I don’t consider what I am about to say as sensational, to be honest I really wish it was just me trying to be dramatic. I find that I have a growing aversion to using my web browser to browse the web. Browsing the Web today feels like an exercise in futility, especially so when done from my phone. I can’t help but feel like I am under a constant assault be advertisements.

Don’t get me wrong, the web has always been filled with its fair share of annoyances. Anyone who suffered through the early days of the web will recall (possibly with some nostalgic fondness) the days of blinking red text, under construction warnings, dancing babies and many other excentricities. I would be amiss if I didn’t at least mention “Geocities” and leave it at that.

But today it’s a different experience that really seems to be getting progressively worse. Corporate and individual monetization efforts have transformed the typical web browsing experience into what I would have to describe as an advertisement filled nightmare.

If it was just static advertisements, I might feel less anger towards the entire situation. Those could be largely ignored. But static ads are old-web. That’s just not in your face enough. And so the pop-up advertisement was born.

With the goal of maximizing the readers focus not on the advertisment, these in your face scourges are very often impossible to close without forcing the reader away from the content they want to read over to the context the advertiser wants you to buy.

Click this miniscule “X” to close this ad. Sure. Nine times out of ten the “X” is either too small, taking you out of the page, or it’s not designed to actually close the ad at all leading one on more unexpected jumps and journeys. And this problem is even worse on your phone where everything is smaller.

Is Monetization Worth It?

I find myself wondering if the decision to ruin a web page with advertisements it ever really worth it for the vast majority of people publishing content on the web. Is it making these people rich? In most cases I imagine it isn’t because revenue from advertisement is driven by traffic to the page.

Pages with large followings (corporate or influencer) I am sure make decent money from advertisements and people grin and bear it because they have to to gain access to whatever the subject of their desire happens to be. But to someone just starting out or with a small following it simply becomes a detractor. It certainly makes me less likely to return.

The saying “to each his own” aptly applies in this situation of course, but it’s exhausting for the reader, the intended audience. Yet people go down the monetization rabbit hole all the time in their attempts to be an entrepreneur. I won’t ever have advertisements here for two reasons:

• I hate them. Pretty straight forward, if I had advertisements and pop-ups here I would hate the site and never want to visit it, what would the point be then?
• I have full time work. I’m not looking to be my own boss. I enjoy working in a team in a corporate environment on projects that I am passionate about. What about when I retire you might ask. Nope, see point #1.

Gopher… What?

Recently I rekindled my interest in a truly ancient internet technology called “gopher”. Gopher was the precursor to the modern web that everyone knows today. It is in many ways a text based “web page” that can be browsed using the gopher protocol or via a conventional web browser using a site that bridges the gap between the web and gopher.

According to Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol), Gopher was created by a team led by Mark P. McCahill at the University of Minnesota. The design of the Gopher protocol and user interface is menu-driven, and presented an alternative to the World Wide Web in its early stages, but ultimately fell into disfavor, yielding to Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The Gopher ecosystem is often regarded as the effective predecessor of the World Wide Web.

The gopher experience is radically different that the modern web experience. Content is organized in text based menus and displayed without any pomp and circumstance outside of the occasional ue of ascii art (another lost treasure of the web).

What sets it apart is that it is blissfully advertisement free. I can’t recall ever seeing any type of advertisement, certainly not when using a terminal to browse gopher. Pop-ups? Not a problem, or if there is some kind of pop out it is easily closed by hitting the escape key.

What you see is what you get which is refreshing beyond belief. And as someone who has authored his own gopher pages in the past, it couldn’t be simpler. All of your effort goes into the content text (with maybe some ASCII art thrown in for good measure).

Archaic? Maybe. But something I encourage people to check out when they have some time. And to some extent, a throwback that makes me yearn for the past when we were largely devoid of advertisements.

AI Alternative?

Is there an AI alternative we might consider. Artificial Intelligence, the buzz word that is everywhere, the technology that promotes the stars and sometimes delivering. Could AI help us with the problem of advertisements on web pages?

Turns out that the answer is yes. Feeding Gemini the following prompt:

“I am looking for the most popular allrecipes.com pancake recipe. Render a version of that page without advertisements or pop up distractions.”

Generated: Based on Allrecipes.com data, the “Good Old-Fashioned Pancakes” recipe is the most popular pancake recipe on the site. It is currently the most-reviewed recipe of all time on Allrecipes, with over 16,000 reviews and nearly 20,000 ratings averaging 4.6 stars.

Here is the distraction-free version of the page:

Good Old-Fashioned Pancakes Submitted by: Dakota Kelly | Updated: August 14, 2025 Rating: ★★★★★ 4.6 (19,974 Ratings)

“I found this pancake recipe in my Grandma’s recipe book. Judging from the weathered look of this recipe card, this was a family favorite.”

Recipe Overview

• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 20 mins
• Servings: 8
• Yield: 8 pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
• 1 ¼ cups milk
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 large egg

Directions

• Sift Dry Ingredients: In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
• Make the Batter: Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Pour in the milk, melted butter, and egg. Mix until smooth.
• Heat the Pan: Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium-high heat.
• Cook: Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes, or until bubbles form on the surface and the edges look dry.
• Flip & Finish: Flip the pancakes and cook until browned on the other side. Repeat with any remaining batter.
• Serve: Serve hot with your favorite toppings.

Kitchen Notes & Tips

• When to Flip: Watch for bubbles forming on top and the edges setting (drying out). This usually happens after 2-3 minutes.
• Storage: Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.
• Freezing:
  • Cooked: Cool completely, flash freeze in a single layer, then transfer to a freezer bag. Reheat in a 350°F oven.
  • Batter: Freeze in serving-size portions in freezer bags for up to one month. Thaw in the fridge overnight.

Community Tweaks:

• Many reviewers suggest adding a splash of vanilla extract or a dash of cinnamon for extra flavor. For fluffier pancakes, ensure you do not overmix the batter; small lumps are acceptable.

Nutrition Facts (Per Serving)

• Calories: 158
• Fat: 6g (3g Saturated)
• Carbs: 22g (4g Sugar, 1g Fiber)
• Protein: 5g
• Sodium: 504mg

Wow, assuming Gemini didn’t hallucinate in its reply this is a significanlty less painful experience than using the actual website. No popups, clean and to the point. No unexpected page refreshes due to some poorly designed javascript/etc. re-loading etc. I would be so bold as to say the experience is head and shoulders better than going to the actual site.

Conclusion

I don’t know what the solution is to this growing problem that monetization has forced upon the web. On one hand the knowledge that is at my fingertips is enticing. But that enthusiasm gets tempered by the dred of what I know I am likely to encounter when I venture out. What is the solution? I am not sure if there is one definitive solution, but I will continue to explore the options.

If you ask a heavy person to name something they feel is impossible to do at their weight, there is a strong chance that “running” would make their top ten list. I felt this way myself and didn’t think I would ever be able to run again because of my weight.

But I am happy to report that I was wrong. Running is possible when you are overweight if you approach it in the right way. And as I approach my first running anniversary, I thought I would take some time to share the strategies that I used to get back into running, stay injury-free, and actually begin to enjoy running.

My Doctor’s Advice

As an overweight person, I probably saw my doctor more than most people. I was on a cocktail of prescription drugs designed to keep my poor lifestyle choices in check.

It was during one of these wellness checks that I came to confront my weight and talk to my doctor about a diet and exercise plan. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to share your fitness plans with your doctor. — if for no other reason than to have them clear you medically to begin.

In my case, he strongly recommended that I put running on hold and start with a solid walking program. Walking… really?

Low-Impact vs. High-Impact Exercise at Higher Body Weight

In the past, I have been guilty of not following my doctor’s advice. But this time around I decided to listen to what he was saying and not jump right back into running. Walking wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I decided to give it a chance, and it is something that I strongly suggest you consider too.

According to a 2016 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, the forces generated by running are almost 50% greater than those generated during either normal or incline walking:

“Peak vertical ground reaction force was 49% greater per impact during running than during incline walking. Moreover, the frequency of impact (steps per minute) during running was 32% greater than during incline walking, compounding the potential orthopedic stress.

Thus, the product of peak VGRF and step frequency was 97% greater during running than walking uphill at the same aerobic intensity.”

The study goes on to indicate how peak VGRF is directly related to body mass: The higher the body mass, the higher VGRF.

But even before I started walking way back in 2019, I knew it wasn’t a good idea for me to start running at the weight I was — I had a gut feeling telling me to listen to my doctor.

So with the encouragement of my dog, who was all too happy to go on as many walks as I wanted, I embarked on a walking program to kick-start my fitness back from the dead.

I started with a small distance of just over a mile at a slow (18-minute mile) pace. The beauty of a low-impact exercise is that its recovery time following the activity can be quite short. Walking, for example, is something that an overweight person can eventually do on a daily basis.

Listening to your body is an important skill that you can also start to build at this time. If something doesn’t feel right, take a day off. The goal here is to avoid injury. The more you can avoid injury, the more you can do the exercise and begin making it into a habit.

Building a habit takes time. You have to commit to a schedule and execute without fail. If you fall off the horse, get back on the schedule and learn from the experience.

This can also be helpful when it comes to friends and family. Taking an hour out of your day, every day or on whatever schedule you determine, will eventually come up against conflicts.

When people around you see your commitment to doing the activity without fail, they will be more supportive and less likely to try and convince you to break your schedule.

Commit to 3+ Months of Walking

My advice is to commit to three months or more of a low-impact walking routine before you consider transitioning to running. Once you reach the point where you can walk 3.1 miles (5k), try to slowly increase your walking pace.

While this will not change the impact your body is feeling from walking, it will start to improve your base cardio level. By this point, your body will have started to adjust to a more active lifestyle.

When I reached this point, around four months had passed. Between walking and my diet, I had started to see some positive changes in my health and weight.

I went back to my doctor, who told me to keep doing what I had been doing. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check back in with your doctor at this point as well.

OMG, I Can’t Walk Down the Stairs

The morning after I decided to try running for part of my daily walk, my body was in complete revolt. The months of walking didn’t prepare me for the levels of soreness I felt after that first day of running for part of my walk.

To add insult to injure, my muscles remained sore for days after. So what happened?

When I reached the point where I thought I could safely start transitioning to walking, I spent a considerable amount of time looking into various beginner running programs.

The most commonly recommended program I found was the Couch to 5K (C25K) program. To be honest, when I looked at the multiweek progressive program, I found it to be way too intimidating.

I just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment, so I decided to do something I felt would be much easier. Since I was walking 5k almost every day, in my mind the easiest thing to do would be to jog/run a small portion of the beginning of my walk. After this, I could finish the remainder of the walk at my normal pace.

In my mind, this would start getting my body used to the added stress of running in a controlled way with a built-in cooldown period that would help my legs to recover.

The problem I ran into that caused me to be so sore was perhaps the most common mistake that new runners make — Trying to run too far too soon.

That first day I ran just shy of a mile. That was way too far for my first run. What I should have done was only try running about a quarter of that distance. My ego was cashing checks that my body couldn’t support, and I paid for it in a very physical way the next day.

After I recovered from this initial mishap, I scaled the distance I would jog at the beginning of my walk back to around a quarter of a mile. Speed was not my focus, and if you are overweight it should not be yours either.

I then set a straightforward goal — Every two weeks I would attempt to increase the distance I ran by a quarter-mile.

Conventional running wisdom is to only increase the amount of distance you run by ten percent at any given time. At this early stage, if you are more comfortable with a 10% increase, by all means, do what works best for your situation.

And My Body Was Still Sore as Hell

Despite all my great ideas, my body was still sore after scaling it back to a quarter-mile. But the soreness was manageable and I quickly recovered. I wish I could say that I don’t get sore after almost a year of running, but the truth is that running is hard on your body and I still get sore from time to time.

Muscles, you will find, are the quickest to adapt to running. Tendons, ligaments, bones, and skin take a longer amount of time to become hardened to the rigors of running. Sadly there is no way to force this to happen quicker; you simply have to put in the time and distance to achieve these goals.

Stretching, you will find, both static and dynamic, pre- and post-run, can dramatically improve your running recovery and overall performance.

In my case, stretching has always been a weak point for me. An old back injury has prevented me from doing many of the recommended running stretches. So I do what I can — some stretching after all is better than none at all in my opinion.

Focusing on Form & Avoiding Overstriding

Running form is something that generally improves over time. I learned that one of the most common issues that a beginner runner can run into is overstriding when they run. Triathalon.com has this to say about overstriding:

“Because it’s less efficient and can cause injury. ‘Generally when people run with a longer stride it increases the load on the knees and the hips. If you shorten the stride, it reduces the amount of work that the knee and hip have to do while you run,’ Larson says.

‘A longer stride also tends to be associated with greater up-and-down movement, which requires more effort from the legs to cushion the fall.’ And just because you’re a forefoot striker doesn’t mean you’re exempt — you can be a heel striker and not overstride or be a forefoot striker and overstride.”

After I had started running my short distances at the beginning of my walks, my knees began to ache after about a week. Years earlier I had run into a similar issue which led me to buy IT band straps to help alleviate the pain.

This time around I happened to be reading the book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. This fascinating book about running and a unique group of Mexican runners had me spellbound.

The insights in this book made me re-evaluate my running form. The book preached lightweight footfalls — mine felt like lead.

It extolled the virtues of shortening your stride to reduce the force of impact on your legs, along with transitioning to be more of a forefoot striker (referencing what part of your foot lands first: heel-striker, mid-foot striker, forefoot-striker) — I was clearly a heel-striker who was overstriding.

Shortening my stride felt like it would be the easiest change to make, so I focused my efforts there. Over the course of a week, the soreness and pain I was feeling in my knees disappeared. It would take my longer to transition to more of a forefoot strike, but by shortening my stride I naturally become more of a mid-foot striker.

Shortening your stride is therefore one of the best things that an overweight runner can do to help avoid getting injured. It will feel odd at first, but stick with it and those feelings will quickly fade.

I firmly believe that shortening my stride is the primary reason that I have remained injury-free in my running despite having a more frequent running schedule than most.

Buy Good Shoes, Retire Them After 350 Miles

As costs go, running is a pretty affordable activity if you stick to running outside. Shoes are your primary cost, and here I can’t emphasize strongly enough to buy quality running shoes.

If you have normal-sized feet and a dedicated running store close by, go there. Expect to pay between $90–$150 for shoes. Don’t just pick up a pair of no-name shoes at Target that looks like they are running shoes. There is a reason that quality shoes cost money. Don’t skimp.

And don’t be afraid to try on many different types of shoes to see which ones feel right. Try them out for a run or two, and if they are hurting your feet, don’t be afraid to take them back. Most running stores will accept returns if the shoes don’t work out.

Once you have shoes, retire them after 350–500 miles of running. I personally retire my shoes after 350 miles. Once retired they become shoes I wear around the house for non-running activities. I suggest replacement after 350 miles for overweight runners because our higher weights compress and break down the cushioning in the shoes at a quicker rate than lighter runners.

Record Your Runs

Recording your runs and uploading them to Strava or Garmin or Nike Run Clubs can be a fun way to stay motivated to run. Every service offers different types of challenges that can be participated in, and there is an opportunity to make friends and support other runners who are also out running and logging their distances.

They also offer a convenient way for you to track your miles and be notified when your shoes have reached their end of life mileage that you set. But for people just getting started in running, having access to a record of your running efforts over time can be really inspiring.

I constantly feel like I am a slow runner. And while recording my runs isn’t going to make me any faster, it does give me perspective in that I can look at the pace when I started and compare it to my pace now.

When I do that I don’t see a person who can only run a 9:30 minute mile, I see a person who improved from a 17:45 minute mile to a 9:30 minute mile. It’s hard to be depressed about your efforts when you can see your improvement over time so clearly.

I hope I have given you some tips and suggestions that you can use if you are overweight and just getting back into running. I use all of these tips today, one year later, and they have served me well.

The one last thing I want to leave you with is perhaps one of the hardest things I have struggled with — comparing my running to others. I read a quote from someone somewhere that said: “Comparison is the killer of joy.”

When it comes to running, I think this statement is especially powerful. In running it is very easy to look at your running progress compared to others and downplay your efforts.

All I can say is don’t do it. The pace you run that you might think is slow could very well be fast to another person. The same goes for your distance. If you continually compare your efforts to those of other people, you will not enjoy running as much as you could.

In my opinion, the more you can enjoy running, the longer you will do it — so why not avoid negative thoughts when you can?

Thanks for reading, and I wish you the best of luck in your running journey. Please feel free to ask any question — I will gladly answer as time permits.

<hr><p>I got back into running despite my weight gain. Managing impact intensity was the key to success. was originally published in Better Humans on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>

The buildup to this moment started a year before at the beginning of my son’s senior year. Outwardly I appeared nonchalant and would often make light-hearted jokes to deflect from the dread that was slowly growing in my heart.

But life thankfully doesn’t stop, and between school/personal activities and the life-changing pandemic, there was no shortage of distractions to help keep my mind off him leaving.

Little did I know that by suppressing those feelings for so long I was amplifying the effect they would have once my son finally left for college.

Strong Silent Types Suffer in Silence

When I was growing up the type of men that I admired were the strong and silent types who could endure and overcome issues on their own in a dignified manner. These men rarely asked for help, why should they when all the help they needed was their own. They were strong after all.

I began to wonder if this could be the reason why there is so little written on how empty nest syndrome affects men? Are there lots of men suffering alone in silence because of a belief that admitting they are suffering makes them weak? That doing so would violate a core principle of how they view themselves? Maybe. It could help explain the gap I was seeing.

I consider myself a strong and silent type. I don’t typically like to talk about my problems and I don’t feel compelled to fill the silence with jibber-jabber. But here I was an absolute wreck wallowing in an oppressive depressive funk of despair. What the hell was happening, this wasn’t how I should be felling. Was I less of a man? Or was I deeper than I thought?

As I was digging into this topic looking for answers a central theme started to become evident in many of the writings about empty nest syndrome is would run across. Many authors would pin the sense of loss that women feel on a perceived diminishment of their role as “caretakers”.

These authors felt that under this logic, men are less susceptible to empty nest syndrome because their primary role is that of the “provider” which doesn’t change when a child leaves the home.

While this may have been true for earlier generations of men whose jobs and physical demands inside and out of the home took up most of their time being a provider, I didn’t feel like that applied to me at all. I tried my hardest to maximize the time I had available every day to be with my kids.

If that meant getting up at 4:30 am to get into the office by 7 am and leave by 3 pm so I could make a sports game or school event my kids were in, it was a worthwhile sacrifice to be made. Work has always been important to me, but it isn’t the most important thing in my life.

Times however change, according to a 2019 New York Times¹ article, the number of hours men spend with their children has tripled since 1965. And while the amount of time that mothers spend with children is still almost double that of men, the fact remains that men today are more involved and intertwined in the lives of their children than ever before.

Every person cast into the role of mother or father is filled with a desire to do a better job than their parents before them.

Could it be that that jobs today are less demanding or less fulfilling than they were for past generations of men? That may certainly be the case, but I believe the answer is much simpler — Every person cast into the role of father or mother is filled with a desire to do a better job than their parents before them.

Exactly what it means to do a better job as a parent is different for every person, but almost always has roots in their own childhood and answering this simple question: What didn’t I have growing up?

The answer to this question for many could be spending more time with their parents, or having parents that were more interested in their activities and hobbies. It could certainly be one possible explanation for the increase in time that post-1965 parents spend with their children over those parents before 1965.

It could also be the reason why more men today find they suffer from empty nest syndrome when their children leave the home. They have a deeper connection to their children than men of the past may have had emotionally so they feel the sudden loss that much more.

In my case, I always wished that I had more shared interests with my dad when I was younger. He was an amazing father, but we just didn’t have a lot in common during my teenage through college years. If I am really being honest that was almost certainly my fault as I was a bit of an ass during those years in retrospect.

Later when I was out of college and firmly into the adult world I found that I actually did have some common interests with my dad that I was able to share and enjoy with him.

When I had my son I was adamant that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

Our Shared Interests Deepened Our Bond

When my son was in kindergarten approaching first grade my wife suggested that we go check out a meeting for the local Cub Scout Pack. Growing up I always loved the outdoors so I agreed thinking it might be something my son would enjoy too.

The leaders of the pack were dynamic and engaging and my son was instantly interested so we decided to join. Before long I found myself volunteering to be an adult leader. This brought me directly into the experience with my son in a far greater way than it did for parents who would simply drop their son off for the weekly meeting.

This shared experience lasted through Cub Scouts and into junior high and high school when he moved onto Boy Scouts. It really was a powerful bonding element in our relationship.

It allowed us to have shared experiences that transcended that of parent and child from a very early age. Sharing an experience jointly gives both parties a deeper appreciation of the experience and the other person sharing it with them.

It was during junior high that my son found a passion for running cross country and track. This continued through high school and eventually college. For the majority of this time, my wife and I shared this passion happily as active encouragers and observers.

Later during his junior year in high school, I decided to get back into running as part of a personal fitness initiative. Here would be another opportunity to be an active (albeit much slower) participant in one of his passions (running). again had an opportunity to share in one of his passions as a participant.

But as much as we tried to not be overbearing parents, I am sure we were. As the months passed and the pandemic caused more and more of the typical high school senior year experiences to be canceled, I could tell he was ready to start the next chapter in his life.

Almost Time to Leave the Nest

About two months before he was scheduled to leave for college I started to feel depressed from time to time. Depression is one of those things that can be hard to quantify and can manifest in many forms.

According to HelpGuide.org² the top ten signs of depression are:

• Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness
• Loss of interest in daily activities
• Appetite or weight changes
• Sleep changes
• Anger or irritability
• Loss of energy
• Self-loathing
• Reckless behavior
• Concentration problems
• Unexplained aches and pains

Leading up to my son’s departure I experienced many of these top ten signs of depression. None of them were constant, in fact, they seemed to ebb and flow depending on the day's activities.

Looking back I can see that this was likely a sign that these feelings would only be temporary. Years earlier I had the misfortune to experience what continual depression was like due to a side effect from a medication I was taking. It was brutal and unending in a way that forever changed how I viewed depression.

The worst however was yet to come.

The Hole in My Heart I Hide

It was pouring rain the morning we took our son to move into his dorm room. Perfect weather to match how my wife and I were feeling. Outwardly we had our brave faces on, inwardly we were part excited for him, part dreading when we would eventually leave.

This was it. After dreading this day for so long it was finally here. Move-in went smoothly despite the rain. His roommate, a fellow cross country teammate was great. The room was tiny but filled with the unknown potential of college life that my wife and I recalled all too well.

As we walked out to the car with my son to say goodbye before we left I felt unhinged. “Do you need some cash? Let me give you some cash. I’ve got three dollars, what do you have honey..” I stammered.

“I have a five but I think he is fine,” my wife said, “Yeah, I have almost eighty dollars dad” my son replied. “Oh.. ok no problem” I mumbled feeling like he was more grown-up by the second.

The hug I gave him probably lasted longer than he would have liked, but he thankfully didn’t try to pull away. Mis mother got an equally long hug and after a few final well wishes and I love you’s we were pulling out of the parking lot as he walked back into his dorm.

On that day I would have eaten my weight in McDonald’s ice cream if it would have lifted the oppressive blanked of depression I was feeling.

I made it as far as McDonald’s two blocks away. “I’m getting a hot fudge sundae, would you like one?” I asked my wife. “Sure” she replied.

I was/am on a fairly strict low-carb diet with a regimented fitness plan. Ice cream, even the fake ice cream that McDonald’s sells would never be on my allowed food list. But on that day I would have eaten my weight in McDonald’s ice cream if it would have lifted the oppressive blanket of depression I was feeling. I settled for one.

Life Goes On Under a Cloud of Sadness

I wish I could report that we made it home and suddenly everything was alright. But the truth is my wife and I were stunned to our core. But we had to push those feelings to the side and carry on, our daughter still had her needs, the house and pets still had to be taken care of, life had to continue.

And life did go on, but I was miserable. I felt like there was a hole where my heart should be. I knew I shouldn’t feel this way, kept telling myself that this was the natural progression of things, that this was his time to grow as an individual, to explore and learn and become even more independent than he already was.

But damn if I didn’t miss him. The house became notably cleaner during this period, if there was a task I could do to take my mind off things I did it. I think it was an effective tool in my recovery.

But busy work only goes so far and I hit a major bump in the road when it came to our shared passions.

Do Something You Love to Take Your Mind Off It

I found out almost immediately that engaging in activities that my son and I enjoyed was incredibly painful at first. I run daily as part of my fitness routine and got into running because of my son.

For the past six years attending running events has been something that brought us closer to our son. But once he was gone and I started to run I felt a tightness in my chest, not from anything medically related, but sorrow.

How could something I loved to do feel this bad? It was like the activity was infused with my son in it’s purest form. I tried to shake the feeling off but it persisted and those first few runs I completed due to sheer grit and determination.

I then decided to go out for a hike and try out a new pair of trekking poles I had been meaning to try. Once again the same feeling enveloped me like a wet blanket. My son is an Eagle Scout, we did scouting and camping adventures his entire childhood.

All those memories came flooding back and instead of making me feel better, they just seemed to emphasize that he was gone, and the reality was that we would slowly start seeing less and less of him each year.

Two weeks after we dropped him off for school I was invited to go run with one of the other cross country dads. He’s a great guy, a fantastic runner that makes me look like I am walking by comparison and probably ten years my junior.

I don’t normally run with other people, in fact up until that point I had never run with someone else. I was hesitant, to say the least, but I decided to give it a shot.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I could have made. As we started to run and chat our how our sons were doing (his son was also running in college) we were able to share our feelings is a personal way that didn’t feel odd or uncomfortable for someone like me who doesn’t typically share his feelings.

My friend was also feeling the effects on his running, and like me was surprised at how those first few runs made him feel. We chatted about a lot of different things on that run and I finished feeling good for the first time since the drop-off. I think it helped that I hit a personal record (PR) on the run as well.

As the days went by things started to get better in the way that they do when you are forced to adapt. We promised our son we would not helicopter parent and intrude in his life. We still send the occasional text every few days but save most of our questions for a weekly scheduled Sunday Facetime call.

And it seems to be paying off, he is thriving and taking the initiative finding solutions. Before he left he bought a budget-friendly TV to take to college. A few days after he moved in he said they had to buy a cheap new remote. I would learn a month later during a dinner visit that he found out the remotes had unpaired and the TV had somehow reverted to “store” mode.

“I had to call customer support for the TV when the cheap remote I bought stopped working. They helped me put the TV back into “home” mode and get the remotes fixed.” He told us.

I told him I was really proud that he took the initiative to find the answer instead of just reaching out to me (I would have had no clue). He’s had other learning adventures with laundry and other college-related challenges just like we did when he was his age.

I don’t know what the future holds for how I will feel. I am sure there will be times that I get thrown back into the deep end of my feelings. Maybe there will be a holiday he can’t make or a family event he has to skip due to school. But I am confident that these times will only be momentary blips emotionally.

With every day that passes I seem to be getting better at handling my son’s newly found independence and my hanging role in his life. And that’s ok.

Every dad and mom go through this, we aren’t the first, and if you are reading this right now and experiencing the same feelings we did, trust me when I say that you won’t be the last. What I do know is that you can get through this, if I can do it, so can you. You got this.

[1] Author: Liza Mundy. September 2019. Sad Dads in the Empty Nest (Link)

[2] Authors: Melinda Smith, M.A., Lawrence Robinson, and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D. September 2020. Depression Symptoms and Warning Signs (Link)

<hr><p>Dad’s Empty Nest Dread was originally published in Ascent Publication on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>

It was early 2019 and I was in a bad situation medically. My weight was out of control and only getting worse. I needed to put a plan into motion immediately before it was too late. My doctor advised me to lose over a third of my body weight.

The Problem

I have been overweight and obese my entire life, though a few times I have also been what people would consider skinny. In 2019 I was at my highest weight ever (342lbs) and it had been decades since I had felt anything close to healthy.

Weight loss programs always include goals and rewards. Everyone who wants to lose weight sets a weight loss goal. It’s a common unifying action that we all do, maybe it’s something the individual considers easily obtainable, maybe it’s a long shot that they have little chance of obtaining. Or maybe it falls somewhere in between.

My 2019 goal felt like it would have been impossible at twenty. How the hell was I going to do it just shy of fifty?

The Importance of Rewards

Sometimes in the past, I would give myself some kind of reward to shoot for when I would diet. This is a pretty common thing for people to do and the reward can be almost anything.

I’ve always found that the reward is best when it’s not food-related. With an unhealthy relationship to food like I had (and I am sure many others have) rewarding myself with food was something I did all the time.

I needed a reward that would mark the beginning of a shift away from using food as a reward.

I certainly believe that losing weight is a reward in and of itself, but I also believe that upping the stakes by setting an additional reward helps maintain focus in the long run. The destination weight becomes more of a measurement of my success than anything else. Reach the goal, get the reward. Simple.

I mentioned earlier the importance of setting a reward that doesn’t sabotage your efforts. Let me share an experience I had growing up to elaborate on why this can be dangerous.

When I was a child my mother had trouble with her weight and would diet frequently. The reward she chose was a social one that put her in a situation that could potentially jeopardize her efforts on a weekly basis.

I can recall attending the church support group she would go to a weekly meeting called T.O.P.S. — “Take Off Pounds Sensibly.” People would talk about their successes and failures and weigh in. The typical activities you might associate with a support group of this nature.

I was motivated to attend these meetings because after the meeting they would always reward themselves by going out to dinner at a local restaurant. They would give themselves this micro-reward on a weekly basis whether they gained or lost weight. Sometimes their meals were healthy, many times they were not.

And believe it or not, back then I can totally understand why they viewed those dinners as a reward. Unless it was a special occasion, people cooked and ate at the vast majority of meals at home. Going to a restaurant was considered a reward. Even something as mundane today as going to McDonald’s was considered a treat.

But using food as a reward for people struggling with their weight seems somewhat counter-intuitive. The opportunity to self-sabotage the weight loss effort is a very real possibility. If possible the reward should be something that won’t sabotage the intended effort.

For some people, the reward they seek it to regain an ability that their weight gain has taken away from them. Clothing is a popular reward. Many overweight people have closets full of clothing that don’t fit anymore. Clothing holds memories, and being able to wear something again that is tied to a memory can be a powerful motivator.

I had a whole closet full of clothes that I couldn’t wear. Brand new shirts with the tags still on them that I got as presents which never fit. But clothes have never had the appeal for me that they do to others. I saw those clothes more as reminders of my own weight failure.

Sometimes the reward is health-related. Weight gain causes havoc for many people’s health and the threat of future medical issues can be a strong motivator to lose weight. Doctors will tell people that losing weight will help improve weight-related tests such as blood sugar and cholesterol back toward the normal range.

My health was clearly suffering in many ways. But I have always been tall which has helped me to hide my weight visually. Eventually, I reached a weight where even my height couldn’t help. When it came to my bloodwork, there was no fooling my doctor.

And sometimes the reward is just something the person wants. Simple and to the point, the classic material reward works. Just ask any kid that was promised money for every “A” they got in school if it was a motivator to succeed and they will readily agree.

This was the route I went for my secondary goal. I wanted adventure, and there was only one way to get it.

My Lightning Bolt Moment

As I mentioned earlier in March of 2019, I was at my highest weight ever. I weighed 342 lbs. I was almost 50 and my weight and health were spiraling out of control. I was uncomfortable, always hot, always out of breath, and always hungry. I had high blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar.

A daily cocktail of pills twice a day barely kept some of these issues at bay, some not at all. I had run out of my prescriptions and gone in for the bloodwork that my doctor forced me to do to get a refill.

His office looked the exact same as it had the last time I was there. Same decor, same magazines and I was anticipating I would hear the same things he had told me the last time I was in to get my prescriptions refilled. I had no idea of the verbal slap in the face that was coming.

I wish I could say that he yelled, but he is one of the most unflappably calm people I have ever met. I wish I could say that he had a disgusted look on his face, but he is professional to his core.

On that day, I would learn that it was my third consecutive blood sugar (A1C) test with a value of over 9.5 (a typical normal A1C value is less than 5.7). According to the CDC, an A1C value over 6.5 is considered to be full-blown diabetes.

I’ll never forget what he told me that day:

“I can’t increase the dosage for your A1C prescriptions any more, you either need to make some lifestyle changes and lose some weight or we are going to have to consider going to insulin injections.”

I was stunned. This was my lightning bolt moment. To be perfectly frank it scared and shocked me to my core.

I had to change. In my mind I was one step away from being on insulin for the rest of my life, losing a body part to diabetes or even death. The threat of insulin made it all too real.

A few years earlier I had some success losing weight with a low-carb diet. I stammered that I was going to go back on paleo or maybe keto. I promised him that I would make the changes I needed and start dieting. How many times had he heard similar promises? I can only imagine.

The thing is when you are looking at having to lose a large amount of weight to get back to a healthy place like I was, the chances of success can feel pretty grim. And for good reason. According to this Reuter’s article posted back in 2015 (link):

“Researchers followed 76,704 obese men and 99,791 obese women for up to nine years. In any given year during the study, the probability that a patient might achieve a normal body weight was 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women.

For those who were severely obese, the annual odds stretched to 1 in 1,290 for men and 1 in 677 for women.”

With these kinds of odds, I needed something to keep me focused, to keep me going over what I knew was going to be a long haul to reach my goal weight. That day I set the first of two goals.

My Short-Term Medical Goal

First and foremost, I had to get my blood sugar down. To me, this seemed to be the easiest piece of the puzzle to solve since it was mainly tied to what I was eating.

My eating habits were horrible. Eat half a pizza for lunch from a food truck three days a week at work? Sure, why not. Hungry before bed? How about a few bowls of ultra-sugary cereal? Feel like eating it with chocolate milk? Works for me.

Looking back I cringe at what I would eat and in what quantities. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t really fully understand how completely bonkers it was until I started tracking my food each day. And let’s be honest, eating food in large quantities made me feel good.

This time around I decided to go down the keto diet route. With my previous success on paleo, I figured keto would work even better (a daily net carb goal of 20g per day. For reference, an apple has about 26g net carbs). What I wasn’t prepared for was how much harder it would be.

But I was running scared, and fear can be an effective motivator. The first month on keto was pure hell, but I managed to stay on track and keep going. At this point, all I was doing was walking with my dog but I was starting to lose some weight. I was miserable but I kept thinking about insulin and was able to gut through the first three months.

After three months, I went back in to see my doctor for another round of blood work. New advancements in my medical group’s iPhone app had given me the results early and I was beyond excited.

“Well, I thought the lab made an error until I saw you,” was the first thing my doctor said as he walked in the door. Shockingly, my A1C blood sugar and triglycerides were now firmly in the normal range. I don’t know who was more surprised, but my doctors urged me to continue what I was doing.

I wish I could say that I was in the clear, but the reality was that I was still taking two high dose blood sugar and cholesterol and hypertension prescriptions. But the diet change had made it so the medication could actually help me.

I was still morbidly obese but that early success meant everything. So I kept taking it day by day, focusing all my efforts into making good choices and getting some exercise. But I knew I needed something more.

My Long-Term Goal

When I first started back on keto I had thought about how much I always wanted to get into backpacking. At the time I pushed the thought away, I had more important things to focus on like getting my blood sugar under control.

By now, it was June 2019, I weighed 319 pounds and I didn’t look much different than I did at 342. According to my doctor, the upper end of normal weight for my age was 190 pounds. But at least my blood sugar was looking better.

Around this time, I stumbled across a YouTube video about Isle Royale National Park. I had never heard of it, but it looked like an amazing place to go for a backpacking trip.

I began to think that maybe I could go backpacking there if I could just keep up my efforts and continued to lose weight. It was then that I set my long-term goal to backpack at Isle Royale when I reached my goal weight.

As someone that loves the outdoors, I have always enjoyed car camping (where you haul all of your gear in a car) with my family or as an adult scout leader with my son’s Cub Scout Pack and eventually his Boy Scout Troop. But I never made the jump into true backpack camping. This was due to two primary reasons.

The first reason was my weight. At my weight, hiking was difficult for me to do, but doable when the terrain was predominantly flat. Add in any amount of elevation or heat and hiking quickly became a miserable experience.

I knew there would be no way I could haul a heavy backpack with all of my gear and food at my weight. And while I know some people backpack while overweight without issue, I knew I couldn’t be one of those people.

The second reason was finding gear that fits. At my size, finding gear that would work for my dimensions was challenging and expensive.

As someone with huge feet, I am used to having limited choices. When it came to backpacking gear I was finding that my size reduced my options in many areas significantly. If I could lose the weight and get to my goal, both of these problems would be solved.

With just shy of 120 pounds to go, I had plenty of time to research and prepare the trip I wanted to take. It also gave me something to look forward to and learn about to keep my mind off how far I had to go to reach my goal.

Reddit and YouTube became endless sources of data to consider and ingest. The more videos of Isle Royale I watched, and threads about backpacking I read, the more I could start to visualize myself walking those trails.

Dropping Weight & Losing Prescriptions

By now, another three months had gone by, it was the beginning of September 2019 and I was once again back at my doctor’s office. My weight was now 278.8 lbs and I was starting to feel better, and according to others look better (I still couldn’t see it).

The keto diet was still going strong and my daily walks had increased to three miles a day. My A1C blood sugar was down to 4.8 but I was starting to feel very light-headed often. It was time to lose some prescriptions that I no longer needed which quickly resolved the lightheadedness.

My doctor began showing some real excitement and dare I say he was starting to believe that I might actually claw my way back to a healthy weight. He was excited in the measured way that doctors are and reminded me to be back in three months for more blood work.

It was around this time that I decided to get back into running. With a son in cross-country and track, I had spent a lot of time watching his and the team’s running improve from beginners to becoming state qualifiers.

Seeing what the accomplished gave me the motivation to try and get back into running myself. Since I was already walking three miles a day I decided to slowly start adding some jogging to the beginning of my walk.

I would jog a quarter-mile and walk the remaining 2.75 miles. Over the next few months, I slowly progressed to the point where I could jog the entire three miles at a pace appropriate for my level of fitness.

When the weather started getting cold and I moved my running indoors to a treadmill. This was good because it kept me running, but it most likely negatively impacted my overall running fitness (treadmills are easier than running outdoors).

But I was burning calories which was the important thing, and the treadmill would only last until the beginning of January when it suddenly died. While I complained about its death my wife calmly pointed out that it was seventeen years old, it had a good run. So I moved my running back outside despite it being January.

First Anniversary

Before I knew it, I had reached my first anniversary from that fateful day in my doctor’s office. As we all know 2020 has been a crazy time for us all. Things got (and largely remain) crazy, but being forced to work from home mean less time commuting. Which meant I had more time after work to go for walks/hikes and runs.

My keto-based diet continued largely the same as it did in the beginning with a few lapses here and there (you can’t beat yourself up too much for the occasional slip), but by now my views of food had taken a radical change from where it had been a year before.

As corny as it sounds to say, I no longer lived to eat but ate to live. I found myself much more aware of how much carbs and sugar everything has from actively tracking in a carb manager application my daily food.

If there is one bit of advice you take away from this article let it be to track your food if for the only reason to learn more about how much carbs and sugar things have in them. This really can help you adjust how you view food.

It was June 2020, and I weighed in at 212.4 lbs, I was down 106.6 lbs down from my first post-keto diet blood work measurement the previous year, and down 129.6 lbs from where I started (342lbs).

I am now just shy of weighing 200 lbs. Running has become a daily part of my life and I have been running distances that I could never have imagined when I started this journey. To say this experience has changed my life would be an understatement.

Delayed Reward Courtesy of COVID-19

If you made it this far, I am sure you are dying to know the answer to this question. Sadly the answer to this question is: Not Yet. With COVID-19, Isle Royale shut down for several months only to re-open in a limited fashion, and only then to more expensive chartered seaplanes (which I can’t afford).

The ferries that most people ride to Isle Royale will not be in service until at least the 2021 season, so I am targeting 2021 for my trip. Rest assured that I will post a follow-up about Isle Royale once I make it there.

In Closing…

I hope that this story will help motivate you to start your own weight loss journey if you find yourself having to start your weight loss journey. I hope my experience can serve as a boost to those of you who are already on the path toward your goal.

It’s not an easy path, and it can seem like you will never make it at times, or that what you are doing isn’t having any impact on your life. Let me tell you that it does, you just can’t see it yet.

Take photos along the way, it’s hard to ignore your success when you are looking at where you started and where you are now.

Weight loss is really like eating an elephant. How do you do it? One bite at a time. Small steps lead to big accomplishments. Thanks for reading.

<hr><p>Keeping Your Motivation When You Need to Lose Over 100 Pounds was originally published in Better Humans on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>