47 at Forty-seven – The Mid-Life Crisis Diet Project Part: 6

Part: 6 Weeks Five & Six


Gym Friends and Gym Neighbors
It began on March 2nd – this public project to lose 47 pounds (an f-ton of weight) at forty-seven years of age. What was I thinking? Since then I have been weighing-in every Monday morning. So here’s where we are as of April 6.

Week Five weigh-in (drum roll)…
226 lbs. (Down 19 lbs. 28 to go)

Okay, that’s more like it. 4 pounds this week, this is still really working. I’ve decided to keep running my 3.5 miles despite my groin pull. Work through the pain. Man up.

This, I must confess, has been the only real struggle for me. Quitting weed – easy. Quitting booze – easy. Changing my eating habits hasn’t been as difficult as I worried it might be. Luckily for me, all of these things were about bad habits – not addictions. I know that isn’t the case for everyone, so I mean it when I “luckily for me”. The piece I haven’t yet fully put into place is the exercise regime. This still eludes me.

My neighbor Jeff took me up the steep walk at Fryman Canyon this week (which kicked my ass), and consistently offers to go for runs. Holly McB., Matt L. and Kevin B. have offered themselves up as exercise partners. I need to avail myself of these generous offers. I know exercise is one of the most important components to this whole project; I just haven’t made it a priority yet. So far I’ve been doing it here and there, when I can.

New goal – get habitual about my exercise. Set schedules and stick to them. Who’s up for a jog around Balboa Park? Call me.

You Can’t See Dick
Ha! Actually, I can. I have to suck in my gut, but still. If I stand up straight, look down, suck it in – hard…there he is, Orville Red-and-Tender (Yep, that’s still his name). He’s a little smaller than I remember, but that’s him. I could pick him out of a “Line-up”, but I sincerely hope it’ll never come to that.

Sure, I’ve told you my face has gotten thinner, and I have more energy…yeah, yeah. Of all the ways to register my progress…this, THIS! Sniff. Give me a moment, will ya? I feel like John James Audubon just having spotted the rarest of species – the miniature Jew pecker. Eureka!

Rewards and Re-Wardrobes
They have been taunting me, calling to me from deep in the closet. “Hey Chubbo, you’ll never wear us again”. My Nat Nast jeans. The good jeans – the ones that almost make it seem like I have an ass. I tried to pinch myself into them a few times early on. I quickly realized these jeans were a 20 pound milestone goal. Once I lost 20, I would try again. Well guess what, M-er F-ers?

Week Six weigh-in (drum roll)…
223 lbs. (Down 22 lbs. 25 to go)

The jeans fit pretty damn well. I still have a bit of Dunlop’s Disease (when your belly done lops over your belt), so I don’t tuck in the shirt. Not yet. But I will. I will, M-er T-ers.

I made another secret bargain with myself. If I lost more than 20 pounds by April, 20 (4/20), I would celebrate the HOLIDAY. Wait, what holiday, you ask?

For those you not “in the know” – 4/20 is code for smoking weed…and April 20th, 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) is National Pot Smokers Day (unofficially, of course). This is basically Stoner Christmas. There are several myths as to why 4/20. One – apparently an urban legend is that a 4-20 was the police code for marijuana use. “We have a 4-20 in progress.” The most widely held belief is that 4/20 was student code for “smoke time” at some California High Schools in the seventies. It was the time of day 4:20PM, when detention got out, and the toking could commence. Whatever. Now, it’s the High Holiday.

AND…my reward for being such a good boy, is to give myself, on 4/20 a happy blaze-a-thon.

Open Invitation: to my local happy friends. I will be hosting an all-day open house. 12 to 12. Monday April 20th. You must come by. I have many RSVPs already. Lemme know.

As for the diet, there are no calories in weed, and I don’t intend to binge. I imagine I may go slightly off diet – but I truly intend to keep the ingesting in check and just enjoy my high. Still no booze for me, though. Booze is completely off the table until the goal is reached

For those of you worried that this will re-ignite a habit, don’t. Any weed left over will leave the house. The diet project will resume. God will be in his heaven. After I quit smoking cigarettes, I allowed myself our big New Years Eve party every year as my “cheat night”. Then, the next day I was a non-smoker again. No problem. And, I repeat, nicotine is addictive, weed is not. Happy High Holidays!

47 at Forty-seven – The Mid-Life Crisis Diet Project Part:5

Part: 5 Obsession Sets In &Week Four


Slowing Weigh Down
Week Four weigh-in (drum roll)…
230 lbs. (Down 15 lbs. 32 to go)

So, I got off to a great start, with 12 pounds in the first two weeks. But the next two weeks – only 3 pounds. Damn. My body is regulating. “Oh, we’re only taking in a thousand calories a day – when we used to take in a MILLION! I’ll slow our metabolism, then.” The body wises up. Millions of years of evolution have encoded us. We go into “famine mode”. We don’t slow up quite as much as bears or other hibernators do; but we do slow nonetheless. Our bodies don’t understand “diet”, that’s a relatively new concept. Our bodies understand “starvation”, and act accordingly.

So all my wise friends and blog-followers are telling me, “One to two pounds a week is good and healthy weight-loss. Don’t be impatient.” I’m also hearing there will be weeks when almost nothing changes, and weeks when there is suddenly a big drop. Yeah, yeah, blah, blah.

A Watched Pot Belly…
I am impatient. I’ve gotten a couple of compliments – and compliments are like laughs…or potato chips…once you’ve had one, you want them all. Am I looking skinnier yet? Is it showing? Let me ask everybody I come in contact with. I’ve made a pile of clothes I can’t wear yet, but know I will…and I want to wear them next week. I weigh myself every day – and sometimes multiple times a day. Aaagh! That’s so dumb. I know I’m supposed to weigh-in only once a week. I know that. So I’ll see that I’m a pound higher this afternoon than I was this morning. Panic. Well, no shit Steve, you just had a Diet Coke. Chillax. Now I’m really mad at myself. I just used the word “Chillax”.

And I’m mad at myself because I put my weekly weigh-ins on Monday morning – the first thing after a weekend. Why didn’t I make it Friday morning at the end of a regimented work-week? Idiot. And believe me; I approach those weigh-ins like I’m Matthew Modine in Vision Quest before the big wrestling match. “Do it before you eat a spot of breakfast, Steve. First do some calisthenics, see if you can sweat out an ounce. Now try to make a number two. Now get completely naked. Now shave your body hair…and don’t forget the taint.”

My dad got like this during a diet. A phone conversation would go something like this:
STEVE: Hey Dad, haven’t talked to you in a couple of weeks. What’s new?
DAD: Well this morning I skipped breakfast. All I had for lunch was a half a cantaloupe with some cottage cheese. And for tonight I picked up some grilled salmon.
Intimate and riveting.

So, my new challenge, my secondary challenge, is to give my weight…well…less weight. This diet sadly, has become the thing I’m doing – the primary thing. I’m not sure that’s a good way to frame this weight-loss project. “Life” should be the thing I’m doing (whatever that means from day to day). And “healthier” should be the way I’m doing it. Good. Lesson learned, now I wonder if I lost any weight while typing this.


A Smattering of Hyperbole Regarding Your Female Parent’s Mass
This is as low-brow as it gets, but go ahead. Read them rapid-fire, OUT LOUD. I defy you not to laugh.

Your Momma’s so fat…the back of her neck looks like a pack of hotdogs.

Your Momma’s so fat…her cereal bowl has a lifeguard.

Your Momma’s so fat…when she sits around the house; she really sits AROUND the house.

Your Momma’s so fat…when she gets done having sex, she smokes a turkey.

Your Momma’s so fat…her high-school yearbook picture was aerial photography.

Your Momma’s so fat…when she jumped in the air, she got stuck.

Your Momma’s so fat…she has more chins than a Chinese phone book.

Your Momma’s so fat…she has a smaller fat woman orbiting her.

Your Momma’s so fat…she eats Wheat Thicks.

Your Momma’s so fat…for her baptism they had to rent out Sea World.

Your Momma’s so fat…she bleeds gravy.

Your Momma’s so fat…she needs a shoe horn to get into the bath tub.

Your Momma’s so fat…when I’m done fucking her and roll over, I’m still on her.





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