Middle Age Man

I've been working at this weight-loss thing for about a month and a half now. It started when I got the notice for my driver's license renewal. They wanted to know if anything had changed - address, hair color, corrective lenses, weight. Well, what's it to ya?
I suppose I've always been a little sensitive about my weight. My junior high school nickname was "Tuba." I was never grossly obese, and I wasn't hiding Milky Ways under my pillow, but I was shopping for school clothes in the "husky" section. I'm old and clever enough to understand that genetics will not allow me to alter my generally panda bear shape, but there is a certain amount of inflatability that is entirely negotiable.
Since the birth of my son eight years ago, I had been slowly drifting toward two hundred pounds. I rationalized this by considering my advancing age and wisdom. The two-century mark seemed appropriate to the epoch in which I found myself. Stay married long enough and I suppose you can make any radical shifts over time seem like a normal rite of passage. The swelling and sagging that had begun in my son's first years had become the excuse to let it continue. It was natural and inevitable.
Then I began to think about the surrender I was affecting. The peanut M&Ms before bedtime weren't a privilege, they were a right. I had earned them - not unlike the nickname I had acquired for my middle age: The Thresher. Just don't get your hands or feet too near the whirling blades, and don't leave utensils on your plate while they are being cleaned, they will only gum up the works.
I'm thinking more now about my days as a wrestler. I drank iced tea because it was a flavored drink with one calorie - without sugar or lemon. I worked at becoming lean - the relative shape remaining that of a fire plug, but a lean fire plug.
I'll continue to try and eat for nutritional needs, not for emotional or psychological satisfaction. I've got another ten pounds to go to return to my old driver's license. Ten pounds have already gone away. I know the curve very well, and the next ten will be harder than the first, but it's my gut and I'm working on it.