BOOMER by Tim Engel (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

my Dad, Tom was a super hero!
I tried following in his footsteps. I tried my hand at Football and helped change my world. It definitely opened up the world of fitness to me. But I didn’t have the perseverance to stick with it and quit in my Sophomore year. I think between Tom’s example as well as my little brother Kyle’s success in sports I saw that they were fine athletes. And because of that example, it helped me to reshape my life later in life. That being my 50’s. With Dad, Mom, Tom, and Kyle as examples, they helped to inspire me to change my life. I had gotten out of control. Even though I worked out with weights and was relatively strong for my age, I had gained a lot of weight. At my peak, I was close to 310 lbs! Mom was a good athlete – I mentioned the photo of her spiking a volleyball and winning the strength/endurance contest. Dad was a bodybuilder, Tom a football player, and Kyle played all kinds of sports from cross country running to basketball to football. He was an all-city corner back at Millikan High. He has wheels. And my Sister Evelyn (named after Mom) was also a runner winning awards at local track meets. And my step-Dad Tim was also a track runner. And I had mentioned Mom’s Dad being an athlete – golf and tennis.
But key to my decision along with all of this inspiration was more and more information coming in nearly daily tying all kinds of diseases to obesity and overweight. As blessed as America is to have relatively cheap food readily available to most people; the down side is a high level of people being overweight and obese. Every week I would read another story about diseases tied to being ‘fat’. Senility, arthritis, dementia, arthrosclerosis, alzheimers, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke to name a few. So I made a conscious decision to get serious about losing weight.
Now I was already going to the gym, but primarily lifting weights. I decided I needed to add more cardio/fat burn. So I started by adding spin class to my workouts. So for my first time I was at the Boeing Fitness Center and there was a woman there named Marla. She commented that she was going to go to spin class. I said that I should probably go, too because I needed cardio work. She said yes, you should. Meanwhile I was on a treadmill warming up. So at about 3:50 I go to the desk, get my numbered orange card so I could be sure to get a bike in the class and go into the spin room. A regular spinner/biker helped me to get through the adjustments on the bike; the seat height and distance from the handlebars, the handlebars height and forward and aft, the baskets which hold your feet. I would later learn about ‘SPD’ type bicycle shoes that allow you to ‘click in’ to the pedal. Allowing for a more comfortable, uniform, and stable ride.
Beatriz walks through the door and I say to myself, ‘so that’s what a spin teacher looks like’. She is probably 5’7” and perhaps 110 lbs. Very slim in the waist and hips. She starts out by playing some soft calming music and has us go through a series of stretches. Arm to the left, arm, to the right, arm behind shoulder, neck left, right, up, down, lean left, lean right. OK, now we’re going to start with a straight away, dial your resistance to a 3 (on a scale of 1-10) and we’ll start getting warmed up. Hey, this isn’t so bad. 10 min down and I’m breathing hard and Beatriz tells us to take a breath towel off and take a drink. Wow – breaks, even. Interval training they call it. Tabata method, intervals, pressing your body and giving it a break and pressing it again. Next up a hill …a gentle hill. Hmmm – no big deal. I remember climbing that steep hill with Dad on my Peugeot in Corona Del Mar. Oh, but this was 30 years later and 100 lbs later…oops. That’s right. 2 minutes into the hill and my heart felt like it was going to pop. And that’s when I began to pray. Pray that I would make it through this hill without dying or at least without a major medical emergency. It would be hard to explain to my boss Mark that I had a heart attack while in ‘spin’ class. Oopsie.
3 more minutes in the hill. Beatrice! Marla! There were maybe 5 people in the class. Now I knew why there were so few people. Because this class is tough! I thought about my family – all of this great athletes. I thought about quitting football in High School. I would not quit. I wanted to sever that tie in my life. I would not quit. Even though I was near 300 lbs and out of shape, I knew it was time to kick myself in the big gluteus maximus and get moving! Don’t quit. Be like Mom, Dad, Tom, Sis, and Kyle. Be an Engel. Little Engel. That’s what they called me when I played football following in Tom’s footprints. Little Engel. I swelled with pride because I was a knock off of my big brother, Tom. But the thread was broken when I quit so now I tell myself keep going, keep going – you’re not a quitter. It’s 30 years later, you’re 100 lbs heavier, but you can do this! You finished your Associate of Arts degree, your Bacherlors degree, your Masters degree, you bench pressed 350 lbs at the age of 50, you can do this. You need to stay the course!!
So where did this come from? Where did the ability, the perseverance, the stick to it, the work ethic come from? Well, along with help from the good Lord, Jesus Christ, my savior, was the blessing of my family. The great examples of my family members – all of them. Tom showed me the way by finishing school. I followed him to Compton Community College when many/most of my classmates went elsewhere. I think maybe 10 of our class actually went to Compton. Most opted for giving another address so they could go to Cerritos or elsewhere. Of course, too, many went to 4 year schools. Help and encouragement from teachers and coaches. Our beloved Mr ‘B’ – Mr Bridgers in Junior High. He knew I was a chubby teenager and he helped get me into some kind of shape. He told me that with a little more push I’d really get rolling. Actually he wrote that in my yearbook.
Mr B used to run laps with us. He’d run along behind us and kinda push us to run faster. I think he probably got a kick out of coaching us. He was trying to shape young lives. Working with 7th and 8th graders must have been a challenge. But Mr B always treated us with respect and pushed us to do better. To grow, to stretch ourselves.
Beatriz would have another song and another challenge for us. How about a flat run? A flat run? I think that was like a sprint? It was. Hydrate and towel off, keep your feet spinning, active recovery. Active recovery. Ah, you mean your heart rate comes down as you spin slower and towel off and get a drink. Got it. And you prepare for the next challenge. OK, here we go – on comes the loud, pulsating, fast music, with Beatriz beckoning, pushing, driving. You were caught up in the emotion, the music and your legs want to go faster and faster. RPM up around 100/min. Pretty fast. How was that heart rate? Probably up around 135 or 140. Good Lord, don’t let me die, I prayed. Because I was pushing that heart rate up where I hadn’t seen it in at least a decade.
Quick, quick, quick, quick…shoulders down, elbows bent, core tight! Quick, quick, quick…everyone ride their own ride. If you need to hydrate, get a drink. 2 more minutes. Who knew riding a stationary bike could be such a challenge. Call it what you will. Spin, cycling, it was all great. The mixture of riding, the music, your friends and fellow riders, and the encouragement of the instructor made spin class infectious. After an hour of hills, straight aways, transitions, in seat, and out of seat riding I exited spin class with a smile on my face. I was spent, soaked with sweat, and had a renewed sense of accomplishment. Now I needed to think about diet.
My wife had been on Weight Watchers for years. I approached her one night and told her that I wanted some guidance on diet. I told her if she was on WW, could I join her? She already knew the diets and cooked accordingly for herself. Couldn’t I join her in that program? Yes. She gave me lots of advice, guidance, literature, and the daily books where you record your ‘points’. And so began my journey with Weight Watchers. Some of the plan looked pretty boring and bland. But If I could get my head wrapped around eating more vegetables, salads, fiber, and protein, I should be able to be successful on the plan.
And so, weighing weekly, more cardio, more calorie burn started to whittle away at my bulk. I had spent a number of years competing in the benchpress competition at the Boeing Fitness Center in Huntington Beach. It certainly is not a world class competition, but was fun and exciting just the same. My best lift was 350 lbs. That in competition – in the gym, I had lifted 360 with my partner, Bobby. Even though this was a pretty good lift, I felt it was somewhat tainted by my body weight. That being, that generally, the heavier you are, the more you can benchpress. The other limiting factor can be your height. Shorter people can generally benchpress more due to the mechanics of lifting.
But now I was focused more on fitness. Lifting became secondary and I focused primarily on cardio and fat burn. Spin class became a bit easier each time I went. A bit. And I got into a routine of spin class going 3 times a week for about a year. Beatriz, Eileen, and Karen. They were the 3 teachers. Each teaching Mon, Wed, and Fri. After a year of spin mixed with a bit of other exercise – a smattering of weight training and the like – I had lost about 40 lbs. I was pleased and people noted my success. People asked how I did it and I shared about my journey. My years of denial – eating junk for years and years and saying