"Robibnikoff" <witchypoo@broomstick.com> writes:

<atheist@home.com> wrote in message
news:kuqeg35plrvc1gc2u94ke1oh0dcr0jm06d@4ax.com...

On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 05:31:49 -0400, "Robibnikoff"
<witchypoo@broomstick.com> wrote:

"Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com> wrote in message
news:ToCdndm2pfXiuJranZ2dnUVZ_uKpnZ2d@io.com...

<atheist@home.com> wrote in message
news:evsdg3lkp2i06u9o393uoieri3lrv1fdau@4ax.com...

http://funny-stuff.audio4fun.com/funny-pictures.php?stuff=arnold-fat&id=3453

Augh! You *****! If I wanted to see something like that, I'd look in
the mirror.

SNORT!

If I saw that when *I* looked in the mirror, I'd have a heart attack. So
would my husband ;)

I suspect if I was married to a woman who looked like that I would be
giving the relationship a second thought myself.
I've given up the booze and started working out myself but those
damned smokes are giving me a fit.
How long does it take for the urge to go away?

Honestly? About a year.

Do you miss them at all?

Not at this point. My one-year anniversary for both cigs and booze was
August 11th. I'll never go back to either one. I feel too good :)

You picked the same day as our sweet sixteenth anniversary (at least, as Texas
sees it). Our unofficial 20th will be the second Saturday of next March. ;-)

On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 08:20:03 -0400, "Robibnikoff"
<witchypoo@broomstick.com> wrote:

If I saw that when *I* looked in the mirror, I'd have a heart attack.
So
would my husband ;)

I suspect if I was married to a woman who looked like that I would be
giving the relationship a second thought myself.
I've given up the booze and started working out myself but those
damned smokes are giving me a fit.
How long does it take for the urge to go away?

Honestly? About a year.

Damn!
<Girds up loins and lights another>
I hate the things.

Do you miss them at all?

Not at this point. My one-year anniversary for both cigs and booze was
August 11th. I'll never go back to either one. I feel too good :)

Good for you :-)
I'm having a lot more fun after giving up the beer.

I can't imagine how good I'm going to feel after the smokes are gone.
Actually I've cut back from around three packs a day to about half a
pack and even then I don't smoke a whole one.
Even at that I feel better.

Funny what we will do to ourselves sometimes and then complain about
the effect it has on us :-)

On Sat, 06 Oct 2007 08:51:35 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo" <gmail@com.mkbilbo>
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Oct 2007 06:09:32 -0500, atheist wrote:

On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 05:31:49 -0400, "Robibnikoff"
<witchypoo@broomstick.com> wrote:

"Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com> wrote in message
news:ToCdndm2pfXiuJranZ2dnUVZ_uKpnZ2d@io.com...

<atheist@home.com> wrote in message
news:evsdg3lkp2i06u9o393uoieri3lrv1fdau@4ax.com...

http://funny-stuff.audio4fun.com/funny-pictures.php?stuff=arnold-

fat&id=3453

Augh! You *****! If I wanted to see something like that, I'd look
in the mirror.

SNORT!

If I saw that when *I* looked in the mirror, I'd have a heart attack.
So would my husband ;)

I suspect if I was married to a woman who looked like that I would be
giving the relationship a second thought myself. I've given up the
booze and started working out myself but those damned smokes are
giving me a fit.
How long does it take for the urge to go away? Do you miss them at
all?

I've read--but don't know from personal experience (at least not
yet)--it can take up to two years for the nicotine to fully clear your
system.

Ouch.
I think I'm going to switch to carrots. Might be difficult to keep one
lit though.

YMMV of course...

YMMV?

On Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:07:28 -0500, atheist wrote:

On Sat, 06 Oct 2007 08:48:58 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo" <gmail@com.mkbilbo>
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Oct 2007 06:02:00 -0500, atheist wrote:

On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 00:04:55 -0600, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com>
wrote:

<atheist@home.com> wrote in message
news:evsdg3lkp2i06u9o393uoieri3lrv1fdau@4ax.com...

http://funny-stuff.audio4fun.com/funny-pictures.php?stuff=arnold-

fat&id=3453

Augh! You *****! If I wanted to see something like that, I'd look in
the mirror.

Lol!
I just started working out again after years of sitting on my arse
drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The thing that got my attention
was after my last physical when I asked the Doc how I was doing and
she said she would know more after the autopsy.

Um, well!

She's a good doctor and just throws her hands up and mostly doesn't
expect much from me.
She's going to be shocked all to hell when I go back in a few months.

Sort of got my attention.

Heh, I bet. <g>

So now I do a daily two hour workout which includes thirty minutes of
flailing about in bed wrestling about with the covers trying to figure
out where the hell I am on awakening and why the hell I'm trying to
get up,

I add the aerobic stumble down the hallway, running into things, and the
always vigorous, avoiding the paws of the dogs who have full bladders
and are bouncing about like maniacal rubber balls.

Lol!
How many do you have now?

Dogs? Two. In fact, I've been fiddling with that dot Mac thing Apple has
and have pics of the monsters over here:

http://web.mac.com/markkbilbo/iWeb/Site/Dogs.html

I've never been able to get accustomed to being overweight. It drains
the energy and makes us sluggish.

Tell me about it. <g>

I've just decided I don't have to feel
this way any more. <I actually had a dream not long ago that a bear came
running after me on an open plain. I started running but was too short
of breath after about a hundred yards and had to stop. I turned to face
the beast and the damn thing ran by me and kept on going. Didn't even
look at me. Now what the hell kind of nightmare is that? Wasn't he
supposed to at least bite me if not totally devour me?> The Doc says
there is no reason I can't start feeling as good as I did at thirty <I
felt great then> and I told a friend who is in worse shape than me what
she said and tried to talk him into going to the gym with me.
He replied that he "Felt like ***** at thirty" and wasn't all that
interested in feeling that way again :-)

From my experience, your doctor is right. Maybe even understating it.

With me, it goes like this:

I hit my thirties and wasn't "fat" just... "dumpy looking" as it were. I
started looking like (horror of horrors) my father. I'd been into weight
lifting in my college days (before this idiot hit my pint sized "hand me
down" car with his big ***** pick up and tore up my left shoulder). Decided
to get back to it before I ended up *really* looking like my father (who
just moaned about getting old and never did anything, I think he liked
complaining).

With that motivation, I went all out and people started accusing me of
using steroids. Which wasn't true. I didn't use anything you couldn't get
at the local Wal-Mart. Nor did I "use" much. A protein supplement, sure.
Some vitamins. Pretty much it.

What actually happened was I hit some "set point" and the weight came off
fast. I mean weirdly fast. I suspect it was because I hadn't done real
exercise since college. I've never duplicated that quick drop in weight
again (sigh).

It wasn't the (muscle) weight gain that was fast, it was the (fat) weight
loss. That's what made everybody flap their gums about "steroids". But
they didn't get that. Shrug.

Anyway.

By 35 or 36, I could out bench 20 somethings and had energy to burn. Had
a job where I walked a *lot*, worked out on my off days, and still could
keep going.

That persisted until I was about 41. But what happened was I moved back
to LA, got an office job, and neglected things for a while. Took stabs at
it here and there and kept from going just totally downhill but then the
move to New Orleans happened and things were unsettled a while.

Got my butt in gear, got a set of weights and a bench for the garage, and
by 44, I was ten pounds from my ideal weight and passing my old bench (I
was about to hit 250 max finally).

Then came the Year of Hell. About June of '05, Bob's health went into the
crapper, I spent a month practically commuting to the hospital and then
the assisted living place he was in. Then after he came home (which was
almost six weeks later), he needed a great deal more attention than ever
before. Then came Katrina. Then the flood. Then Rita. Then Bob died.
Then... then... then...

And after his death, after all that fighting through even hurricanes to
keep him alive, after everything went completely nuts, I lost all
motivation. From his death to my move last October back to Texas, I just
didn't give a *****.

On the other hand, as I told the counselor I saw for a while (but no
longer, I don't feel the need anymore), I knew that was "fixable".
Especially given that once you get going, if you have a "lay off", you
can get back to where you were pretty fast.

It's true. When I got back into it in New Orleans, I took about six weeks
to get back to the level of weights I had been doing before. Then started
passing them.

(Heh, at one point asked Bob what he was putting in that baked chicken he
made a lot because I was gaining in my bench so fast. <G> Actually, baked
chicken is one preferred food of actual body builders. You can spice it
up to be pretty good but stay lean and low fat. Skinless, of course, is
better. I've seen video reports of body builders shopping and watched
them fill carts with skinless chicken. Yeesh!)

To (try) to wrap up a long story...

Your doctor is right. I know. Been there, done that. In fact, had I *not*
gotten back into shape before the Year of Hell, I wouldn't have made it.
It was non-stop. I hate to see myself in the mirror right now but I try
to tell myself I have a pretty reasonable excuse this time at least. But
I've been carrying this weight over a year now and do *not* like it.

So I've telling myself this month is the deadline. I'll be four years
from 50 this month. I am *not* going to waddle into my 50s and be old and
run down like my father (dammit!).
(Okay, I'll still be "old" but I'm not waddling and being run down.
That's final!)

((Anyway, "old" is always a good twenty years from whatever age I am.
<G>))

thirty minutes getting to the gym, thirty minutes on the machines and
thirty minutes of CPR by the club staff.

Heh, it gets better. Really.

My first two weeks back at it are a living hell (then again, I tend to
overdo things because I stupidly think, "I used to be able to..."). If
you stick to it, usually you have to push through that first month. It'll
get easier though. And can become curiously addictive.

(The endorphins. It really is rather like getting "high".)