week one: why

It’s working! I knew it would work, at least for the first few weeks!! (How did you guess, I've been down a similar road ?)
     I am not sure it will still be working weeks from now in the deep freeze of February, or the flat monotone of March , or dripping, dog shit surfacing days of April and ever after. But, for now, it is working and I am here to say what is working, how it’s working and a little bit about the way I’m working.
     I plan to write once a week, a reflection on the seven days spent, the successes and failures and up and downs of this journey. The title to this blog is key. The first 50 is what this writing is about. It’s a number, it’s a unit, it is what I have carried around on my hips and my belly and my backside and my upper arms (oh those bat winged upper arms!) for the last, oh, 15 years at least. It is the amount of weight in good old fashioned pounds I am attempting to loose in the course of the second 50 of the title, the time frame, the parameters of the project. Fifty weeks isn’t quite a year, but it’s close and the final 50, my age, is the why behind this reckless public muse.
     I turned 50 two weeks before the turn of the year, thick in the season of eat and drink. A careful look in the mirror the morning of that milestone birthday gave me pause, to put it mildly. In fact, a look in the mirror-- a good, hard, naked-body, naked eyeball look, in a full length upright mirror – arrested me, stopped me dead in my tracks. I’m not talking cardiac arrest here, not yet, anyway, but rather a stock-still take stock shock.

     But besides being surprised at how thick and heavy my 5.5 foot body has become over the years I was also aware of how the next 20 to 30 years would unfold, (or, indeed, not unfold) if I didn’t decide to take immediate action. So I did. I pitched an idea to a private gym – Korezone Fitness.Why didn’t they provide me with gym access for a year and the opportunity to work with a personal trainer, an nutritionist, a masseuse, whatever or whomever I needed at a minimal change in order to whip this middle-aged sagging body into some semblance of shape?
     And, lo, much to my surprise, they agreed. All I have to do in return is write about it….a book in 50 chapters, a blog in 50 postings. This on-line stuff will be short, the chapters longer and, I hope more meditative. There are lots of reasons people, and particularly women, hide inside their bodies, disguise their trembling inner selves with a protective layer of outer flab. That's what I'm interested in, the laying bare, the inward journey. And, as a writer, that's what I will explore on the page.
     For now, and because I don't have a clue how long a blog-post should be I'll just say my plan is working. Since my weigh–in (ugg, how trophy fish–like, how uninspiring that word) I have dropped 4.7 pounds.
My muscles ached for two days, I've been given a weight train program, I’ve been vigilant about bread, I’ve even been eating not only breakfast but, oatmeal for breakfast and, guess what? it’s working.
    Will power, a program, a dream, and the commitment to publicly pursue that dream. Maybe inspire others, maybe not. Maybe just find out something about myself.  For now, it all feels right, but I am well aware this is only week one....M