Crumbling Under An Immovable Object
I just got another DEXA Body Composition scan this morning. It said I am fat. I am surely not wound tight as I used to be, but truly fat? Maybe. I watch my diet, but this fifty-five-year-old body does not have the same workout capability that it once did. And I don’t have the physical will to sweat hard.
My stepbrother and I once saw a guy’s eye burst on the wall when he had as many plates on each side of the Smith machine as it would hold while doing squats. Our trainer was the runner-up Mr. America. It’s real. We went to the competition in Atlantic City. He was more orange than I’ve ever seen another human being be. I don’t know if it was all the tanning cream or his liver failing because of all the steroids.
I had meniscus surgery several years ago. If I play sports more than leisurely now, I fear busting my knee in another way. My back already sucks. I feel hobbled. I feel fat without an app telling me I am, but I am not going to go outside and go for a jog.
In law school, I used to lie in bed and feel my abs. It wasn’t a six-pack, but it wasn’t not a six-pack. Maybe a four-pack. I’m not twenty-two anymore. I can still drain the three, but I will not get injured again. I will watch the ball bounce from my local court down the hill and slowly go to retrieve it. I may breathe heavily.
Sometimes I walk with a twenty-pound vest. I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem to feel any different. I am still not convinced Whoop really works. Someone is just throwing darts and hoping for one bullseye a year. Maybe I’m hoping for the same.
I used to love working out. Now, I’d rather read a book. I don’t know who I would be impressing. How can I think I am fit and fat at the same time? Somehow, it’s possible. Maybe it’s more about forgetting how to have fun. I focus on things to avoid other things. What am I trying to scale, and why does the scale matter?
Writing is like looking in the mirror. The mirror reflects back what you want to see in that moment. My stepbrother and I used to have this mirror in Chappaqua that we still talk about. It has so many lights on top that no matter how clean your face was, it made you think you had acne everywhere. We would leave this bathroom, go into the other one, and say to each other, about each other, “Not that bad.” Maybe my scan is not that bad.
I’ve been putting everything I eat into ChatGPT and having it rate my meals based on how much weight I want to lose. It tells me I’ve been doing a great job. I don’t lie to the bot, but I wonder how much the bot lies to me. Does it look down the hallway to its friend and laugh before giving my lunch a 9.8/10?
A few women in law school secretly called me Popeye because my forearms were so thick when I got there. I worked out a lot at the time. I don’t do things in public enough now for anyone to notice anything about me. Green sneakers are enough. I might make excuses to myself a lot.
I’m crumbling under an immovable object, and that object is me.
© Jonathan Greene, August 7, 2026
