December 19, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Paul decided it was time to get serious about weight loss, he went all in on the kind of fitness plan that looks sensible on paper and slightly unhinged in practice. He wrestled with machines that never moved, counted laps he could never quite remember, and kept trying to turn discipline into something he enjoyed. His journey through healthy eating habits and gym-floor humility becomes a funny, familiar look at what happens when a clean eating dream meets real life.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. Our next story comes to
us from Paul in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Paul moved our listeners
with his story Wilbur and the Empty Nester. We asked
him if he had any more. Here he is with
this story titled a baby Boomer's Battle with Insanity and fitness.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
A handful of years ago, I had to come to
grips and admit that I was fighting a losing battle,
trying shamelessly to hold onto my youth, and so I
made an executive decision. Here's the deal. I was six
months from hitting the dreaded age of fifty. I was
not only over the hill, but I was also out
of shape. I had gotten lazy, and I had become
a viewer and critic of the sports I loved rather
(00:52):
than a participant. It was the dead of a frozen
Minnesota winter and I was feeling fat. I decided I
needed to tell myself to get into reasonable shape. It
would be easy. I would start exercising more and get
back to my college weight before the summer started, and
feel as young as ever at six foot six the
thirty pounds I had gained over the years, came on
(01:13):
easily and slowly year after year as I settled into
my career as a computer programmer. But at age forty nine,
I had to face the facts. It was time to
stop blaming my clothes dryer for my tightly fitting shirts.
Time to fess up that my scale is not broken,
no matter how many times I stepped on it each
morning hoping for a better result. That shameful number displayed
was indeed correct. It was time to admit it. My
(01:36):
waistline was growing as steadily as the stock market, of
which by the way, I wasn't even taking advantage of.
Because I'm a stubborn German Catholic and much too conservative.
I knew if I wanted to correct this belt on
buckling dilemma, I had to take some drastic measures. I
had to pry myself off of my lazy boy chair,
which I more accurately call my fat chair. At first,
(01:57):
I thought, let's go the cheap route. I had a
stationary bike in my basement. Perhaps I should give it
a try. But when I went down there, I remembered
I was using it quite well as a clothes hanger,
and I didn't feel like finding a new home for
my dirty laundry. Then I thought, how about going the
digital or the old fashioned DVD video route? But insanity
and pnindiecs seemed like a stretch. There was no chance
(02:18):
I could force myself to mimic some dude on a DVD.
I had tried jogging in the past, but I would
spend those entire thirty minutes force myself as best I
could to keep from transforming my jog into a leisurely
walk and dreading every minute. So I went a different route.
I decided to do something I never thought I would do.
I pried open my wallet, took out my credit card,
(02:39):
handed it over to the friendly young lady at the
front desk, and for fifty dollars a month, I joined
a gym. Yes, I almost hate to admit it. I
became one of those urban adults on a mission. The
guys and girls you hear about prancing around the gym
trying to look like fashion models and college kids. Only
I was one of the few who didn't run around
(02:59):
with either fresh makeup on and skin type spandex workout
clothes or under armor sleeveless shirts peeking in merars at
finely toned bulging muscles. I was out there every day
in my baby sweats, going as hard as I could
on an elliptical machine set was maximum resistance, puffing and
puffing and leaving behind a pool sweat on the floor
below my machine. All the while I was getting strange
(03:22):
looks from those next to me, peddling as if they
were out for a Sunday stroll. I tried to figure
out how they do it. They make it look so easy.
Either I was in much worse shape than I thought,
or these other gym members were in incredible shape. But
I glanced at their machine now and then, and I
found the secret. They were not setting any resistance. It
(03:42):
was all a fraud, just for show. They were pretenders
then and there, as stubborn as I am, I decided
to do it the honest way. I don't have much
of the pride and prowess left in me that carried
me through my Bloomington Kennedy High school days. I was
no longer a slow and lumbering center riceman and the
Mighty Eagle Hack team. I was an old man now,
(04:02):
but a decisive one, just the way my old coach,
Jerry Peterson taught me to be I was going to
lose the weight. As a Minnesota native born into a
Catholic family of ten who settled into a middle class
neighborhood in Bloomington, I was a blue collar guy who
hated to lose, and I was not going to fail. And,
believe it or not, before I knew it, a mere
(04:25):
five months from the start of this experiment, the weight
displayed on my driver's license was once again accurate. Thirty
pounds and fifty years. I celebrated those two milestones together.
I hit mid century with a smile on my face
and with some smaller shirts and pants that fit me
just right. Ah, you're fifty half way to a hundred.
(04:46):
What a great feeling. However, the glory was short lived. Sure,
I felt great and I looked better, but I had
to shake my head after all that blood, sweat and tears.
I had to ask at what price had I achieved
my victori Having met my goal, I wondered if I
had lost some my sanity and accomplishing it, had I
gone bonkers? Imagine yourself getting on elliptical machine every day,
(05:09):
sometimes even twice a day, and at the end of
the workout, you looked at what you had done the machine,
said I went four point one miles. But every time
I got off of that machine and stepped on the ground,
I could verify it plainly, I had not moved an inch.
And consider the other machine I mastered, the StairMaster. I
love that word. Picture the master of stairs, the intimidating
(05:31):
StairMaster machine. When I was done for the day, said
I had climbed one hundred and twenty floors while wheezing
and running out of breath. In the real world, having
mounted that tower, I could have been looking forward to
a much easier walk down those same floors. Then it
hit me that simple pleasure was denied. I had not
moved even one story. I was standing in the same
spot ground levels when I started, right next to an
(05:54):
immobile machine. Who am I kidding? Anyway? I can't even
claim to be master of my own waistline, lonesome, non
existent stairs. And even though we already established jogging is
not my thing, Once in a while, I did give
it a shot, and I tackled a small indoor running
track on this infamous gym of mine. Eleven laps were
equal to a mile. My goal was usually three miles,
(06:15):
but I was never quite sure whether I made it
or not. Needing all my focus to keep from stopping,
I would lose track of the lapse. Did I just
finish lap twenty one or was that only lap twenty
I found myself struggling to count to thirty three. Oh,
I didn't get this. There was a sign on the
track saying walkers could use the inside lane and joggers
had to use the outside. Well, when there were no
(06:37):
walkers on the track, I just went ahead and jogged
on the inside lane. Yet somehow that made me feel
as though I was cheating. These manufactured encounters in the
gym were insane in my world, and they took their
toll on me. So what did I do to get
my sanity back? I did the same thing any lazy
fifty year old would do. I'd gladly quit that gym membership,
and I went right back to my old habits. I
(06:58):
reacquainted myself with my fat and I eagerly assumed my
nightly snack habit. And with the fifty dollars per month
membership savings, I was able to spend that cash much
more wisely. I no longer had to force myself to
take the long way around the Walgreen store. When going
to the pharmacy to pick up my high blood pressure medicine,
I went back to taking the shortcut through the candy aisle.
(07:19):
It's only a dollar thirty nine for a box of
milk duds, and better yet, if I buy three at once,
it's an even better deal at three for three dollars.
That ain't no fuzzy math. Over the next several months,
those thirty pounds were sure a lot easier to put
back on than they were to take off. Much more
enjoyable too. Reflecting on that rebound, I think that perhaps
there's a correlation between sanity and the size of your waist. Obviously,
(07:43):
sane people have bigger bellies. However, I guess it is
possible that's just me just to find the size of
my girth. But whatever you do, don't ask my daughter
if I got my wits back. If you do, she
most likely will say I never had any real sanity
in the first place, which I would reply, that's insane.
(08:03):
At age fifty I was a somewhat fit, bald, sane
old man. But then at age fifty one, I had
once again become that guy you hid to play pickup
basketball with you know who I'm talking about, that guy
at whom you would shake your head at during the
pickup game between the Shirts and the Skins, a fifty
one year old with a beer belly and a hairy back,
his tongue dragging on the floor, sweat pouring from his armpits,
(08:25):
surely unable to dribble or dunk, but somehow able to
make a three point shot, but only taking that shot
because he didn't have the energy to run the whole court.
That's me to a t except for the part about
making a three point shot. I didn't make them, I
could only take them. This fitness roller coaster I was
on has led me to this conclusion. There was a
(08:46):
need for balance in there somewhere. Leisure and exercise can
go hand in hand, and I was reminded that exercising
is a lot easier and much more fun when there's
a competition involved. What I miss are the days of
doing real exercise, nothing contrived, no spandex and no make up,
no Shan Tia on DVD and no neon shoes and
(09:07):
maybe best of all, no monthly gym membership coming out
of my credit card. I exercised for free in my
old days, and I enjoyed it. I miss running up
and down the Emas Lutheran Church Gymnasium with my high
school buddies Lyle, Gooker, Levi and the Monster, playing hoops
at full speed late at night and sweating it out
the old fashioned way. I miss playing pick up touch
football games on Sunday afternoons down at Running Park my
(09:29):
friend Soupy on the receiving end of my wobbly passes,
where we played on real grass, water by the rains,
not by an irrigation system. These are the kinds of
way the guys should be exercising. I suspect that my
friends and siblings would tell me that those long lost
efforts in street ball and pick up games did little
to improve my sanity. But still I felt like a
normal guy back then, and that was good enough for me.
(09:53):
I do applaud the efforts of those men women and
menion wearing daughters working out in spandex doing workouts to
a video called Insanity or P ninety X. As for me,
I've got to go. It's late at night, my stomach
is growling, and sh I think there are some peanuts
left in the pantry oh, and stay tuned for the
(10:13):
sequel of this experiment coming out in a couple of
years when I turned sixty. But between now and then,
I think I'll make things a bit easier. I'll say
goodbye to my lazy boy chair, and I'll go play
outside with the grandkids. And then I'll go with my
daughter on a nice long walk.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And you've been listening to Paul tell his story of
his battle with insanity and fitness. And thanks to Greg
Hangler for finding the story, sharing it, and producing it.
Paul's battle with insanity and fitness his story. It's my
story too. Here on our American Stories
This is our American stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. Our next story comes to
us from Paul in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Paul moved our listeners
with his story Wilbur and the Empty Nester. We asked
him if he had any more. Here he is with
this story titled a baby Boomer's Battle with Insanity and fitness.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
A handful of years ago, I had to come to
grips and admit that I was fighting a losing battle,
trying shamelessly to hold onto my youth, and so I
made an executive decision. Here's the deal. I was six
months from hitting the dreaded age of fifty. I was
not only over the hill, but I was also out
of shape. I had gotten lazy, and I had become
a viewer and critic of the sports I loved rather
(00:52):
than a participant. It was the dead of a frozen
Minnesota winter and I was feeling fat. I decided I
needed to tell myself to get into reasonable shape. It
would be easy. I would start exercising more and get
back to my college weight before the summer started, and
feel as young as ever at six foot six the
thirty pounds I had gained over the years, came on
(01:13):
easily and slowly year after year as I settled into
my career as a computer programmer. But at age forty nine,
I had to face the facts. It was time to
stop blaming my clothes dryer for my tightly fitting shirts.
Time to fess up that my scale is not broken,
no matter how many times I stepped on it each
morning hoping for a better result. That shameful number displayed
was indeed correct. It was time to admit it. My
(01:36):
waistline was growing as steadily as the stock market, of
which by the way, I wasn't even taking advantage of.
Because I'm a stubborn German Catholic and much too conservative.
I knew if I wanted to correct this belt on
buckling dilemma, I had to take some drastic measures. I
had to pry myself off of my lazy boy chair,
which I more accurately call my fat chair. At first,
(01:57):
I thought, let's go the cheap route. I had a
stationary bike in my basement. Perhaps I should give it
a try. But when I went down there, I remembered
I was using it quite well as a clothes hanger,
and I didn't feel like finding a new home for
my dirty laundry. Then I thought, how about going the
digital or the old fashioned DVD video route? But insanity
and pnindiecs seemed like a stretch. There was no chance
(02:18):
I could force myself to mimic some dude on a DVD.
I had tried jogging in the past, but I would
spend those entire thirty minutes force myself as best I
could to keep from transforming my jog into a leisurely
walk and dreading every minute. So I went a different route.
I decided to do something I never thought I would do.
I pried open my wallet, took out my credit card,
(02:39):
handed it over to the friendly young lady at the
front desk, and for fifty dollars a month, I joined
a gym. Yes, I almost hate to admit it. I
became one of those urban adults on a mission. The
guys and girls you hear about prancing around the gym
trying to look like fashion models and college kids. Only
I was one of the few who didn't run around
(02:59):
with either fresh makeup on and skin type spandex workout
clothes or under armor sleeveless shirts peeking in merars at
finely toned bulging muscles. I was out there every day
in my baby sweats, going as hard as I could
on an elliptical machine set was maximum resistance, puffing and
puffing and leaving behind a pool sweat on the floor
below my machine. All the while I was getting strange
(03:22):
looks from those next to me, peddling as if they
were out for a Sunday stroll. I tried to figure
out how they do it. They make it look so easy.
Either I was in much worse shape than I thought,
or these other gym members were in incredible shape. But
I glanced at their machine now and then, and I
found the secret. They were not setting any resistance. It
(03:42):
was all a fraud, just for show. They were pretenders
then and there, as stubborn as I am, I decided
to do it the honest way. I don't have much
of the pride and prowess left in me that carried
me through my Bloomington Kennedy High school days. I was
no longer a slow and lumbering center riceman and the
Mighty Eagle Hack team. I was an old man now,
(04:02):
but a decisive one, just the way my old coach,
Jerry Peterson taught me to be I was going to
lose the weight. As a Minnesota native born into a
Catholic family of ten who settled into a middle class
neighborhood in Bloomington, I was a blue collar guy who
hated to lose, and I was not going to fail. And,
believe it or not, before I knew it, a mere
(04:25):
five months from the start of this experiment, the weight
displayed on my driver's license was once again accurate. Thirty
pounds and fifty years. I celebrated those two milestones together.
I hit mid century with a smile on my face
and with some smaller shirts and pants that fit me
just right. Ah, you're fifty half way to a hundred.
(04:46):
What a great feeling. However, the glory was short lived. Sure,
I felt great and I looked better, but I had
to shake my head after all that blood, sweat and tears.
I had to ask at what price had I achieved
my victori Having met my goal, I wondered if I
had lost some my sanity and accomplishing it, had I
gone bonkers? Imagine yourself getting on elliptical machine every day,
(05:09):
sometimes even twice a day, and at the end of
the workout, you looked at what you had done the machine,
said I went four point one miles. But every time
I got off of that machine and stepped on the ground,
I could verify it plainly, I had not moved an inch.
And consider the other machine I mastered, the StairMaster. I
love that word. Picture the master of stairs, the intimidating
(05:31):
StairMaster machine. When I was done for the day, said
I had climbed one hundred and twenty floors while wheezing
and running out of breath. In the real world, having
mounted that tower, I could have been looking forward to
a much easier walk down those same floors. Then it
hit me that simple pleasure was denied. I had not
moved even one story. I was standing in the same
spot ground levels when I started, right next to an
(05:54):
immobile machine. Who am I kidding? Anyway? I can't even
claim to be master of my own waistline, lonesome, non
existent stairs. And even though we already established jogging is
not my thing, Once in a while, I did give
it a shot, and I tackled a small indoor running
track on this infamous gym of mine. Eleven laps were
equal to a mile. My goal was usually three miles,
(06:15):
but I was never quite sure whether I made it
or not. Needing all my focus to keep from stopping,
I would lose track of the lapse. Did I just
finish lap twenty one or was that only lap twenty
I found myself struggling to count to thirty three. Oh,
I didn't get this. There was a sign on the
track saying walkers could use the inside lane and joggers
had to use the outside. Well, when there were no
(06:37):
walkers on the track, I just went ahead and jogged
on the inside lane. Yet somehow that made me feel
as though I was cheating. These manufactured encounters in the
gym were insane in my world, and they took their
toll on me. So what did I do to get
my sanity back? I did the same thing any lazy
fifty year old would do. I'd gladly quit that gym membership,
and I went right back to my old habits. I
(06:58):
reacquainted myself with my fat and I eagerly assumed my
nightly snack habit. And with the fifty dollars per month
membership savings, I was able to spend that cash much
more wisely. I no longer had to force myself to
take the long way around the Walgreen store. When going
to the pharmacy to pick up my high blood pressure medicine,
I went back to taking the shortcut through the candy aisle.
(07:19):
It's only a dollar thirty nine for a box of
milk duds, and better yet, if I buy three at once,
it's an even better deal at three for three dollars.
That ain't no fuzzy math. Over the next several months,
those thirty pounds were sure a lot easier to put
back on than they were to take off. Much more
enjoyable too. Reflecting on that rebound, I think that perhaps
there's a correlation between sanity and the size of your waist. Obviously,
(07:43):
sane people have bigger bellies. However, I guess it is
possible that's just me just to find the size of
my girth. But whatever you do, don't ask my daughter
if I got my wits back. If you do, she
most likely will say I never had any real sanity
in the first place, which I would reply, that's insane.
(08:03):
At age fifty I was a somewhat fit, bald, sane
old man. But then at age fifty one, I had
once again become that guy you hid to play pickup
basketball with you know who I'm talking about, that guy
at whom you would shake your head at during the
pickup game between the Shirts and the Skins, a fifty
one year old with a beer belly and a hairy back,
his tongue dragging on the floor, sweat pouring from his armpits,
(08:25):
surely unable to dribble or dunk, but somehow able to
make a three point shot, but only taking that shot
because he didn't have the energy to run the whole court.
That's me to a t except for the part about
making a three point shot. I didn't make them, I
could only take them. This fitness roller coaster I was
on has led me to this conclusion. There was a
(08:46):
need for balance in there somewhere. Leisure and exercise can
go hand in hand, and I was reminded that exercising
is a lot easier and much more fun when there's
a competition involved. What I miss are the days of
doing real exercise, nothing contrived, no spandex and no make up,
no Shan Tia on DVD and no neon shoes and
(09:07):
maybe best of all, no monthly gym membership coming out
of my credit card. I exercised for free in my
old days, and I enjoyed it. I miss running up
and down the Emas Lutheran Church Gymnasium with my high
school buddies Lyle, Gooker, Levi and the Monster, playing hoops
at full speed late at night and sweating it out
the old fashioned way. I miss playing pick up touch
football games on Sunday afternoons down at Running Park my
(09:29):
friend Soupy on the receiving end of my wobbly passes,
where we played on real grass, water by the rains,
not by an irrigation system. These are the kinds of
way the guys should be exercising. I suspect that my
friends and siblings would tell me that those long lost
efforts in street ball and pick up games did little
to improve my sanity. But still I felt like a
normal guy back then, and that was good enough for me.
(09:53):
I do applaud the efforts of those men women and
menion wearing daughters working out in spandex doing workouts to
a video called Insanity or P ninety X. As for me,
I've got to go. It's late at night, my stomach
is growling, and sh I think there are some peanuts
left in the pantry oh, and stay tuned for the
(10:13):
sequel of this experiment coming out in a couple of
years when I turned sixty. But between now and then,
I think I'll make things a bit easier. I'll say
goodbye to my lazy boy chair, and I'll go play
outside with the grandkids. And then I'll go with my
daughter on a nice long walk.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And you've been listening to Paul tell his story of
his battle with insanity and fitness. And thanks to Greg
Hangler for finding the story, sharing it, and producing it.
Paul's battle with insanity and fitness his story. It's my
story too. Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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