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nap, I learned four months ago
what happens to a human body
when you walk around at an
eight or nine for six years. Hint:
You get really fat.
It’s not like people didn’t try to
tell me.
My brother is a surfer, thin
and fit and living in California.
My dad once joked at a family reunion, “Put my two sons together
and they are the perfect size.” I
thought it was a good joke.
I was an athlete into my early
thirties. I played college tennis,
became a runner after that and a
swimmer when running hurt too
much. I took pride in my fitness.
When at 37, the physical trainer my wife hired for me asked,
“You used to be an athlete,
right?” it should have triggered
a competitive desire to change.
But his workouts hurt too much,
and he was a 22-year-old football player who took pleasure
in humiliating the older chubby
guy, so I stopped going.
When at 38, my doctor asked,
“You’ve been in shape before,
right?” and I couldn’t remember
when, it should have been a clue.
When at 39, I couldn’t get
through a quarter of the workout with the college golf team
STRESS
LESS
HUFFINGTON
06.23.13
I coach, the guys’ commentary
about the large animals I resembled should have made me aware
I needed to de-stress. Great irony: I work with them on managing stress on the course.
I used to be able to run up
mountains. Literally, in high
school, I ran up the last 2,000
feet of a 14,000-foot mountain
in Colorado. I hiked one of those
mountains with a buddy last sum-
When I got on the scale
and the number said 253 —
I have no memory of what
the doctor said after that.”
mer, and I asked if he’d be climbing faster on his own. He said, not
thinking, “Oh yeah, but this is
much more relaxing.”
Nothing anyone said, however,
made a difference. The siren call of
a cheeseburger, or three, always satiated the stress each evening. My
survival response was soothed by
what all ancient men craved: meat.
Then I got sick. I thought it was
just a virus, but I couldn’t sleep
or eat for two days. I could barely
breathe at one point, and when I
finally went to the doctor, it was no