Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham
The pants were taunting me from afar.
You couldn’t possibly fit into me.
Ha. Fool.
They still had the price tag on them when I pulled them out of the closet this morning.
“I don’t remember …”
Buying them, I said out loud at first, then finished quietly to myself.
I looked at the size – 36×30.
It had been years since my butt would fit into 36 waist pants.
But something compelled me – the hours of weightlifting, kickboxing and basketball, probably – to rip the price tag off and try them off.
A brave move, yes – but it was worth it.
“I actually need a belt with these,” I proudly said to my wife upon trying them on – and I wasn’t, ahem, stretching the truth.
Whuh … how?
That, I guess, was the reaction from the jeans I’m wearing as I type this column.
Probably because they’ve spent I don’t know how long – a year, maybe? – hanging in the closet next to 40s and even some 42s.
Not bad, I figure, for somebody who still weighs 240 pounds.
I had been hitting the scales at (egads!) 280 there for a while – before I decided that I wanted to live past 55.
And really, it hasn’t been that hard.
I mean, we still go out to eat once or twice a week – and yes, I have to admit it, I’ve even recently added a Friday-morning run through the breakfast drive-through to the ol’ diet.
What it comes down to is cutting those kinds of things down to a minimum – still enjoying them, only in moderation – and then eating sensibly the rest of the time.
Oh, and exercising – don’t want to gloss over the importance of getting the rumpus off the couch and sweating every now and again.
It’s not always easy, but there are rewards to look forward to.
Like mine today.
The upside – when I give away the 40s and 42s to goodwill, these still-like-new 36s won’t have to look at ’em anymore.
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Chris Graham
