A Clear Devotion to BBQ Potato Chips

It’s difficult to get myself off the couch to go play squash. My body tells me that squash is going to hurt me. Then my brain chimes in and says I ate too much food and that I’m too sluggish to be competitive. It tells me, “You’d just be wasting someone else’s time if you tried to get a match.”

I often ignore my brain and body and go play. Every time I play I feel good when I've finished. My head is clearer, my body feels energized and maybe a little more agile. I take a shower and splash a little Pinaud Lime Sec on my face. It's one of the best things I do for myself.

I’m not a bad squash player. Tennis helped hone my strokes and I have decent court sense. I win more than I lose, however it’s the goo that keeps me from being truly competitive. Recently I had a locker room conversation with a man who told me that he wished someone had made him understand how important it was that he lose weight while he was younger. He said his extra 20 pounds was keeping him from winning matches and now he finds it extremely difficult to drop weight.

I’ve been thinking about this conversation a lot lately. So much so, that I might be ready to drop the 86 pounds my Fitbit app says I need to shed. But then I remember that I've felt motivated before. I've even lost weight before but it never stays lost. I always find it again. So here I am typing and I’m wondering – what’s it going to take?

I know there will come a time when my body tells me squash is going to hurt me and it will be right. It's apparent that I'm okay with that. Otherwise I'd avoid the post-match binge I always indulge in as reward for playing squash or taking my usual 5K lap around the neighborhood. I'm sure I'll be okay with it until it actually happens. I'll be stuck on the couch and I'll remember the locker room conversation. 

Then I'll wish I could beat the living shit out of myself for not doing something about it.