The Physical Shinn (Prior)
Last update: January 4, 2026
The John Shinnick Website
The Physical Shin
A Triumph and a Setback
Last month I talked about what I call the Fiscal Eating Season. We have it every year starting with either the first United Way Bake Sale if you work for a company that engages in such things, or Halloween if you don’t. It ends on Valentine’s Day. We tend to pig out and pay the price every time we step on the scales. I sure did. This was never a big problem for me until I realized that the CDC was calling me “obese”.
It was somewhere in the middle of 2025 that I decided to drop from my obese weight of 218.5 and eventually get down to what I weighed the last time I felt comfortable, which was 185. That was when I was practicing martial arts and being good to myself. Usually. But gradually the number crept up to as high as 230 or so. 218 was thus not as alarming as it should have been, but as I’ve chronicled on these pages, I set my sights once again on my age-old goal of 185, thinking that if I ever got to where it simply didn’t start with a 2, I’d likely declare victory and let it go at that.
But I got under 200 and didn’t stop. With no special diet except counting calories and cutting portion sizes, I managed to keep heading downward. My biggest triumph was the annual cheese my investment folks sent me. In years past, it lasted at most a week. This time it lasted three, and I balanced it by cutting back on other treats. I got under 195, then 190, and in my immediate future, a colonoscopy!
A colonoscopy isn’t usually cause for celebration, but this time there was an added benefit: between my insides being cleaned out, it required a full day of nothing but Jello. The last thing I did before the taxi picked me up was to weigh myself. 184! I’d made it. It had been over twenty years, but I had actually reached my goal, beating it by a full pound.
Okay, not really. The method wasn’t sustainable by any means. Further, the “procedure was on December 22, and I had about a day and a half to finish preparing for Christmas with my family. I had to wrap all kinds of… dare I say it… chocolate stocking stuffers. Had I really overbought that much? Sadly (or fortunately, depending on perspective) I felt rather guilty about feeding others so much junk food when I was trying to be good myself. So, of course, the excess went into my refrigerator.
By the time I returned home after four days of pigging out, I stepped on my scales and found that I was now over 191. And all that chocolate was all in my fridge! I looked at serving sizes and calories for each. Yes, chocolates have nutrition labels too. A serving size is generally two to four pieces and will come to perhaps 150 to 200 calories. I’ve NEVER eaten just two to four pieces of chocolate. Was such a feat even humanly possible? Could I duplicate what I’d done with the cheese a month earlier?
It's no mistake that this is the same pic that I used on my homeowner page. As with the rest of my colonoscopies, I spent lots of time here as I prepared for it. It was a pleasure. Sort of.
Yes, chocolates have nutrition labels too. A serving size is generally two to four pieces and will come to perhaps 150 to 200 calories. I’ve NEVER eaten just two to four pieces of chocolate. Was such a feat even humanly possible? Could I duplicate what I’d done with the cheese a month earlier?
So far so good. I got back on track as I headed into 2026. The chocolate will have to last until the end of January at least. That will be generally limiting myself to one standard “serving size” per day. But if I can do that, I can maybe, just maybe, reach 173 by March 3, 2026. 173? For someone of my height, that’s no longer overweight. It’s normal. What a concept. Why March 3? My birthday. I’ll be 75. I don’t know that being “average” will be enough incentive to get there, but I should really make an effort.
Which all begs the question about my colonoscopy. Actually, it was both ends, so to speak. There was also an endoscopy. In all, four polyps were removed and biopsied, and they didn’t show anything that needed addressing. See you in five years. Of course, I still don’t know what the odd sensation in my lower abdomen is, but I’m sure we’ll find out. I had to stop taking Eliquis for four days, but I didn’t have a stroke and I’m back to my normal regimen of drugs. I haven’t been in Afib for half a year now, and my PSA is still stable. So I’m thinking that life is good.
