So my nom de plume is Sigma Topman, I can live with that; although given the state of my life there's a certain irony in the 'Topman' designation. Thank you for the encouragement and for the pedometer, fitness ball and books, all that's needed now is for me to put them to good use. The past couple of months have not been what I hoped for, or expected. I have discovered how hard lifestyle change is and developed huge admiration for people who lose large, or even modest, amounts of weight. The reality is that I weigh 2 lbs. more than when I first wrote to you. I am now fully aware that to do what you've always done and expect to be something different is a form of insanity. I stayed with my recreational eating at hotels (see previous letter) and have not done sufficient exercise to burn off the buffets that accompany every major convention. When I do eat in the apartment, I use a hot-plate, which is probably the saddest appliances in the world, to heat up canned spaghetti, canned chili, alphabet soup and other suicide foods. There have been a number of notches on my failure gun in the past few weeks. It took me a month to even program my pedometer and a bit longer than that to have my exercise ball inflated. I realized that I had a kind of self-destructive arrogance or pride that became a rationalization for not doing the practical steps it takes to break the habits that have me bound like an Egyptian mummy. My thinking went, "I'm an intelligent, educated man who can take charge of my destiny by myself. I don't need gadgets, programs and other people, I just need some will power and common sense." In one of your previous newsletters, you quoted the home spun wisdom of Roger Miller: All you gotta do, is put your mind to it This sounds so simple and empowering, but like Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" campaign the slogans roll smoothly off the tongue but don't lead to action. As TS Eliot told us, Between the idea I made some moves in the direction of more movement. I used a little subterfuge to get a staff card to get access to a local university activity complex. So far it has not been a success. I allowed logistical problems to defeat me, things like getting a lock for my locker, (then forgetting the combination), getting goggles for the pool, feeling embarrassed about everything, my body, my swim suit, my total lack of knowledge about exercise equipment, and my age. What am I, Sigma Topman, doing amongst these young students who all swear, mostly have tattoos and have an easy familiarity with everything from squash to weight training, from Pilates to Stairmasters? The realization has enveloped me that outside the ivy covered walls of a private school, I'm pretty useless. No longer able to strut my stuff in the classroom and pontificate about this and that, no longer the John Houseman-like presence with my black gown, red suspenders and rounded belly, and no longer the fount of wisdom. My self-confidence has evaporated in the face of fiscal failure, family breakdown and my futile search for an identity outside an audience of schoolchildren. I feel like the Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled back and he was exposed as a fraud. The arthritis in my knees has flared up to add to the discomfort in my left ankle and hips and despite my promises, I rarely manage 10,000 steps a day. I feel undignified, like a beached whale when I try to exercise on the fitness ball. I watch TV but it brings no comfort and neither does food, but I eat it anyway. I'm down here in the bottom of a pit full of snakes, but at least I'm trying to identify the snakes and put them into groups. I knew that I needed help and I felt that it had to be personal, so self-help books were not the answer. I'd like to tell you that I did a lot of research on the net to find the ideal program for my needs, but that's not the way it was. I needed some ant repellant from a local shopping center and saw a 'Weight Watcher's' outlet. My old self would have smiled at the thought of heavyset women buying into the blandishments of Sarah Ferguson and Monica Lewinski, and walked on by, but Sigma Topman is someone else who knows he's in trouble. The Weight Watchers setting is awful. Once inside the door you are in a rectangular box, with a drop ceiling, fluorescent lights, cheap mottled carpet and a bunch of molded, plastic chairs. A few motivational posters and some appalling art are tacked haphazardly on the walls. A plastic ficus tree sits in a plastic pot and the counter at which I stood was cheap and chipped. It is hard to imagine a room more bereft of beauty. But the women who spoke to me were kind and well informed, and I signed up for the 'one week at a time' program. (I didn't have faith enough in myself to commit to 8 weeks). In my prior life, I'd have sneered at Weight Watchers, but looked at through the eyes of a fat, lonely man this is a program that offers structure, personal support and hope. Hope is the thing with feathers I've been to two Weight Watchers meetings and they're something like Alcoholics Anonymous but the stories tend to be less dramatic, involving Haagen Daaz and Sarah Lee rather than 2 pints of Wild Turkey or a week-long bender on Southern Comfort. But I sit there in that ugly room and I listen to the courage of women (they're virtually all women) who've chosen to lose weight in the face of a culture that pushes calories at them almost every waking hour of their lives. Unlike alcohol, which you can give up entirely, you've got to face food at every meal. This is not the usual success story that one reads in "Well", but I am wearing my pedometer and I lost 1 1/2 lbs. in my first week at Weight Watchers (though that still leaves me heavier than when I first wrote to you). Their system of points makes sense to me and when you set out on a journey you never know where it will lead. Mine led me to a bland room in a shopping mall and right now I can accept that. Steven Covey says that if you want self-respect, "Make a promise, and keep it." My promise by the next issue of "Well" is to lose 10 lbs. and average 10,000 steps a day. For me, a great journey begins with 10,000 steps.
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