Body for MY Wife

It was 20 years ago today that I told Sgt. Pepper to go fuck himself.

I was through with all his Lonely Hearts Club bullshit, because September 8, 1989 is the day I met my wonderful wife, and I’ve never been lonely since.

Awwwwww…

Please don’t get all bent out of shape thinking this is some kind of sappy love letter. You should know me better than that. Yeah, I wrote one, but I’ll be damned if I’d ever let you read it. This is just another one of my stupid stories, so sit back and enjoy, or feel superior, or whatever.

When we met I was 21 and she was 18 and it was at the frosh cabaret at the University of Calgary. I remember a lot about that night. I remember that she had on a snug-fitting sweater that had horizontal stripes that created an appealing visual effect. I remember thinking how beautiful she was (and still is). I remember being smitten because not only was she very attractive, but also brilliant and driven and a bunch of other terrific things that you probably don’t care about because she’s mine, not yours. I remember a guy from her high school trying to move in and her asking me to get rid of him. I remember that the band sucked.

She’d broken up with her high school boyfriend just a few weeks earlier and I was supposed to be the rebound guy. I think twenty years is a pretty impressive rebound.

I knew I wanted to marry her very early in our relationship. I’d dated a number of other girls, but there was never any question that she was the one. However, because we were young I wasn’t in a hurry. We both had school to deal with, and we could always just shack up in the mean time.

We’d talked about getting married and timing and all that, and she asserted that she wanted to finish med school first, so I figured out a reasonable time to pop the question would be in advance of her med school graduation that still left enough time for wedding preparations.

I determined that Valentine’s Day about 15 months prior to graduation would be a good time and I started saving for an engagement ring. We’d been together for about four years at that point, and living together sinfully for two of those. Our relationship was going great and I had no question about wanting to marry her.

There was just one problem: I’d gotten fat.

Now before you go thinking that my wife is shallow, I know she still would have said “yes” if I’d never gotten in shape. Nevertheless, I figured dropping some flab before popping the question might be a good idea. There was also the fact that we’d just returned from a summer vacation in British Columbia and this photo made me realize just how much of a porker I’d become.

Now I’d tried getting in shape a few times before and never lasted more than a couple of weeks, but the above photo made me feel a little more determined. I was less fortunate than you, however, because I didn’t have the content of this most awesome book to guide me. I just stumbled along on my own, getting bits and pieces of advice here and there, and somehow managed to succeed.

See, I came at it from a relatively realistic approach. I didn’t buy into any miracles and knew that I had to eat better, eat less, and exercise, so that’s what I did. For the first couple of months the only exercise I did was a stair climber. I think it was made by Universal and remembered that, out of the three different types of step machines at my gym, it was the one that actually gave a decent workout.

I didn’t lose much weight at the beginning, and I hated doing it, and I missed fast food, and l really wondered if it was worth it. I remember almost quitting a little more than two months in. My wife (then girlfriend) was away for the weekend and I did the “cat’s away” thing, spending it in a haze of drunken gluttony with a couple of my friends. I inhaled several thousand calories worth of beer, chicken wings, beer, pizza, beer, KFC, and beer. It had also been almost a week since I’d had any exercise and I was thinking that just a couple of days of pigging out had undone all my efforts of the previous months. Not only that, but I was buried in work for a graduate degree and time was at a premium.

But I decided to give it another shot, and I got lucky. I’d made the acquaintance of the head trainer at the gym – the same gym I work out at now at the University of Calgary – and he told me I should start lifting weights. To be honest, it had never really occurred to me. I just wanted to not be fat; I’d never really thought about getting buff. He gave me a few pointers and I gave it a try and found that I liked it. Then I read some books and ended up hiring the aforementioned trainer for a few sessions to gain some more expertise.

Gaining muscle was a slow process for me. I’m not genetically programmed to either lose body fat or build muscle, but fortunately I was enjoying the process enough to stick with it. I did see the muscles grow, but I didn’t exactly explode with hugeness. Hell, I’m not huge now. I think I barely qualify as “big.”

I eventually got sick of the stair climber thing because, well, they suck. I tried a few other things and ended up doing some swimming, cycling, a bit of soccer, the odd fitness class, and occasionally running. It was only about six years ago that I really got serious on the running, and that was when I went from having a flat stomach to actually being able to see some of my abdominal muscles.

I should mention that when I proposed I was only five months in to my glacially slow transformation. I wasn’t looking remotely like an underwear model yet, but I had dropped about 20 pounds and my friends no longer called me “fat boy.” It took ten months before I really felt like I had accomplished something to be proud of. It was summer again, and I’ll admit to getting a kick out of taking my shirt off. Just FYI, I still get a kick out of that.

Another thing that hasn’t diminished is my love for my wife. Okay, I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to read about that.

I will say though that I’m pretty happy about the way my life has turned out, and I owe a lot it to my wife, but also to getting in shape. Being healthy, having a high performance body and looking good makes me happy. Yes, I realize that my book is called Body for Wife, but that’s mostly a marketing gimmick. I know my wife appreciates it, but mostly I’m doing this for me.

In conclusion, I’d like to thank my wife for an awesome 20 years, and hope that we’ve got three times that coming our way together.

Want to receive updates of new content? Fill out the form below. I keep your email private and you can unsubscribe any time.