Scales and shapes

When I started working out at the club 8 days ago, I weighed myself on the scale they have in the exercise area, and found I didn’t weigh as much as I had thought I did. This is a scale just like the ones you see in a doctor’s office. I don’t know how often it’s calibrated, but at least it gave me a good reference point for monitoring my weight. I started at 215 lbs, which isn’t bad at all, based on charts I’ve seen which relate your desired weight to your height and age. There is some comfort in knowing I’m not considered obese, but those charts don’t take into consideration where the excess pounds may be located, which is my problem.

It seems that my neck, shoulders, ankles, knees and even my hips are at the desired dimensions. However, everything between my hips and shoulders seem to be shaped like a pear. This in my opinion is not good, for a couple reasons. One it doesn’t look right, and the other is I find it difficult to find pear-shaped clothes.

Shopping for shirts is not too difficult. I can just keep moving up from large to Xlarge, XXlarge, and they even go up to 4Xxlarge. They tend to get a little baggy on my normally proportioned shoulders, but at least they cover my belly, so long as I’m careful to buy the ‘long length’ size.

The real problem is buying pants. Men’s pants (I don’t know about women’s) are measured with 2 dimensions. One is the inseam, which is the distance in inches from the bottom of the crotch to bottom of the pants leg, and the other is the waist, which is supposed to be the distance in inches around your body approximately where your navel is located. This system worked find for me for many years, but is now obsolete. Where my navel happens to be located, no longer has anything to do with where I wear my pants.

Either my navel has risen a few inches, which I doubt, or my so called waist has fallen the same distance. When I put my pants on these days, I suck my stomach in, button them up, tighten my new belt (which is longer than it used to be), and I’m good to go. This lasts for maybe half an hour, when my pants of their own accord migrate down to the point where my thankfully, properly proportioned hips keep them from falling to the floor. The problem with this is that the bottom of the pants, which were just fine earlier, are now dragging on the floor.

I mention all this because I’m becoming a bit concerned about my physique. Not that I’m interested in chasing chicks anymore, but because I don’t like looking funny. Which brings me back to the scale I was talking about in the beginning, so let me return to that.

Today after working out for approximately 1 ½ hours, I stepped on the scale to see how much weight I had lost after 8 days of working out, and also monitoring my calorie intake. I was very disappointed to find I had only lost ½ lbs.

Then I remembered an occasion a number of years ago when I used to work out at the YMCA, and I observed a lady weighing herself after her workout. She was wearing what I would consider the minimum clothing for working out in a public facility, but before she stepped on the scale she removed the sweat band from her forehead, removed her shoes, and then her wedding ring. I thought to myself “wow, this lady has a real obsession with her weight”. But now I found myself thinking “you know, maybe that’s not such a bad idea”, so I took off my shoes, got back on the scale, and things looked a bit better.

Then, since the scale is surrounded on 3 sides by partitions and there were very few people in the place, I decided to take off my shirt and shorts. As I was doing this, I heard a “AHEM!” behind me and realized I wasn’t the only one wanting to use the scale. So, I put my stuff back on and let the lady have the scale to herself.

Tomorrow when I workout, I’ll make sure of my surroundings before I attempt to get a truly accurate measurement of my progress.