Late one sultry summer afternoon, when I was 32, I was out in the backyard, setting up a badminton net. I had just finished staking the guylines and checking the tension when I heard gravel crunch on the driveway. I turned to see a neighbour from across the way, a woman in her early 50s, divorced with two teens at home, walking down the slope from the street.
Starting in high school, my routine was to do a couple of sets of pull-ups each day—the proper kind, overhand. “You’re being chased by Nazis,” the gym teacher barked, “and you need to get over that wall!” (Why the Nazis didn’t just shoot us was a question that didn’t occur to me. Ironically, the odds of being chased by Nazis in North America has gone up exponentially since my childhood.)
At this house, my pull-up bar was outside, mounted high on the bottom of the deck, which doubled as the top of the carport. A few minutes earlier I had done a set of ten, and between that and the humidity and the badminton install, I was hot and I’d stripped off my shirt to cool down.
So there I stood, hammer in hand, barechested, a bit shiny, still possessed of a full head of blond hair, watching the neighbour approach. In hindsight, and without false modesty, it’s easy to picture what she saw, namely a half-naked guy 20 years her junior, decently muscled without an ounce of excess weight on him, glowing in the low sun.
I can’t remember why she was there—or I should say the pretext she used for being there. What I do vividly recall was her expression. If ever there was a time for me to admonish, “Hey, my face is up here,” it would have been then. But admonish I did not. We chatted awkwardly for a few minutes—something garden-related?—while she watched me like I was a dripping ice cream cone and she was restraining herself from taking a rescue lick or two.
I was both flattered and mortified.
In case you’re thinking this was more in my head than in reality, a mutual female friend, also in her early 50s, soon after confirmed the obvious, adding that this neighbour wasn’t alone in her, ah, appetite for the occasional, casual ice cream. The fact that I was hitched was irrelevant. This was a wealthy suburb of a large northeastern US city, with professional husbands who tended to have long train commutes and who returned home late and rarely in the mood. This frustration fueled what our sociologist friends would call broadly permissive situational ethics, an attitude that saw nothing wrong with no-strings-attached rolls in 600-thread-count sheets. That and Valium and plenty of chardonnay at book club got you through to menopause. It was a real-life John Updike novel.
Thanks, I said, but no thanks.
This ancient memory bubbles up now whenever I catch sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, something I’m increasingly doing by peeking through my fingers, see-no-evil style. Hindsight also reminds me of something else: I reached my physical peak in my 30s. I still had the time and inclination back then for a fitness routine aimed at esthetics rather than endurance. (At the gym I stereotypically focused on my upper body, letting my legs remain matchsticks.) It’s been a slow and steady downhill coast since—slow, that is, until my hospital stay last month for a bowel obstruction.
I went into Niagara General at 160 lbs and just under a week later came out at 145. I look in the mirror now and a see a Bataan Death March survivor. I’ve had next to no luck in gaining any of it back. And for some reason, what remaining pectoral definition I did have has entirely vanished—are the pecs the first to go? My butt—which never really put more than the “b” in booty anyway—is now as flat as last night’s beer. I turn sideways and I disappear. You get the idea.
So, as I wait for a follow-up with a gastroenterologist, I am on a quest to put on the pounds. We’ve acquired a 900-watt “Nutri-Ninja” blender specifically designed for smoothies, an enormous jar of pea protein powder, and a stream of advice from friends as to what and when I should be eating. (TLDR: Everything, but five times a day not three.)
Our own Don Rickers, whose workout routine is more rigorous than I imagined, is a fan of energy bars, whey protein, and creatine. He helpfully shared this video from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who reveals his secret smoothie ingredient. (I’m not quite there yet.)
Also chiming-in has been our resident and until now long-lost cooking columnist Svangur Géroux, whose recipe for Banana Cranberry Protein Muffins also appears in today’s issue, the first batch of which I managed to screw up when I forgot to add the second egg. Give them a shot.
Incidentally, the pull-up routine worked great right through my 30s, but I started gaining more weight in my 40s, and by age 45 those pull-ups became the leading contributor to my suffering two frozen shoulders—sudden onsets about a month apart—which lasted over two agonizing years until they self-resolved. That was the end of my Nazi-dodging pull-up career.
Robert DeNiro famously gained 60 lbs in four months during production of Raging Bull, going from 145 to 215 lbs in order to play his boxer character’s post-career decline. DeNiro reportedly achieved this through huge portions of pasta, so for the time being, in addition to the protein smoothies, I’m on a rotating diet of pasta, rice, and potatoes to get those carbs loaded.
More rice pudding? Don’t mind if I do.
See you next time.
