I'm down and Reid's up...

Yesterday was hell. My head hurt so bad and my body kept going from the chills to the sweats and the sweats back to the chills. Covers on, covers off, covers on, covers off. It took me a while to fall asleep, but when I did, it wasn't restful. I couldn't stop sweating. My side of the bed ended up soaking wet and caused my body to shiver throughout most of the night.

When I woke up and weighed myself I was 179 lbs. I had dropped 5 lbs overnight. The good news was that I felt about 50% better than yesterday. My muscles weren't as sore and I could move my eyes from side to side without major pain. I think all those vitamins and garlic pills helped. However, I do have one side effect, I stink like garlic. No vampires are going to be bothering me any time soon.

I stayed home most of the day, although I did have go into work for a meeting. I made sure no one came close to me while I was there. Even though I spent most of the day at home, I still worked. Ah, the joy of having a computer and the Internet. Actually, I was putting off one project that required thinking and writing and was able to complete it this afternoon. At least I got that monkey off my back.

I was bugging Reid this morning about his size. I wanted to know how much he weighed. My prediction was 165 lbs. The actual was 177.2 lbs. In two weeks he's going to be 13 years old and at only 5'3" he weighs 2 lbs less than me. Unbelievable. The worst, or best part, is he has no desire to lose weight. He is completely happy with his size and even pulls up his shirt from time to time to proudly show off his belly.

I often ask him if he ever wants to do a triathlon and every time he sarcastically tells me it's not on his to do list. He did do a 2 km race a few of years ago, the year I started my comeback, and a 3 year old Kenyan kid beat him. I'm not kidding, the kid was 3 years old. I could tell it bothered him that he was beat by a 3 year old and as much as I wanted to harass him about it, I couldn't. I told him not to worry about it and explained that in one of the races I did a few weeks earlier, I was beaten by a guy in his 70's. Which I was.

I was 15 years old when I first noticed I was gaining weight. Up until then I was skinny. All bones. It all began when I started lifting weights at the Winnipeg downtown YMCA with my buddy Peter Ginakes. The Y was a place where the hardcore body builders worked out. A dungeon really. Lots of heavy duty testosterone.

To get bigger, an old guy at the gym suggested we take a high calorie drink powder called "BULK UP". It was about 3000 calories per serving and we drank lots of it. We thought it would add muscle, not fat. After about 3 weeks of taking the stuff, I remember looking down at my belly and seeing a little roll. It freaked me out to the point that I still remember that moment as if it happened today. At the time, intuitively, I realized I did wrong and that it couldn't be reversed. Over the years since then, I often wondered if I hadn't taken "Bulk Up" would I have struggled with my weight? Without it, would I have continued to be naturally thin?

Schedule Taper Day & Sick Day