OPINION: The TV, ads and the dumbbells

How, and more specifically when, do we change?

I’m no remarkable man, but I know when I need to change. Knowing is half the battle. These days, for me to make a sizable difference, it feels like a whole change in lifestyle is the only way dramatic enough to stick.

Here’s an example. I’ve been losing weight again (yippee!) by simply counting calories. It’s a brutal limit between 1,600 and 1,800 per day. For me, who has eaten whole pizzas for fun, it’s been an eyeopener.

It’s simple, right? Eat less to lose weight. It’s about as scientifically complex as don’t stand in front of a charging bull wearing red unless you want a new hole in your torso, so why did it take so long to get here?

Turns out, when I start analyzing the food I eat, I prefer to eat healthier items. Then, because I’m eating less, I’m saving money. Suddenly, I feel great in the morning when I see I’ve lost weight. Yet, I wonder why now is the time I’ve become obsessive over this?

Why do we change? Why does it take so long? Why didn’t we start sooner? Why now, and not then?

I have zero clue why my brain reoriented itself to follow my new personal rule. One day, I tried limiting myself, and I didn’t stop. There are times I don’t like this new challenge, mostly when I hit my limit early in the day. But I’ve kept it going.

My body hasn’t changed significantly, even if I know the number is going down. Why am I willing to keep going here over any other time?

I exercised at home every day for three weeks in a row in January. I wrote a column where I mentioned this. Ironically, the day after that column was published, I stopped. I never figured out why I stopped. One day I was too tired and I never tried again.

I didn’t think I was pushing myself too hard. I was enjoying the feeling of being healthy. It’s annoying to me how my brain will drop something universally good in the longterm just because I needed a break for one day.

So what’s different now? Why am I sticking to this calorie deficit routine? And, in a scary, ever-present analysis of the future, will I one day stop this too?

I probably will cheat at some point. I’ll go overboard and eat four double cheeseburgers or cook a pound of bacon just to snarf it all down over the next hour. I’m not perfect, nor should I expect to be, surely.

But, I should expect to be good. I need to make good choices. My body is a temple, I’ll make good choices.

At this point, the good thing to do should be my only focus. I want to lose weight, and so I should work toward that. Thinking through each question as if there’s a solid answer isn’t beneficial.

Stick with me for a bit.

I love TV, the whole concept. It’s similar to how I love everything to do with movie theaters. The idea of regular programming, sometimes live, sometimes new, sometimes old, sometimes classic, sometimes dumb and always there, is appealing.

One day, the world changed when video killed the radio star. Radio sticks around though. And so does the TV, even when access to stimulating content is being carried around in our phones. I hate anything that my phone tries to get me addicted to. I hate the feeling of endless scrolling through social media feeds.

I mentioned a while ago in another column how owning a live TV plan is a lifestyle change. They’re wildly expensive, exhaustingly dependent on a user’s free time and littered with ads interrupting the flow of the program.

But the idea of television, imperfect and exhausting as its existence is, might be perfect for me. At home, I’m a couch potato and spend way too much time sitting around in front of the TV. What if whatever I was watching was chopped up into pieces with advertising filler? There would be clear breaks to do, well, anything else.

For generations, as I’ve seen in my parents and grandparents, the TV was how they relaxed. They found a channel playing their favorite shows, and did anything else while they watched. As a kid, I remember being fascinated with the TV guide, getting excited for movies which were scheduled on cable channels.

During ads, they would do anything. Check on the cooking, go grab the mail, do laundry, knit, talk, clean, complain or do anything else.

Was TV a better way of finding entertainment? Not in comparison to streaming services, I guess. But, as I’ve become increasingly cynical to the idea of choice in entertainment and how it’s obscured by algorithms on these services, maybe the TV, with its routines and general audience non-targeted ads, wasn’t all that bad.

And hey, if the dumbbells in the corner of my living room get a few reps in during a commercial break, how bad would that really be?

I waste so much time trying to decide what to do. The other night, I spent two genuine hours deciding what movie to watch. I could have watched a movie in that time. Analysis paralysis is real to me. Sometimes routine, and the excitement of an 8 p.m. show, is better than spontaneity.