OnePhatMan

So how goes it?

I’m still here, still plodding along. I didn’t get on the scale lat week because I’m pretty sure I’ve gained a little weight.

Have I given up?

Has the phat man thrown in the towel?

Is he on his way (weigh) back to 371 pounds?

Of course not.

Once again, I’ve gotten an injury, and as always, my method of medicating pain begins in the bakery, meanders through the McDonald’s drive-through, and ends up in the cookie aisle of the grocery store. I don’t really sweat it (other than bitching to my wife about it) because I know that as soon as I’m mended I’ll fall right back into my old routines, especially hiking.

I’m seriously jonesing for a hike.

So what happened?

About a week-and-a-half ago, I went into the extra bedroom to put away a folding table. As I crossed by one of the big bookcases my father built for me several years back, I snagged my pinky toe (and possibly the one next to it) on the corner. Two thoughts—oh, shit, followed a second later by hey, it must not have been too bad because there’s no pain—passed quickly through my head.

Then, blinding pain, so bad I needed four Advils just to get to sleep that night.

It’s weird, really. I’ve stubbed that same toe on that same bookcase plenty of times, and plenty harder. This time, I guess I hit it at the perfect angle to do the most damage. Here’s what my toe looked like three days later:

Pretty, no?

I don’t know that I broke the toe because I never went to the doctor and had it xrayed, but I’m pretty dang sure I did. It hurt far too much, and far too long, to be a simple stub. Like I said, I’ve stubbed it plenty of times in the past; I know what those are like. This was different.

Today, almost two weeks later, it’s still purple and still aches. Don’t get me wrong—it’s WAY better, but it’s not healed. I can’t wear a shoe for any length of time yet without limping from the pain, and I couldn’t lift weights all of last week until Friday. I’ve been on the elliptical every day except for the single workout I missed after the accident, which has my left knee aching like hell all over again.

Getting old is a bitch.

In any case, I decreed most of last week as an “eat junk and whine about my toe” week. I worked out religiously (except, like I said, for the one workout right after I did it) the whole time, and I cut off the junk food after last Friday.

A week is plenty long enough for anyone to grovel in self-pity, I think, and worth the little bit that may or may not show up on the scales. I’m not going to sweat it if I picked up a few pounds; I realize turning to food is my natural response to being in pain (witness the gain from the shoulder incident last year) and I know that it’s going to come right off as soon as I’m back to my normal level of activity.

Now, all I need to do is stop hurting myself.

Have I mentioned that I’m jonesing for a hike? If you’re not the sort who spends a lot of time outdoors, you might not understand just how much it sucks to be locked in your house, sitting around reading and watching TV with a su doku puzzle book in your hand all the time because you can’t walk too well.

But enough about me, how about you?

Are you closer to where you want to be today than you were the last time we talked? Why or why not? What have you done today to bring yourself even the tiniest bit closer to the goals you’ve made?

Feel free to use the comments and share your experiences with the people who come along behind you — they’re a good way (and very underutilized, if I may say so) to meet and talk with people who’re in the same boat as you (especially when a certain phat guy isn’t updating all that often). Use them to commiserate with me in my pain, or to tell me to man up and quit being such a Nancy.