Losing Weight – How I Stopped Worrying and Started To Love My Punching Bag

This is the incredible story of how I got enamored with me punching bag.

One day, not long ago, I realized that I was fat. Not just fat, incredibly obese, mortally overweight fat.

So what, you may say. Big f…ing deal! Lots of people are fat.

In fact, according to Worldometers, today February 13, 2023, there were 1.8 billion overweight people people in the world. This is not as disturbing a factor on its own, than it is in relation to the undernourished people inhabiting Earth. There are TWICE as many people who eat too much than there are people who don’t eat enough.

And no, I do not believe in the BS arguments blaming obesity on anything but the mechanical exercise of introducing food into the digestive system. Nobody got fat in a freaking dessert, without water and sustenance. People died in concentration camps due to hunger, not overindulgence. People become fat by their own will and means. People die of starvation due to lack of means, in spite of their will to survive.

As for obesity, the numbers speak for themselves. According to WHO (quite a nice pun, if I may say so myself), there are almost as many obese people as there are undernourished. This is too of a disturbing a statistic to just plainly gloss over and engage in business as usual activities such as watching news outlets popularizing fat people as normal.

No, ladies and gentlemen, as a still fat person, I have some troubling news for you.

Being fat is neither healthy nor is it normal. It ain’t normal not to be able to run one mile in your own shoes. It ain’t normal not to be able to sprint for 100 yards with a good measure of celerity. It ain’t normal not to be able to engage in any of the physical activities our ancestors, our own grandfathers and grandmothers used to be able to do without batting an eye.

And finally, it is not normal not to recognize this simple fact of life that being healthy is akin to being of normal weight. Let me be clear. I am not advocating for a world made up of thin, skinny people. I am all for a world where black is black and white is white. I am not for fat shaming. I am for honestly recognizing that we have a problem and no matter how much we tweak the definitions of normality, the problem won’t go away if we collectively decide not to call it a problem any more.

Life is difficult enough without adding more lies and self-deception into the mix.

Anyhow, I do not want to make this blog post into a moralizing story about what needs to be done in order to do away with a serious crisis.

I am here to tell you that the only thing that stands between you and your life goals is your WILL. Nothing less, nothing more.

And this is what inspired me to start working out, walking faster and faster each day, more than one year ago. Today, I weigh 25-27 kg less than when I started, depending on how well I behaved myself at the dinner table, and how much I worked out on a weekly basis.

But one thing is clear to me. Losing weight and keeping it down are difficult propositions. One is not related to the other. The former requires willpower and strength of mind. The latter requires daily doses of abnegation, self-denial, and excruciating self-sacrifice. One cannot remain in good shape unless one has large quantities of all the aforementioned qualities.

And even then, a point comes in one’s struggle to stay fit where one reaches a freaking plateau. And that’s when one must break one’s self-imposed limits. One must find a way out of the plateau.

For me, it was seeing a punching bag rear its bulbous head at the local Costco that did the deed. The price was not right. But as my dear wife said to me, just wait and see that price drop, and then pull the trigger.

Lo and behold, one or two months later, the price dropped by 50 percent, and I got myself a T2 Century Punching Bag. Again, buying this meant that I won’t be able to renew my 2023 membership to another sport that I so love.

But this will also mean that I get one chance to prove myself that as a man I can put my money where my mouth is.

So, faithful to this notion, I came home, unpacked the punching bag, got a couple of sand bags, filled it in, and took a hard look at its current position in the garage.

Now, it utterly felt wrong. It was too dark, too central, blocking access to all cardinal points. So, I decided to move it closer to the garage door, next to the car tires column. I set it all up, locked the cover in, and started punching it: one-two, one-two-three. And then I had an epiphany. I knew my technique was slow, unprofessional and quite risible. But I also felt it in my bones: this was it, this was me punching bag, my sweet Goddamn punching bag.

This is my punching bag. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My punching bag is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

Without me, my punching bag is useless. Without my punching bag, I am useless. I must punch my punching bag true. I must punch it straighter than my enemy who is trying to punch me. I must punch it before it hits me. I will …

My punching bag and I know that what counts in life is not the hits you take, the noise of my punches, nor the sweat I make. I know that it is the punches that count. I will punch …

My punching bag is human, even as I [am human], because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its width and its position. I will keep my punching bag clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will …

Before God, I swear this creed. My punching bag and I are the defenders of my family. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

So be it, until victory is ours and there is no enemy, but peace!

If I continue to lose weight this year, it will be because of me punching bag. This will be my edge.