The salt for our home water softener is delivered in 50-pound bags. The bags are left on our front porch and I drag them down to the basement to pour their crystalline contents into the water softener tank. This has been a regular process for a decade, but the most recent salt delivery included a bonus — an epiphany.

As I lifted a 50-pound bag over my left shoulder and started for the basement, it struck me that since beginning a bariatric surgery process on Sept. 1, I have lost 120 pounds, nearly two and a half of the 50-pound bags of salt. I wasn’t ready to navigate the basement stairs carrying three bags of salt, but I did manipulate a second bag over my right shoulder and started for the basement.

I was lumbering, slow, hesitant and felt crushed under the extra 100 pounds of salt, but I walked a few circles in the kitchen, trying to reconcile the idea that just a few months ago, I carried that much weight, plus another 20 pounds, on my frame every day.

Setting down one bag was a relief. Setting down the second bag was a revelation.

At the beginning of the bariatric surgery process, I weighed 380 pounds. My current 260 is more than an adjustment of aesthetics and habits; it is a reclamation of my life. Not quite four months after the sleeve procedure, which involved the removal of 85 percent of my stomach through laparoscopic surgery, I continue to break through plateaus and lose pounds. My eventual goal is to get down to 225 or so, the weight I was when I graduated from high school, and then maintain around that weight forever and ever, amen.

I remain on a high-protein, minimal sugar and low-carbohydrate diet, and I am often asked if I miss food, both quality and quantity.

Yes. Yes, I do. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. I miss quaffing Coke. I miss pasta, especially Mueller’s spaghetti with Ragu tomato sauce, ground beef and fresh, warm bread, all doused with a snowfall of grated Parmesan cheese. I miss breads in general, and McDonald’s french fries and Wendy’s cheeseburgers and Fricker’s buffalo wings and the parade of cookies, candy and ice cream that pass by my eyes at parties, grocery stores and restaurants.

I miss eating more than a few spoonfuls at a time.

But I do not miss those things enough to lose the ground I have gained through the weight I have lost.

On the last day before Christmas vacation began, I ran and played tag with my 6-year-old son, Evan, in the driveway as he waited for the school bus. We chased each other in circles and froze in time-out spots and laughed as we slipped by each other’s outreached hands. I do not believe Evan recognized the moment as the landmark event it was, but after nearly six years of sitting by as Evan and his younger brother Sean ran and played and tried without success to get me to join them, I felt a burst of “hallelujah!” that still makes me smile.

I would not trade that game of tag with my son for an ocean of spaghetti and meat sauce, or a lifetime supply of crispy, saucy chicken wings from Fricker’s.

In tandem with food discipline, I have been unshakably dedicated to exercising an hour every day. I am simply walking, at a decent but not record-setting pace, for at least one hour every day. (Not that speed has ever been my strong suit. My Libbey High School football coach, Dave Merritt, used to say he should time my 40-yard dash with a calendar. Assistant coach Fred Wesoloski once asked how, since I moved so slowly, the sperm that became me beat all the others to my mother’s egg. I believe my response was that the sperm carrying me must have eaten all its competitors).

I usually walk during lunch hour for three laps on a one-mile course through Downtown Toledo, down Monroe Street, along Summit Street, north on Washington Street and across 10th Street. During the holiday vacation weeks, I experienced a number of different paths. Visiting friends in Fort Wayne, Ind., our walking path took us to Parkview Field, home of the Fort Wayne TinCaps baseball team. It’s a marvelous facility, newer than our Fifth Third Field if not as ambitious and regal, but it has one friendly advantage over the home of the Mud Hens; it stays open every day for walkers to circle its nearly one-mile pavilion lap. It’s still outdoors, but it is safer than dodging car traffic and fosters a great affinity for the facility. Perhaps the difference between the growth in downtown Fort Wayne and the stagnancy in Downtown Toledo can be summed up in the difference in attitude between the open and utilized Parkview Field and the locked and empty Fifth Third Field.

On Christmas Day, I watched the sun rise as I walked a three-mile path around Big Fish Lake in Ortonville, Mich. Snow had dusted the trees and freezing lake, and the Christmas morning was silent except for the geese and the crunch of snow under my feet. It was a peaceful, spiritual walk, one I never would have contemplated before I dropped 120 pounds of fat from my bones.

My New Year’s Day walk was 1,500 miles south, on the Don Soffer Exercise Trail in Aventura, Fla. That path, circling a golf course, is also three miles, but that is where its similarity to Big Fish Lake ends. The Soffer trail is lush with green palms and tropical plants, flush with flamingos and iguanas and geckos. It is also a display area for people with great tenacity and athleticism (T&A). T&A is in abundant display in South Florida, at beaches, pools, clubs, shopping malls, temples, etc., but the Soffer trail is home to some of the finest T&A a married Midwesterner is likely to see in an environment without shiny silver poles.

It’s damn inspiring.

I am loathe to admit I enjoy exercise and walking, regardless of the path, weather or scenery. And while I am walking farther and slightly faster each week, I am still no Usain Bolt; I tried jogging once, but the resulting brontosaurus-like, Richter-scale motion was a freakish blend of Miller walking and jogging I called “Millogging.” It wasn’t pretty.

But as the weeks and months have slipped by, I find that hour of moving not only breaks up my day, it energizes my mind and inspires my still-adjusting legs and feet.

The bariatric surgery and resulting 120-pound weight loss have changed everything for the better. What is a piece of bread compared to playing tag with my son? What is a glass of Coke in relation to seeing a Christmas Day sunrise over a snow-dusted lake? What is a cheeseburger next to the sensory indulgence of tropical birds, green palms and inspiring T&A?

My journey is not easy, and will not end until I do. But I no longer sit like a sloth and watch life speed by.

I move. I may not move as fast as life does, but I move. Therefore, I am.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: bariatric surgery, Coke, Fricker's, Lighting The Fuse, McDonald's, Michael S. Miller, Wendy's

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2013 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
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Beer, food and TVs: Sports bars know exactly how to draw crowds in for football and hockey season. With the NFL season starting Sept. 9 and Walleye Hockey beginning the second week of October, pubs in Toledo have a busy schedule ahead of them.

For Toledo Players Sports Bar on Jefferson Avenue, which opened March 4, this is its first football and hockey season. Elicka Zieroff, owner of Players, can’t wait.

“Once the Downtown closes, it seems like it’s dead, at least Monday through Thursday,” Zieroff said. “With the Huntington Center across the street, I can’t wait for the sports arena to start up.”

Players will offer bucket specials and $2 domestic bottles during Walleye game nights. The first week of September Players will offer buy-one-get-one starters, Zieroff said.

Zieroff said she has been paying attention to the NFL Sunday Ticket to anticipate the big games. Jim Manley, marketing director for Fricker’s USA, also mentioned this tactic. Fricker’s is celebrating its 25th year of business.

“We’ve got the NFL Sunday Ticket — there are no blackouts. We’re able to carry every game,” Manley said.

With a minimum of 20 TVs in each restaurant, Fricker’s has invested a lot of money in its hardware. Manley said several Fricker’s locations recently upgraded its TVs, using a starting budget of $300,000.

“Football is extraordinarily popular in our stores with all of the TVs,” Manley said. “We are the place for football.”

In addition to making sure Fricker’s shows professional and college games, Fricker’s offers a different food special every day, according to Manley. Fricker’s has three locations in Toledo.

“We’ve worked very, very hard to keep our bottom line low. With back to school time, people don’t have the monetary ends to pay high prices,” Manley said. “Maumee has had dollar domestic beer for years.”

Parkway Sports Bar in Maumee is gearing up for the football crowd with new daily deals on beer and food. Specials include dollar margaritas on taco nights, pitcher discounts and $10 steak dinners on Thursdays, according to General Manager Zee Lewis.

“This is definitely a football bar,” Lewis said. “The previous owner’s son played for OSU, Dane Sanzenbacher. So there are a lot of big Ohio State fans in this place.”

Besides a loyal Ohio State fan base, Parkway has a strong Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns following.

“We usually have a lot of the same customers, but a lot of new people come in once they get to know the specials,” Lewis said.

Parkway has a big screen TV, as well as six other TVs throughout the bar. Its biggest event of the year is the OSU-Michigan game, when it has a large buffet potluck of hot dogs and hamburgers, Lewis said.

Tags: Fricker's, Toledo Players Sports Bar

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Dining Out, Special Section.
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