Keeping the old ticker going

Yrs trly doesn’t have to go to the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym today (Monday, January 3, 2011).
I try to go three days a week — to work out; keeping myself alive.
I can’t.
Haircut this morning.
I wasn’t looking forward to the YMCA.
It’s January. It could be a zoo.
Everyone could be there, pursuing their New Years resolution to lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks.
That’s not how it works.
I predict things will be back to normal in a month or two.
The resolvers will give up.
It will be just us diehard regulars; Big Mike, Bill, and others.
I’ve been working out almost five years.
I started at 220 obese pounds, maybe 225.
That was at a physical therapy.
After about two years, I was down to 200 pounds. I celebrated.
I was cut loose, so I joined the Canandaigua YMCA.
Seniors got discounted membership; that was my wife and I.
My health-insurance pays my Y membership; the Silver-Sneakers program.
Now I’m plateaued at about 187-188.
Semi-obese.
Ya don’t work off 20 pounds in 10 weeks.
I’ve been at it almost five years, and lost about 35 pounds.
140 pounds would be more like it; not 187.
That was what I weighed in my 40s when I ran footraces.
That was 25-30 years ago.
140 pounds is not even semi-obese.
I can still run, but that excess poundage slows me down, combined with age.
So what the Y is, is keeping the old ticker going.
I look at the other regulars, and that’s what I see.
People of various builds and weights trying to keep the old ticker going, like me.
They call it the”Wellness-Center,” and that’s what it is.
Other regulars, like me, have probably lost weight, but it’s not the “Weight-Loss” Center.
To me, the YMCA in January is like attending church only on Christmas Day or Easter.

• RE: “Seniors......” —My wife just turned 67. I turn 67 in a month.