5 Weeks

It's been 5 weeks since we got the membership to the Y. I've been going every day, except weekends, on occasion twice. Rewind back to December 27th.

We just got to my brothers house in New Mexico. It had been about 18 months since I had a gym membership at this point. To give a little background about me, I grew up extremely skinny. I was between 6'2" and 6'5" in high school. I weighed in at between 110-140 lbs between Sophomore to Senior years. My sophomore year I started out with a ruptured appendix that was initially diagnosed as an inflamed lymph node and was told I'd be fine. A week and a half later I can't eat, can barely stand up and am constantly throwing up. So we go back to the hospital and a different doctor says "looks like your appendix ruptured, we're gonna have to get it out of there". Now I have a lovely 4 inch scar on the right side of my abdomen from where they cut me open and had drained abscess from my body for 8 days. That is why I was 110 pounds.

So I've always been sensitive about weight. But people are NEVER sensitive towards skinny people and feel it's appropriate to walk up to someone and say "You are so skinny!". Now, to a woman it seems like a compliment. I'm not a woman. They are the worst words I could ever hear.

So fast forward to 2006-07. I have a gym membership that I'm using all the time and getting stronger and bigger. My weight stays around the 225-230 mark. Yes, I've doubled in size since those horrible days in high school. But being as tall as I am, it's a good weight. I'm at a point where I've got some decent size and feeling good about myself. Now fast forward back to the 27th of December, 2009. 18 months without a gym membership and my brother looking at me. He says. You've really gotten thin in the upper body...

What a crushing blow. I have little girls to protect. I can't be thin in the upper body! I'm supposed to be a super hero of sorts.

All of that has changed. 5 weeks back in the gym. Feeling great and getting back to super hero status. It will be interesting to see where I am in a year...