On Being a Fat ass

Emily is leaving for New Jersey tomorrow morning for the work week and I will be alone. With the food. It is time, dear reader (9 people if you include me!) for me to come clean.

My name is Bill and I am a fat ass. I have been since puberty and despite my best attempts, I can't shake it.

Since July, I have lost nearly 30 pounds and what remains is still 25 pounds too much. I am pleased with my progress, but there is still a lot of field ahead of me. People keep telling me I look good which I appreciate but in an odd way that doesn't help. It would be better for people to look down their nose at me and ask "are you o.k. with how you look?" Now that's motivation! Only in America will people laud you for going from morbidly obese to merely obese. Hell, at 25 pounds overweight I am a role model. I kid, of course but the fact remains at any weight, I will be a fat ass just as an alcoholic, whether they are actively drinking or not, will always be an alcoholic.

Back to Emily leaving for the week. My motivation for exercising and eating well is purely external. I fear that my motivation will be out of town with my wife and not right here where it needs to be. I gained a lot of my weight while living on my own for the last 2 years while my job required constant travel. The cupboards in my apartment were not stocked with healthy choices, unless you count the cans of soup which were really there for show. The bad living took its toll. Now being in my middle 30's I can't just absorb those calories and expel them with not consequence. Calories now take permanent residence right around the midsection.

I have started visualizing walking every day as is my goal. The weather is supposed to be nice so there shouldn't be an excuse, unless work thwarts my plans. My problem is that when I walk with Emily, we talk and decompress, make plans, we even occasionally argue a little but the net effect is the time goes by fast. Also, when I am with Emily, I imagine people don't look at me and make fun of my contorted face and fast-walker gait. They look at her, then look at me and go, oh, it's nice for that nice young lady to take her grandfather for a walk. When I am alone I will just be that fat guy who is walking funny.

Then there is the eating part of the equation. As an adolescent, I imagined my life being filled with Porsche control, not portion control. These two things could not be further from each other on the excitement continuum. You can hear the conversation now, "Dude, the way you only ate 3 ounces of that hummus on those low sodium Triscuits was awesome! Way to snack smart, bro!"

Snore. Is this really what life has come to? In a word, yes. Conquering over-eating is harder than it was to quit smoking. Sure, there were any number of purveyors of tobacco that needed to be avoided, but I could pay at the pump, never having to go inside the gas station and be tempted to buy a pack of smokes. Plus, Marlboro couldn't advertise on T.V. Just while writing this post, there have been 235 commercials reminding me the McRib is back in town. Like I needed to be reminded, I can smell the fumes coming from the funnel stack of the McDonald's just down the street. A fatty always knows.

Just as I had started to break myself of my bad Burger King habit, (which I tendered while working there through high school), they brought out the cheesy tots. Are you for real? Cheesy tots? Melted gooey cheese like substance nestled in deep fried potato? That is more addictive than crack! I went in to order some a couple months ago and the lady apologetically indicated they no longer sold that product. After I trashed the place and burnt it down, I felt relieved. If they don't exist, I can't eat them.

It is a beautiful day outside and it is halftime of the football game. I guess the only excuse I have to not go take a walk now is continuing on with this post. I guess 10 paragraphs is enough. Any more typing and I'm gonna need a snack.

Bon appetite!