Peakah's Provocations...

I remember coming home from swimming practice in high school and eating an entire 1 lb box of spaghetti covered in my mom's amazing meat sauce and then going out to do some mountain biking along Bailey's hill only to come home later and eat an entire box of ritz crackers topped with two cans of cheese whiz. On A Daily Basis! I was a whopping 2% body fat and barely cracking the century mark in lbs at 16.

20 years later I'm 36 and by only walking by the deli in the supermarket, I'll net a 4 lb gain. (Damn you samples!!) I now weigh over twice what I did at 16! Granted I'm not swimming 3000 yards and going on mountain bike excursions through the woods in the dark on a daily basis, but my how things change. The extent of my physical activity currently consists of manhandling a computer mouse and holding my big fat head up with my other arm on the desk, or expertly working a remote control. Ok, don't get the wrong idea; I'm not a behemoth or anything, but I do have that prototypical spare tire around the midsection and some gelatinous new life form existing under my chin. My wife and I have decided it's time to go on a diet... for real this time.

We've done diets before. Shoot, my store associates and I won a Biggest Loser competition that was held town-wide. I really didn't do a whole lot except eat less and move more and I dropped approximately 25 lbs in 3 months. However, that was a few years ago. I've discovered that the more time that goes by the harder dieting is at an exponential rate.

Well I'm one week in to a new diet hating the crap out of it. However I have lost a few lbs so I'm not giving up. I think I'm just in a psychological transition period from enjoying a carefree (lazy) 'eat whatever' mindset to a more disciplined approach. I've gone on the hCG Diet which includes drops to curb the attack of the appetite and a 500 calorie a day diet that truthfully has gotten pretty boring considering I cannot eat poultry. I am allergic to bird. It's a fat juicy ribeye for me on Thanksgiving day.

The hardest part is giving up the anticipation of the preparation. Let me explain. All week long I look forward to Saturday afternoon and Sunday as a day where we are all together as a family and the cooking showcase begins. It involves all 5 senses- The sounds of sizzling bacon, the wafting smells of lasagna in the oven, the giddy glee that goes into firing up a grill, the sight of seared meat over a fire, touching all the textures that make up various parts of the meal, and finally the Taste! Then there's the rewarding relaxation mode of everyone lying around and watching America's Funniest Home Videos and belly laughing with each other.

Ok, I'm sounding a bit apocalyptic by suggesting that these things are no longer going to occur while dieting. But the anticipation of the preparation has definitely disappeared. I can no longer eat those things I've been looking forward to all week! This Sunday's meal is "Apple Day" on the diet for crying out loud! What sick individual thought of this? How's that lasagna kids? Off the deep end I go.

So I'm trying to put things in perspective. Yeah, it'll be great to lose weight and I want to support my wife by doing the diet with her- I'm going to stick it out. We'll feel better as we continue, particularly when that gelatinous form under my chin goes back to whatever sick realm it emerged.

I'm going to look back upon this post and think, "OMG, what a crybaby!" and I'm ok with that. Writing this out has allowed me to expel that angst that is probably keeping the lbs holding on to my midsection in the first place.

So, let the revealing begin- (btw I'm 5' 11" tall)

April 29th 2010 I weighed in at 215.0 lbs.

Today is May 8th and I weighed in at 210.6 lbs

I'm going to stick with this diet for a few more weeks just to spite myself and prove that I do still have that same discipline that got me through the swim practices and mountain biking rides when I was 16... it's just so sad that we all can't eat like we did when we were that age!