It's A Lose-win Situation

A long time ago, I had a waist size of 28. I ended high school at 150 pounds or so, and entered college a little over that. Not bad for a guy somewhere between 5'9" and 6'0" (I'm never sure. my back is angled funny and I rarely sit up straight) Then, I put on pounds by the dozen... 160... 170... I left college with a size 32 waist. Which was easy, because sizes went up by ones in that part of the chart of sizes.

"Finish what's on your plate" and "Don't waste food" echoed in my mind. Starchy filler was on the buffet in college, and I put my face down in the trough and pigged out. As my grandfather always said, "Heaven will be catered." I'm sure he's going back for ninety-seconds right now, passing by the melon slices and going for the bacon. I stressed, I ate, I stressed more about it, I ate some more. I believed that you should not only feed a cold, but you should also feed a fever. Heck, feed a hangnail if you have to, just eat something!

Everyone says television puts ten pounds on you, and I have to disagree with that. While working on computers and behind-the-scenes equipment while sitting on my ass, I'd have gladly put on just ten pounds. It put thirty pounds on me in the time I had worked in television, and I rarely got on camera. How the heck do all the anchors and reporters and clowns keep the weight off is my question.

Well, that 32 waist became size 33... no problem... then fluctuated a bit and finally hit 34. I knew I was at 34 when I had a sciatic nerve problem because there wasn't enough real estate for my ass to fit in the jeans at size 33. I tried blaming the chair I sat in, but it wasn't what was cutting the feeling off in my leg.

I was.

So, instead of doing the sensible thing and exercising like my doctor suggested, I bought size 34 stuff. I tried to diet for a bit (Dexatrim and denial, folks) to get back down to 172 pounds, and for one brief moment I could wear size 33 and 32 stuff without fire running up my hip when I sat down.

That's when I collapsed.

I had an emergency room visit from dehydration when my office air conditioning got flipped to heat by the retarded building maintenance manager. They pumped a liter of saline into me and told me not to try that stupid crap ever again. Fine, feed a blackout episode, too, and I went up from there. Back to size 34... and then some...

So, like, time for size 35, right? 35 comes after 34 in my book, so I went shopping for some size 35 stuff.

"Excuse me, but I can't find this in a size 35," I told the clerk at Foley's.

Wrong. No size 35. Just 36. I was jumping TWO SIZES! I had finally reached that territory where the Xs on the chart were becoming sparse. I never thought I'd ever get to that part of the chart. I thought that the industry just hadn't developed the technology or retooled their machines for those boxes yet. Maybe Kathie Lee Gifford and the Nike sweatshops hadn't whipped their slave workers hard enough perhaps?

So I bought a bunch of 36 stuff and made sure it had that expansion elastic zone in the waist region to handle any additional growth should I need it.

Amazing how that zone goes so quickly. I could even see the difference in my profile. What was once just a slight protuberance was now an overhang. My belt buckle left an impression in me by the end of the day. I felt way too large, was tired all the time, and didn't feel good about it. As for my wardrobe, well, the size 32 stuff was already at Goodwill, the size 34 was taking up closet space, and the size 36 was now in jeopardy. I'd tossed money down the drain in food, clothes, and short-term quack diet remedies on half-hearted fallback campaigns to save myself from turning into an out-and-out chunkbucket.

Dexatrim doesn't work when you still eat like a pig, and you can't go drinking five Slim Fast shakes and think that there's safety in numbers. The scale read 225 at my peak.

Enough!

When I was still working, I tried to stop eating out with the jackasses I worked with, but I found that when I wasn't with them they'd come up with all sorts of hare-brained and screwball ideas without me and expect me to save their fat asses when it all went wrong right before the General Manager was ready to fire them for gross negligence and incompetence. My tolerance for my girth and their unprofessional conduct and finger-pointing ended at about the same time, and I bailed in July.
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EXERCISE

Nice and hot in July down here. Good walking weather if you're looking to sweat it all out and get your head on straight. So I've been walking nearly every day for the past two months or so, rain or shine. I go anywhere from 4 to 8 miles a day in various circuits, mixing things up just to keep it interesting. The only thing that's stopped me is the occasional heinous blister or two, and that's been rectified with a good pair of walking shoes and thicker socks. Who would have thought that a pair of 3-dollar socks would prevent these gigantic agonizing lumps of fluid on the sole of my foot?

As for accompaniment, I started with just the thoughts in my head, trying to sort through all the crap that had built up in my last job and flushing it out of my soul bit by bit. It was like combining a low-impact workout with a group therapy session of one. While solving the physical challenge, I was also going through the emotional and mental challenge of realizing a very simple fact. I had been working with a rather unique cluster of arrogant jackasses and morons in an industry rife with self-promotion, and I had to get over it.

I took my cell phone with me and called a few folks as I walked, just to catch up on things. I found that I was obsessing on my former tormentors/employers a bit too much, and I was getting calls from the old workplace with people begging for quick answers and assistance to things any competent employee or service support personnel should be able to handle.

The cell phone stayed at home after that. Let 'em sink, I've got pounds to shed, dammit.

So I bought one of those Diamond Rio players, put a bunch of my CDs on the hard drive, and listened to those for motivation. I wasn't about to settle for a Walkman or a Discman because those things always skip, even when you have those no-roll head or chips to overspin the disk to keep them from skipping. They never worked for me, so I paid extra for the chip-based player. I went through a bunch of rock and classical selections for the first month, but instead turned to comedy albums. The time passes more quickly and enjoyably with those. George Carlin and Dennis Miller and Chris Rock and Lewis Black goaded me on, and they still do to this day. I even listen to books on tapes and radio shows I pull from the net for offline listening.

I also have a second digital recorder, an old Sony which came in handy over the years for recording ideas. When I get on a roll in my head and come up with an idea for a routine or rant or story, I tell it to the recorder and keep going. It's amazing what ideas you get when you hit your stride, and it always helps to write them down. That's how that "We're Crazier Than You" rant got written. One idea after another, maybe with a little help from Denis Leary on the Yoko Ono bit.

There's this one group on a board that has all these pedometers and they count up their steps and make a game out of it. I always feel better in a healthy competition, so the urge to upgrade my computer at home might be surpassed by the desire to spend those dollars on a pedometer toy. And, I figure, it adds a new element of peer pressure and support to perform well.
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DIET

Water. Lots of it. Sodas and tea are falling by the wayside, all those Starbucks frapuccinos with mocha and crème de mente are gone, and the juices and milk need to be low in fat and sugar if they're going to wash anything down. I figure I drank a lot of diet Coke during the day. why not just skip that one calorie altogether and put something seemingly healthy into my system.

Beer and alcohol. that either happens in moderation within the plan, or it's sip sip sip and pretend to be keeping up with the flock. This isn't college anymore. This is the real world, and I don't want the calories.

What water doesn't fill, I eat sensibly. Any meat needs to be a minor accompaniment to a salad, such as grilled chicken strips (with any number of spices I grill into them) get laid across the top. Anything frozen and microwaveable gets eaten in smaller portions. Bread that I'd bake that would be for personal use now gets given away as gifts.

The rice steamer now steams vegetables instead of rice and its high starch content. I flavor things with Tobasco or red pepper flakes or pepper and eat slower. This thing supposedly can steam fish, too. it's time to invest some time in what I eat and enjoy it. I don't play games with myself where I'll eat carrot sticks and celery when dipped in high-fat dips. I deal with it head-on and look at the whole picture. No sense in taking three steps forward if I'm going to take four steps back, right? Just take one step forward and enjoy it.

I also take my time while eating, filling up quicker. I keep notes on foods, and I find what agrees with me and doesn't agree with me. My stomach was pretty badly ravaged by stress from that job, and I've got to be careful what I eat in this recovery period. Unlike a dog, I can control what I eat - I will eat smart.

I don't let little oopsies like eating a whole bag of Famous Amos cookies or getting a two-bagger at Taco Bell run me down, because I find that I am eating less and less every day out of a lack of necessity. I just end up incorporating those little diversions from eating healthy into my plan and go heavy on the water or the workout the next day. When I'm not on a detour, I mix up salads and stuff at home, and that's good enough for me. Even rice cakes with soy sauce or shredded Emmenthaler on them taste good. I figure if a gang of Islamic Fundamentalists can convince themselves that a boxcutter and a Koran can wipe out a city block in New York, I can eat this crap and enjoy it.

Every now and then, if I've been good, I reward myself with a steak or a baked potato or something that would otherwise be seen as a speedbump on the road to recovery. The binges now become planned
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ATTITUDE

I'm fluctuating between 202 and 205 right now, but the chart is showing a downward trend overall. (Sort of like the charts on the stock of my former employers, who are probably sharpening axes and looking for sacrifices. swim in stress, fools!) I figure weight gain and loss is like those thermal layers in the ocean. you have to break through each zone to get to the next one and it takes a little energy for that step.

I won't get down on myself for the mistakes every day or so, because I look at it from a week's perspective. a month's perspective. a year's perspective. I will learn patience and discipline with this endeavor.

Folks that I used to work with that run into me say I'm looking great. and I have to hold back the pit-bull in my mind that wants to tell them "Gee, you look even worse, you stressed-out media-whore jackass." Yes, hate can be a motivator, and it sure as heck helped jump-start this new goal in my life. But just like the starter motor in a car, you've got to flip it on for as long as you need it, and only for that long. the starter drops off and you keep revving with the momentum and energy you've got. So instead of warping my sensibilities with despise and rancor for these broadcasting evildoers, I'll just let them grind themselves to death in the gears of their profit-monger owners and I walk away from my troubles for a while longer, aim for a part-time job to pay the bills when the dollars start to run dry in the checking account, and generally feel better about everything.

And I can't let exercise and diet control my way of thinking forevermore. I'm not about to become one of those Juicemaster freaks or preaching Tae Bo nitwits. Instead, everything in moderation. I have the luxury to jump-start myself with concentration and obsession for now, but I know I must release it slowly to the point of a comfortable medium when the time comes.

I have a different kind of achievement and path in mind, I figure. I didn't before, but letting things get out of whack before going through ten times the effort to set them almost, but not quite, right is the American Way, and I guess this is my way of being proud to be an American. Where's the sense in worrying about terrorists bombing the living daylights out of our cities, crashing our planes, poisoning our water supply, and spreading diseases on the subways when we're doing an even better job of killing ourselves with our lifestyles and diets?

This is my own personal war against that lazy attitude. The battle lines have been drawn, and I am ready for a long hard fight. See you at 175 pounds, folks. Onward to victory!

(For more blithering, slithering, and ranting from Laurence Simon, please wander over to his home page for milk and cookies.)

This is a test of something for my own spits and giggles...