor of my room. I never overslept on a school day.

And by fall, we also started attending our new school, Farmers Branch Elementary school. The school was not more than a mile and a half away, so there was no bus service. For most of the time I attended, I walked to school. This involved dashing across a major street once each day. I think back on those times and find it amazing that people used to do that without thinking about it. Wow.

A side note about the picture you see above. I took that picture during a trip I took to Dallas in January of 1999 for a football game. I haven't mentioned football in my story yet, because to this point, I really had no knowledge of the game's existence. Indeed, I grew up loving the Dallas Cowboys and hating the St. Louis Cardinals simply because the neighbors across the alley would talk trash about the team from the city they used to live in (St. Louis). The irony is that the trip where I took that picture was to watch my beloved Arizona Cardinals beat up on the Dallas Cowboys.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

Quaker has come out with a new version of their instant oatmeal. It's a version that claims to be for people trying to lose weight. I have not tried it. That's mainly because my breakfast every morning is a bowl of Quaker Instant Oatmeal (I use two packets) purchased from Costco. The variety pack of 55 packets costs around $8.50 and feeds me for 25 days. Okay, that's because I throw away the five packets of plain. But that's breakfast for $0.34 per day, and that helps subsidize the fact that I eat out virtually every other meal. And even if I'm not eating the "healthy" version of their oatmeal, I know it's better than having an Egg McMuffin.

I purchased a domain yesterday, and I intend to populate it with the points I make here as well as other tools for weight loss. Watch with me as it grows (hopefully). To find it, go to http://www.eatlessandexercise.com/.

From California to Texas

2009-08-11T19:24:00.003-07:00

Much of our family lived in California. Limiting myself to just grandparents, aunts, uncles and first cousins, the layout was as follows:

On Mom's side of the family, Grandma and Grandpa Brown lived in Colcord, Oklahoma, as did Aunt Louise and Uncle Larry. Over in New Orleans, there was Aunt Doris and Uncle Kenny Clay. And then, in Lancaster, California, there were Uncle Kenny Brown and Aunt Deneice as well as Uncle Earl and Aunt Marian. Curiously, each of these uncle and aunt pairs would give birth to exactly three children, though Aunt Louise didn't get started on that until later.

Over on Dad's side, there was Grandma Lawrence in Santa Monica, California, and Uncle Jake somewhere in the Los Angeles area, but I never really knew where.

Visiting family and friends was what our lives were about (or so it seemed to the child that was me). Sometimes it was the visits to Lancaster to see our cousins. Keith was older and had a very dry sense of humor. I remember being in his room at the ranch once, his was in a separate building from the rest of the house, and he was playing a tape recording of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Cosmo's Factory" on a reel to reel deck. I remarked that Dad had that album (I had a cool dad who listened to Rock and Roll). Keith, who, when I was three, always called me "Three Year Old Art," insisted that I wasn't listening to CCR, but that it was actually him playing. Yes, Keith, I was young, but I wasn't that gullible.

But for sheer laughs, no one was as fun to be around as David. David could find adventure in walking through a flat desert. To this day, his sense of humor amazes me. Oh, and David was the one who introduced me to the board game Risk. Oh, the monster he unleashed there.

It was with this particular part of the family that we Lawrence kids were left during a rather rough period in 1971 with the deaths of both Grandpa and Grandma Brown. Within two months of each other, they passed away leaving Mom without her parents at 32 years old. I didn't know them well. There had been a trip, in 1968 I believe, where we stayed in Oklahoma for an extended period. It wasn't until much later in my life that I learned it was the result of a separation during my parents' marriage.

Random thought here: I remember that while Mom and Dad were attending one of the funerals, we had lunch at the Brown ranch. Aunt Deneice made what she called peanut butter and banana sandwiches, something that I had enjoyed in the past. But she was omitting one of the ingredients in the list. Her version was peanut butter, butter and bananas. That was an odd taste, and it was certainly odd enough for me to remember it nearly 40 years later.

The other Brown clan in Lancaster included my cousins Carol Jean, Marilyn and Wendy, and while I have memories of them, Carol Jean and Marilyn were older and female, and we just didn't see them as often.

The San Fernando Earthquake had rattled more than just the ground, so in 1971, Mom and Dad decided they wanted to leave Southern California. The only state I remember being discussed was Texas, but they mentioned Houston, Fort Worth and Dallas as potential destinations. Ultimately, Dallas was chosen as the destination, so plans were made to move during our Christmas break at the end of the year.

The house received extensive repair work, all paid for out of money made available from disaster funds, and in the middle of my third grade year (I had advanced after my half year of second grade to the third), we loaded up the VW Squareback, and drove to Oklahoma, where we were staying with Aunt Louise and Uncle Larry until we found something more permanent in Dallas.

But more trauma found us in Colcord. We had two dogs, both mutts, named Twinkles and Blossom. Twinkles was hyper, with short white and black hair while Blossom was more reserved with dark curly hair. Both were puppies though, so being rambunctious was part of thier makeup. Apparently, someone near the house wasn't so happy with them, and one night killed Blossom. I was told that she was accidentally run over, but years later I learned that there was no accident.

So we stayed in Oklahoma while Mom and Dad went to Dallas to look for housing. They never found exactly what they wanted, but they arranged to rent a house for six months while they continued their search. In these times of instant gratification, it just seems odd to me the notion of not being able to find a suitable house already on the market. But when Christmas ended, we moved into the house on Littlecrest in the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch, and I was enrolled in Valwood Elementary school.

Life in Texas was amazing! When we moved in, Mom and Dad bought a new Zenith television. But this was an amazing TV. The picture was in color. Wow! The house they rented had enough bedrooms for Arnie and I to each get our own room. It was truly magical. It was a new life. Surely, there were challenges, of course. In retrospect, the most frustrating of them was the reaction of school officials in Texas to such a young kid in the third grade. While my transcripts clearly indicated I was qualified for the grade, they indicated an uneasiness with my likely social development. For the record, I'm still not properly developed socially. But the final selling point was that my handwriting was not up to third grade standards. It still isn't, but it convinced Mom and Dad that I should be returned to the second grade.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

When trying to lose weight, many of us try all sorts of possible methods. The name of this blog is "Eat Less and Exercise," but there is one more potential component that could be contributing as well, and that is the over the counter drug, Alli. It works to inhibit absorption of fat into your system, and I don't really know how much it has directly contributed to my weight loss, if at all. But it has undoubtedly contributed at least indirectly. Alli has what they call a treatment effect. It sounds nicer than a side effect. If you take the drug, then eat fatty foods, it properly prevents the absorption of some of that fat leaving it to be discharged with bowel movements. In other words, you end up with slimy poop. I take this drug at each meal, and I don't know if it increases any weight loss, but it sure makes me paranoid about eating fat.

Next time: trauma returns, and in a big way.

California Is the Home of My Childhood

2009-08-11T09:06:00.005-07:00

And so I attended Vena Avenue Elementary. I spent my year in kindergarten and, as typically happens with kids, next came first grade. My teacher was Mrs. Nitahara, and she noticed something in me about how my brain worked. Frankly, that's impressive to me, that she would have noticed this while I was a first grader.

So a couple of months into the first grade, Mrs. Nitahara spent extra time with me every day advancing my education gently, but beyond what was being taught to the other students in my class. I was unaware of what was to come while she did it. I simply enjoyed the learning games we played. And when I came back to school after Christmas break at the start of 1971, she handed me a piece of paper and said, "Why don't you go try out the second grade for a while?"

I didn't understand the implication of this. When I first moved on, I assumed this was only a temporary thing, but indeed, after spending a half year in first grade, I was about to start my half year of second grade being just over six years old. School was now challenging on two fronts. First, the reading level had increased, and while I had advanced significantly, many of the words I was trying to read were beyond what we saw in Mrs. Nitahara's class. Second, they had spent some time studying subjects that I was not seeing, so I was jumping into the middle of a conversation, essentially, that I didn't understand yet. But within a few weeks, I would feel like just one of the students.

One month into the experiment, the Los Angeles area suffered a huge earthquake. I remember the day it hit. The initial shocks came around 6:00 AM, and we were sleeping at the time, but for some reason, I have this memory of opening my eyes prior to the shaking, looking out the bedroom window and seeing a bolt of lightning extending from the sky straight to the ground in the distance. Within seconds of this, the house was moving. This was outside of my lifetime of experience, and my worried voice called out for Dad. Dad responded calmly, "It's an earthquake boys. Get under the door railing."

I decided to comply with his instructions, but I had a problem. This was just a little over a month after Christmas, and for that Christmas, one of our gifts had been a mock up of a grocery store which was really what looked like a bookcase made out of cardboard with plastic cans substituting as cans of soup for the shelves. With the entire city shaking, this flimsy thing fell down in the space between my bed and that of my brother. Before I could get out of bed, I needed to stand it up to open up the area between our beds. But as soon as it went up, it just fell over again since the whole city was still shaking. I tried to stand it up once more in vain before giving up and moving over the end of my bed to the door facing.

The earthquake did not last long, but we learned the important lesson that the door facings were the safest places to stand in the house whenever things started to move, and after an earthquake, aftershocks are a common affair. Immediately after the quake hit, we decided to move into the living room, but every time we moved even one step, an aftershock would hit and we would duck for the cover of the magical door facings. Eventually, we were able to move about the house and survey the damage.

That 20 foot long window? It had a very long crack all the way down its length. We had Sparkletts water delivered to our house back then, but they had not yet discovered the wonder of plastic bottles, so the glass bottle on the dispense shattered when the entire assembly was toppled. There were occasional cracks in the walls, and a fence outside would need to be replaced, but all in all, we were spared any major damage.

That was not true of Van and Daisy, family friends with six kids. Their home was uninhabitable for a couple of weeks, and for that time, they joined us at our house. I can remember lying on the front lawn, looking up at the sky and feeling an aftershock move the earth beneath me. Destructive, yes. But somehow romantic as well.

Most of the memories of my childhood are funny or silly or some other happy memory, but there were two that lasted with me, and for entirely different reasons, for the rest of my life. Both involved the idea of running away from home, but, well, I leave the reader to be the judge of the state of mind of this child. In both cases, I don't even remember when, exactly, they happened. I only remember that they occurred while we lived in Los Angeles, so it had to be prior to the Christmas season of 1971.

The first was an otherwise typical evening at home. I overheard family members making arrangements of some sort that were related to places to stay. Not having all the facts, but wanting to chip in, I suggested that I wanted to stay with Uncle Jake (Dad's brother). Mom didn't know my frame of mind and decided to punish me for wanting to live somewhere other than home. So she led me to my room to pack some clothes and walked me out the door telling me to go to Uncle Jake's house. I tried to protest, I tried to plea, but she insisted. I didn't know why I was being punished, and she didn't know why I had made the statement in the first place. I simply stopped at the corner and screamed to the best of my ability. Mom let me come home as long as I promised to apologize to the family. I apologized, but it wasn't until I was much older that I realized why she wanted me to apologize.

The second was more sinister. Arnie was always a more troubled soul. And one summer, he decided that he had been home long enough. He told me of his plan to run away, and the sheer adventure of it really appealed to me. But let's face it. Even though I don't really know how old I was at the time, the calendar tells me I couldn't have been older than six, and he couldn't have been older than eight. But oh, the plan he hatched.

First came the financing, courtesy of Mom's purse. Then came the plan. We would get up in the middle of the night and hire a cab to take us to our Uncle Kenny and Aunt Deneice's house in Lancaster. It had been the site of a great deal of fun in our upbringing, family wise, so it was the destination we chose. But first, we wanted to go to where we had enjoyed some company picnics in the past, Soledad Sam's. We never got there. Our cab money ran out, and though the cab driver cheered on our spirit, we had to settle for a less exotic outing that, nonetheless, included an afternoon at a public swimming pool, and a rather large one at that.

By the way, I know I've completely bypassed the lunacy of that cab driver who drove two young children to the middle of nowhere in the wee hours of the morning, but to me, that wasn't a big deal at the time. If I had been Mom or Dad, I'd want that man fired or jailed or both.

Having enjoyed our fill of swimming, we continued our trek to Lancaster which was still 15 miles away. In retrospect, two little kids walking at the side of the road were probably pretty obvious, and when a highway patrolman pulled over and asked if we were the Lawrence boys, it still didn't dawn on me that there may have been a 1970's equivalent to an Amber Alert put out on us. We were returned to our parents who punished us quite strongly, and in a nod to future punishments, gave Arnie a worse punishment for being the agitator (you'll see again a few Christmases in the future).

Mom and Dad treated us oddly for quite a while after that. Why wouldn't they? The thing is, when we went home, I had this unsettling sense that our old lives had actually been replaced by replicas of some sort. In fact, watching "The Truman Show" years later had an odd, deja vu effect on me.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

Every tip you get from me is anectdotal. Generally speaking, anectdotal evidence should be ignored since it doesn't necessarily match with reality. In Time Magazine this week, they have an article about weight loss and the notion that exercise does not necessarily aid in the process for a multitude of reasons. Their evidence is more thoroughly researched than mine, but I stand by my statements anyhow. They look into reasons why exercise does not result in pounds or fat lost that mainly focus on increased caloric intake after workouts. And I readily acknowledge that my caloric intake was reduced at the same time that I started my exercise regimen, but I can't help feeling that if I wasn't exercising, I wouldn't be losing so much weight. I hate giving you conflicting advice, but I'm aware of the science presented there, and I'm a firm believer in science, but I still say keep exercising and exercising a lot.

Another story or two from California, and the Texas part of my life can start. Hasta luego!

Making Life Rough for the Family

2009-08-07T15:19:00.005-07:00

I don't remember living in Los Angeles so much as knowing that I did. Sure, I can still conjure up images of the home we had. It was a corner house at Montague Street and Vena Avenue. And I can still remember the elementary school across the street. It was probably a fairly standard neighborhood, but I suspect that if I was looking for housing today, I would probably ignore the area as not being nice enough. It was certainly nice enough back then.

Joe Hicks lived next door. He was an older man who treated us much like he would his own grandchildren. I remember he once modified a belt of his by cutting new holes and cutting of the end of the belt itself so I could give it new life. And amazingly, he built a scooter for me in his wood shop. It wasn't an amazing thing, but it worked, and I loved it.

Our home was pretty nice. As you entered from the front door, you found yourself in the living room which sported a window that must have been 20 feet long. Oh, it might have been shorter, but it's been nearly 40 years since I saw the room, so I'm sticking with 20 feet. Turning to the left led you to the kitchen. For some reason, I can only vaguely bring that image to mind, but whenever I hear the song "Haunted House" by Jumpin' Gene Simmons, there's a line about drinking hot grease from the frying pan, and I always picture the stove we had in that house. Okay, that was an unnecessary random thought.

At the other end of the house were our three bedrooms. Mom and Dad shared one, Linda got one, and Arnie and I shared the other. And behind the bedrooms, and accessible from the living room, was the converted garage that I remember being packed full of all the things we never used.

As a child, I didn't think like other children. Since I'm writing this, I've decided that it's because I was so smart, but others might characterize it as being defective. Though I've blocked it out, I've been told the story of the day we were out of cereal, so before feeding us, Mom took all of us to the grocery store. As we got to the checkout line, the only thought in my head must have been hunger which I expressed as, "Mom. You forgot to give us breakfast!" I said it loud enough for other shoppers to hear. I'm sure Mom appreciated getting the information.

But it wasn't just Mom who got the brunt of it. I was a precocious one, and I was a little aware of it. All parents want to stop their children from sucking their thumbs, and believe me, I enjoyed it as much as any kid. But the thing is, while I can remember sucking my thumb, and I even remember switching from thumb to thumb to keep that salty freshness, I stopped when I was three. This, among my siblings, was quite an accomplishment since my brother and sister, both older, were still in their thumbsucking stages when I quit. Ah, the peer pressure they must have felt. It still makes me all warm and fuzzy.

I also had a hand in damaging Christmas for them.

I remember Christmastime there more clearly than other seasons, of course. Let's face it, that's a pretty happy memory to retain. Mom and Dad would always take us to the same Santa Claus to make our official requests. They did it in a parking lot so they could set up corrals for the kids to see all the reindeer. That was cool.

But my analytical mind took over in 1969. Arnie and Linda both got bicycles for Christmas, and I noticed that the bikes were branded with the Sears name. Why on earth would Santa Claus get his bicycles from Sears when he has a whole workshop of elves making the stuff? I presented this evidence to Mom who, at first, tried to explain that there are just so many things to make, sometimes Santa gets things from stores as well. I was having none of it. So, at the ripe, old age of 5, I gave up on believing in Santa Claus.

It occurs to me that it was also in 1969 that I changed my name. You see, when I was born, my name was Art. Oh, sure, you might remember me saying that I was named Lloyd Arthur Lawrence, but who knows that stuff at five years old? No, I can still hear it rolling off of Mom's tongue when she called us, "Linda, Arnie and Art!" But that was before my first day of school.

For the first two and a half years of my schooling, I attended Vena Avenue Elementary School across the street from our house. I remember that Mom had to wait (maybe she didn't, but I thought she did) for the state to send a certified copy of my birth certificate so she could enroll me. And when she did, I was assigned to the kindergarten class of Mrs. Cook.

When I arrived for my first day, Mrs. Cook discovered a problem. You see, there was already another student in class named Art, and it just wouldn't do for both of us to be named Art. What to do? Mrs. Cook suggested that we all try to come up with a new name for me. Quite a few were suggested (including some by me), but the one that took was this truly unusual name that the teacher suggested. I should be called "Lloyd." Wow, that was unique. I didn't know anyone named Lloyd since my grandfather's name was Grandpa Brown and my uncle's name (the son of Grandpa Brown and a Jr) was Uncle Earl. Triumphantly, I announced to my family that evening that in the future, they were to call me "Lloyd." Two years later, I read my birth certificate and was astonished to learn that it really was my name.

Next time: I go through my earthquake.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

They (and I don't really know who "They" are) say that you should avoid stepping on the scale every day since weight may go up or down day by day. They're probably right. That's not what I did. Every morning, at about the same time each day, I step on the scale. There have been days when the weight went up, and it served as a reminder to redouble my efforts. But more often, the number is down or the same as the previous day. It gives me that much more hope every time I get to reflect on a new number for my weight.

It All Started in 1964

2009-08-06T10:41:00.022-07:00

There's a joke I like to tell about the circumstances of my birth. Both of my parents believe that President Kennedy's assassination was not the work of a lone nutcase, but that of a major conspiracy. Maybe they know more than they're letting on. You see, everyone who was alive at the time says that they know exactly what they were doing when they found out. All I know is that less than 41 weeks after the assassination, I was born. Coincidence?

Mom and Dad bought the house on Montague Street (every time I say that, I think of Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue") while she was pregnant with me, and as with her previous two pregnancies, mine was textbook. And despite the joke I tell, I believe I was born before my due date.

At the hospital, seeing as how this was before fancy equipment for looking into wombs was around, the doctors had to rely on old wives tales to predict the future. Apparently, one of those tales relates to the heartbeat of the baby being an indicator of gender. Right up through her labor, Mom was consistently told that she had another girl on the way, only to be reversed at the last minute by reality. And on September the 4th, I showed up.

My parents had gone through several iterations of how I should be named. Their first, Linda, was named after a popular song of the time, and she shared my mother's middle name. Their second, being their first son, was named after Dad with the Jr appendage. It wouldn't be so easy with me, but I'm a bit of nerd, and I come by it honestly. Dad reached for his inner nerd by noting that Lee, Linda and Lee all had first names that began with the letter "L". But even better, both of the men had initials of L.A.L. Wouldn't it be great if they could have all of the men with those initials? As luck would have it, my grandfathers supplied the necessary ammunition. The names of my grandfathers are Lloyd Earl Brown and James Arthur Lawrence. Lloyd Arthur Lawrence provided the necessary initials and familial respect that Mom and Dad wanted, and thus I was given three names, all of which could be first or last names. Between that little issue and the national dyslexia that causes people to put the "y" before the "o" when writing my name, I have one of the easiest names you'll find that is also usually misspelled.

It won't come as a shock to you that I don't remember much about my birth. Come to think of it, I don't remember anything about it. Unlike Laura Dern, who claimed on a late night talk show that she had a memory of being in the womb, my earliest memory came at two years old. But I still have the stories that I've heard over the years that sort of explain my past.

For instance, that picture up at the top of the page is of me as an infant. Isn't that a cute little blue outfit I'm wearing? Heck, it's me, and even I want to talk in baby talk to me. The thing is, I wasn't wearing blue that day. Mom only had a hand-me-down from my sister to offer, so the outfit I'm wearing is actually pink (stupid heartbeat wives tale), and the photographer adjusted the color in the print. This was long before the days of Photoshop, so I'm quite impressed with the results.

Come to think of it, that's the only story I know that takes place before my first actual memory, and that first memory isn't much of one. I'm told that Mom and Dad had a VW Bug early in their marriage, but I never saw it that I know of. By the time I was old enough to remember our cars, they were driving a VW Square Back, which is still a VW with a tiny engine, but with more of a station wagony back end for loading up the groceries. It also came in handy at the drive in where we would back into our spot and watch out the hatch back of the car.

But I digress. We were in that car when we got the first pet I remember. I'm told we had a dog at one point, but that was before I learned to speak English, so that dog is nowhere in my memories. Being the period of history that predates airbags, the three kids in the family always fought for control of the front seat when driving from place to place. "I got front seat!" was the first thing heard as we approached the car, and Mom and Dad would attempt to keep the seat rotated among us. On that date, we went to get a cat. Jerry was a tomcat. He was loving, but let's face it: he was a cat. Sadly, my main memory of that day was that Linda got the front seat on the way to get Jerry, and because she was carrying him, she got the front seat on the way home as well. Sibling rivalry has to start somewhere.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

I used to work for a counseling firm (you'll read about it way later in the story). I was at an office holiday party in 2003 when, still being in my normal condition of fat, I told a co-worker, a therapist, that I was working on losing weight. He suggested one of those stupid things that can sometimes work, and it deals with permission. While watching my diet and exercise, I often want to stray just once in a while. He suggested that I tell myself that I don't have permission to eat that cookie or to skip that workout. In my current weight loss regimen, I have practiced that suggestion many times, most recently just three days ago when, hungry at home, I spied a bag of potato chips left over from my granddaughter's birthday party of two days earlier. I wanted a chip. I reminded myself that I did not have permission to eat it, and within a couple of minutes, the desire passed. Weakness is okay. Don't give in to it.

Before Me Came My Parents

2009-08-05T10:00:00.005-07:00

A quick note about the names I use for the people in my life. My name is on this blog, and it's my real name, so if anyone who reads this knows me, they'll already know the names of the other people in my life. If you don't know me, you won't know those people, but then again, you might not know them anyhow. This is a really long way of saying that I considered using pseudonyms for my family and friends if, for no other reason, only to protect their reputations within the family if I were to embarrass them. Unfortunately, that would happen anyhow, so when you get upset with me, feel free to yell. I can take it.

I am the third child of Lee and Marlene. I think I'll call them Mom and Dad from here on in, not necessarily in that order. Since Dad is older, let me start with him. And for both of these, remember that I'm relating the history of people from before my birth, so these aren't my recollections. Rather, they are the memories I have of the stories I've been told. And while I'm sure I'll get a great many details wrong, but since this is intended to be about my own life, it really doesn't matter if I get them wrong since it's what I believe about the stories that makes them part of my own life.

Dad was born in 1934 in Virginia, the second of two sons of James and Elsie, and while he was born in Virginia, his youth was spent in West Virginia. He tends to be a soft spoken man, so many of the details of his youth are a mystery to me.

His father had a problem with the bottle. Although I've never been given details, the impressions I've had have always made it seem that he had violent episodes that shaped their own reality. When Dad was a teenager, his father finally conquered his alcoholism and settled down to supporting his family, but a train accident ended his father's life early. In my mind, I always see my grandfather working in a rail yard when, inexplicably, he is hit, head on, by an approaching train.

Dad's mother was physically disabled. I never really understood what her ailment was, but it meant that she couldn't drive a car to the store, so Dad had a special license at 14 years old to help care for the family. In the eyes of a child, this is a man who was leading his family at 14. Wow.

Dad never graduated from high school. He told me the story once of a teacher he had who told him that he'd never amount to anything. What a great job to have when you hate kids. This man had the chance to ruin their lives. This man was the anomoly of "The Greatest Generation." Dad responded with rebellion. How dare this man question his future? So he quit high school and joined the Navy.

In 1951, of course, our country still had a draft. So if you were drafted, you could count on going into the Army and serving in Korea for a couple of years. Dad didn't want this, so he joined the Navy for a three year stint. All I know of Dad's Navy years is that he served on a tender and that he was a Machinist's Mate.

During or after that time, I have no idea what Dad did for money, dating, whatever. But he would have been 20 when he got out, and he didn't meet Mom until he was 22. I know that he hung out at bowling alleys and pool halls, and I've seen a couple of trophys he won during that period.

I like to think that I got my sense of humor from Dad. More than once, he's told the story of being in a bar at 23 years old. A waitress approaches and sees how young he looks and asks, "Are you 21?" Dad simply answers, "No." The waitress responds, "If you're not 21, you'll have to leave." Dad then points out several people who are clearly older than 21, saying "They don't look like they're 21." I live for those moments.

I'm not sure at what point his family moved to California. I don't even know if it was before or after joining the Navy. But at some point, much of the family made that move. It was in California that he met Mom.

It occurs to me that I don't know where Mom was born. It might have been California, it might have been Oklahoma, and since the town she grew up in there was so small, it may even have been Arkansas. She was the fourth of five children of Lloyd and, well, Grandma. Wow, I can't remember her name! I know her maiden name was Lambeth, but her first name, I just don't remember.

Anyhow, she was born somewhere, and at different points in her life, she lived in Oklahoma and California. While in Oklahoma, her father farmed and ranched their land, and while in California, he worked as a landscaper. She's mentioned that both of her brothers played basketball in Oklahoma, so at least most of her formative years were spent there.

Mom is a more straightforward person. She's mentioned that, at ten years old, when her mother was pregnant with her future sister, her parents told her that babies came from the Montgomery Ward catelog. It was during this period that she found out where babies really come from, and she rebelled by asking to return the baby when she claimed to not like how she looked in the nursery at the hospital.

I'm not sure why high school ended early for Mom. It appears that quitting high school was a little more common before I was born, but at 17, she did just that. And it was also at 17 that she met Dad.

The story, as they tell it, is that Mom was bowling with a friend when Dad and a friend of his came in to the bowling alley. They both took an instant liking to Mom, and they both asked her out. Since Dad's friend asked first, she went out with him first. Mom loves telling the story about how a guy once asked her if he could kiss her at the end of a date, and she told him that if he needed to ask, the answer was no. Dad didn't ask.

They dated for three years. When they decided to marry, his mother was not likely to approve. Oh, she liked Mom well enough, but Dad was still her head of household, and she needed him around to help her out. Dad had other plans, so they eloped. They drove to Las Vegas one day to get married at the soon to be famous Little White Chapel. Finding no available rooms at the nearest hotel, the front desk gave them access to a room for a short while so they could clean up for the ceremony. On April 25th of 1959, they were married. In these days of Internet, CD audio and DVD, it's hard to imagine the offerings that they had available to them for their ceremony. But when they went, the Little White Chapel offered them a choice (for the money they were spending) of photos of the ceremony or a recording of it. They chose the recording, so socked away on a shelf at their home is a vinyl record of their wedding. I've never listened to it, but I'm told that if you listen carefully, you can hear Mom laughing because after she put the ring on Dad's finger, it was so loose, he was letting it roll back and forth between his ring finger and his them. Within three weeks, the ring would be lost.

And so they were married and had to face the wrath of his mother. And while Grandma Elsie was upset initially, she came around, and Mom became the tool who carted her around town for shopping and other errands.

In those early years, Dad worked for the phone company while Mom helped out with caring for children and apartment management. To help with housing, they would be apartment managers with Dad working during the day while Mom handled the apartments. I'll admit I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but since this is still before I was born, I have an excuse to be ignorant.

Two years into the marriage, Mom was pregnant with my sister. Linda was a Christmas baby and was presented to the happy parents in a Christmas stocking. How cute. Arnie (Lee Jr) was born a year later just after New Years Day. A typo on his birth certificate initially had him being born a week after Linda, but they knew better.

Dad continued to improve his job situation, and by now was working for Scantland Electronics (sp?). This job lasted until a friend of his recommended that he move to a real up and comer in the industry, Scientific Data Systems, or SDS. This gave them the kind of good income to support buying their first home on Montague Street in Arleta. It's amazing the things that people remember and don't remember from their past, but numbers were somewhat simple for me. So it is with great confidence that I can say that our address at the time was 13178 Montague St, and our phone number was 899-5056, or at least that was our phone number by the time I was old enough to know it. Those numbers I remember. Grandma Brown's first name: nope.

And so, by 1964, Mom was pregnant with me. I'd like to think it was the best time of her life, but that's probably being overly sentimental. I know she spent some time assisting a research study into the birth control pill which explains the 20 month lag between Arnie and me. And in a time when smoking was not so looked down upon, I'm told that she smoked during my pregnancy. You know, they say that it's not good for the child, but I'm still pretty happy with how I turned out. Ye gods! Maybe smoking during a pregnancy makes the baby more prone to weight gain later in life. Any opportunity to not blame myself for my condition is always appreciated.

And so, on September 4th of 1964, I came into the world in the wee hours of the morning.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

I eat out a lot. In fact, virtually every meal after breakfast comes from the hands of a friendly server, and many people who are trying to lose weight fear that eating out contributes to overeating. I disagree. Sure, you have to make smart choices, but every restaurant has smart choices. For instance, I occasionally eat at McDonalds. No, I'm not eating the salad, though if you like them, I'm sure they're a great choice. My favorite there is the the Grilled Chicken Snack Wrap. I get the honey mustard variety since I suspect it is the lowest fat content of the group. But the real lesson here is that no matter where you go, you can always make good choices, and many places have many good choices.

Next time: I try to channel my inner infant.

Got a Lot of Weight to Lose?

2009-08-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hiya! I'm Lloyd. And my goal is to help people lose weight. I am not a dietician, though my daughter the nurse practitioner in training, is often very helpful in correcting my misperceptions. I have no degree in training, but I think I have something that people might want.

I am a formerly fat man. And I intend to use this blog to tell my life story to anyone who'll listen. It's a good story. Okay, maybe I'm a little biased, and perhaps even I can agree that it's more compelling than good. That is, I have not always made good choices which is how I ended up in the position that I'm in.

I intend for this to be an autobiography of sorts, but I also hope to include some little point with each entry to help the reader improve in some way. I welcome all comments, but I also reserve the right to delete them when they upset me. I hope you enjoy yourself here.

So let me start with an outline so you know where I'm headed. I was born in Santa Monica, California, at St. John's Hospital in 1964 to parents who, nearly 45 years later, are still happily married. During the '60s, we lived in the Los Angeles suburb of Arleta but the San Fernando earthquake of 1971 jolted the family into moving our roots to somewhere less prone to acts of nature. Dallas was the destination, and by the start of 1972, we were in the suburb of Farmers Branch. That stay lasted eight and a half years before job concerns forced us to pick up again and relocate to Phoenix. Once again, Mom and Dad chose a suburb, this time Glendale.

Two years into the Phoenix stay, I graduated from high school and was in the Navy within a week of the ceremony. Not liking enlisted life, I applied for, and received, a Navy ROTC scholarship to the University of Texas which I subsequently crapped away through really screwed up priorities. That left me enlisted until mid 1986, a period that I tolerated more than treasured at the time. Oh, the memories though.

Throughout these years, my weight gradually increased. At high school graduation, I was at 180. By the time I got out of the Navy, I was at 220. Three years later, I was pushing 250. That was the point when I first decided I needed to fix my weight. I joined a gym (US Swim and Fitness) and visited twice each work day and eventually dropped to 207.

This was when I met the second love of my life (high school sweetheart was the first), fell in love got married and brought new life into the world. Unfortunately, pregnancy did nothing for my weight. Yes, I know, it's the woman who eats for two, but the man is eating right alongside her. By the time my daughter was born, I was back in the 250 range.

The next few years brought wedded bliss, or more accurately, a marriage of great friends. It did not last, and by 1994, we were divorced. By 1996, I was up to 297. At that point, I decided to try the Jenny Craig program which was amazingly successful. I dropped 80 pounds and felt better about myself than I had in a long time, but poor choices and an odd little bit of unusual luck made me feel like I was invincible, and my habits reverted to the ways of old. Again, I slowly returned to higher and higher numbers.

Divorce made me focus on my relationship with my daughters, and I became, literally, a Disneyland Dad. No longer caring about my body or ever having a relationship with a woman again (sure didn't want the pain of divorce again), I decided I didn't care if I got fat. So I did. And by June of 2008, I had grown to 440 pounds.

That's when Jorge Lopez died. A friend, not that close, but close enough, Jorge was as overweight as I was, and it killed him. Within a week, NBC's Tim Russert had also passed, not due to his weight, but it always struck me as an issue that he had, and it was enough to wake me up. That was when I started my program.

Every time I use the phrase, "Eat less and exercise," I think of the Bloom County strips where Opus is trying to lose weight. Milo gives the right advice, but Opus wants something that doesn't require him to actually work at it. Over time, I'll find links and include the strips in these posts. It's truly inspiring.

The real bottom line of my program is exercise and don't eat stupid stuff. That isn't very elegant, as descriptions go, but it's accurate. I'm not done fixing my body. I'm still at 258 pounds which is a 182 pound loss so far, but I still have far to go. I hope you enjoy my journey.

Today's Weight Loss Tip

Exercise is the last word of the blog title, but it's the most important, or so I think. Every day, I wake up at 5:30 and am out the door by 6:30. At the gym, I exercise on my favorite cardio machine for 30 minutes at whatever level is necessary to get the sweat flowing. I work until 5:00, and I'm back at the gym for another 30 minutes of cardio work. No matter what else I do, that can't help but make me healthier.

Thanks for reading. I'll be back soon.