THIS FIRST POST CONTAINS THE FIRST SIXTEEN DAYS OF THE DIARY
CHECK BACK FOR DAILY UPDATES!
Day 1 – 01/30/02
I am writing this on a 767 bound to St. Louis from Los Angeles International Airport. There is no reason for me to note this except for the fact that, as a pretentious asshole, I want it known what a man of the world I am. I am a seasoned traveler. I am a man of culture. I do things that the viewers can only dream. I have been seen in the finest clubs and restaurants across America and have been recognized in one. I have tasted the sweet nectar of civilization that our world has to offer and I want everyone to know about it.
The stewardess just offered me another drink. Look at me. I am a god in his heaven.
But with great blessings and privilege come a great price. Fat. Fat is the great price. I am a fat man. This must be known. There is a consequence that comes with sampling, tasting and inhaling the edible fair at every single International House of Pancakes and Denny’s (formerly Sambo’s) in every single major metropolitan area and most little shitty towns across the continental United States. That consequence is fat. I am a fat man. This must be known. I can barely fit into this ample and comfortable coach seat on the airbus and I think that sitting still is starting to make me sweat.
All of this fa(s)t living must stop. I must destroy the grand opulent man in me and become born again as a physically fit square or nerd. And it is going to happen now.
Thea, the most wonderful and lovely co-host that an amateur singing entertainer could ever ask for, and I have decided to go on a pre-Easter diet. We are getting a head start on all of the other Lenten abstainers and sufferers by a few weeks. We are getting the head start because we are so fat and we must kick the ass. We simply must. We are achievers. By Fat Tuesday, we already won’t be so fat anymore and the rest of you will still be trying to decide whether to give up candy, soda or potato chips.
As a bonus to you, the viewer, we have decided to share our dieting successes and inevitable failures with you, the viewer. You are reading my first installment of Chris and Thea’s Dieting Diaries. Enjoy. I know I will.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 219
Eaten: one airline applesauce, one airline orange juice, one airline lemon muffin, one Taco
Bell twice grilled burrito, one Taco Bell Chalupa (supreme), two fistfuls of Tostido
chips.
Pushups = 30
Crunches = 100
Walk = 2 miles
Day 2 - 01/31/01
I look at yesterday and think to myself what a bad way to start a diet. You, the viewer, agree. Well, I will say in my defense, that it is hard to eat healthy when you are on the road. Ask that fat dude from that one band. I am still so out of it from the time change and barometric pressure shift that you could put a Baker’s Square French Silk pie in front of me and I would eat the whole damn thing knowing full well that I am supposed to be on a diet. Go on. Try me. I am hungry.
I went back to work today and attempted to get back into the sweet mind numbingly repetitious routine that I cherish so much. Through extreme boredom comes the greatest art. On my lunch break, I went to the library to get a book on exercise or physical fitness to compliment the whole not eating thing. The best diets are a well-balanced attack of starvation and physical strain.
I was disappointed at the pathetic selection of fitness manuals that were available to me for borrowing. I have to assume that all of the good exercise books have already been stolen by Cleveland’s fitness elite. With such lame titles as:
“The Lazy Disgusting Fat Person’s Guide to Getting His or Her Fat Ass off the Couch”,
“Physical Fitness for Awful Lazy People”,
“How to Pretend Like you are Getting in Shape with a False Exercise Program that Really does not Do Anything Without Really Trying”,
“Physical Fitness Through Total Lethargy”,
“The Busy Professional Business Man’s Guide to Activities that don’t Really Qualify as Exercise but You do them Already so We will Write this Book of Lies to Make You Think that You are Getting in Shape Through Your Daily Routine of Laziness”,
“The Total Fat Person’s Guide to Basic Movement” and
“Yes, Lifting the Remote Control Counts as Exercise, Fat Person”,
I was not getting much help from the depository of knowledge. As a matter of fact, it took me over an hour to find one book on exercise or physical fitness that I was not going to be totally embarrassed to check out of library with. The books fell into two categories: false exercise programs designed to trick lazy people into thinking that they are already exercising and books with muscle bound geeks and/or women in leotards on the cover. Neither of these types of books could I check out of the library while retaining any sense of dignity that I might have.
After several passes over the appropriate shelves in the Cleveland Public Library with no luck, I decided on a book called “Basic Fitness for Men”. It seemed like a safe choice that would cause me little embarrassment at the checkout counter. However, my wife discovered while flipping through my selection over dinner, that I had checked out the only fitness book written for homosexuals by homosexuals. I now have several pictures of men’s asses and one almost shot of this dude’s johnson with full pubic exposure to look to inspire me to get my fat ass in shape.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 218
Eaten: half of a Panera turkey club, one skinless chicken breast, rice, broccoli
Pushups = 40
Crunches = 120
Day 3 – 02/01/02
I am not a health industry professional. I have no specific training in physical fitness, diet or nutrition. I have no certificate hanging on my wall that qualifies me to do anything. I have never sat before a board or commission to acquire a license. I am without sufficient knowledge to even report what procedures or governing body presides over the weight loss business. I mean, I know that doctors and nurses have to go to school and take tests, right? But what do weight loss gurus have to perform to gain official status? My instincts tell me that if you want to declare yourself a dieting expert, go right ahead. There is nothing stopping you from doing it. I see the weight loss industry as a collection of skinny flakes tied to the stair master with a perpetual smile glued to there tanned faces or common snake oil salesman who could have as easily been selling vinyl replacement windows door to door had they had an uncle who was already in the door to door vinyl replacement window business.
Weight loss is one of the last frontiers of unregulated enterprise today. There is an open door for any would be street corner huckster to come into the biz and make a buck off of some poor fat chump who cannot stop jamming Hostess Snowballs in his mush. Used car salesman, drug dealer, pornographer, fortuneteller, internet billionaire and weight loss professional – these are all the same enterprises of grift and chicanery – an open door to “Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves”. Thank you Cher.
So what is stopping you or I from declaring ourselves a diet and fitness consultant? Nothing. I am a diet and fitness consultant.
What makes you a diet and fitness consultant you may ask? What is this, an interrogation? I thought I told you that I was a diet and fitness consultant. End of story. Do you have a problem with that?
Because I am in a generous and giving mood, I will entertain your request for official qualifications. But I don’t have to. This is America and the American diet industry doesn’t play the bureaucracy game. Got it?
Official qualification: Bachelor of Arts, cum laude – Cleveland State University, 1998
Lost over one hundred pounds eating nothing but tuna salad
That’s it. I lost over one hundred pounds in the early nineties eating nothing but tuna salad. I am qualified to dispense advise to the disgustingly obese and hideously overweight alike because I lost over one hundred pounds in the early nineties by eating nothing but tuna salad. That’s all that it takes. Do you know anybody else that has lost over a hundred pounds doing anything – let alone eating nothing but tuna salad? I don’t think so. I am the biz.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 218
Eaten: one Power Bar, tuna salad and crackers, three polish dill pickle spears, one Yoplait non-fat yogurt, cup of orange juice
Walk = one mile (half mile carrying a copy paper box)
Day 4 – 02/02/02
I could go on forever on tuna salad but this is not the tuna salad diet. I have developed diets way beyond the tuna salad diet and that’s what we are here for. It is time to move on.
Tuna salad. Tuna salad diet. Tuna salad. Tuna salad diet. I can’t get it out of my head.
In celebration of the holiday:
Have you ever seen the movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray and featuring my hero Chris Elliot? I saw that movie at the Garfield Mall Cinema (rip) with my high school girlfriend Danielle. That is the same Danielle who inspired this classic exchange at the end of “Rain Man” seen at the very same theater.
Danielle – Are you crying?
Me – (lying) No.
Danielle – (disgusted) What are you crying about?
Me – I don’t know. There is something about retards and smoke alarms that always gets to me.
If you have not already seen “Groundhog Day”, I strongly suggest that you check it out sooner than later if not just for the humorous content (Bill Murray is always great) but also for a glimpse of a major part of my harsh worldview (life as repetition) played out as light comedy.
I was able to lose over a hundred pounds eating nothing but tuna salad because I not only can accept the fact that life is nothing more that the same exact routine repeated over and over again every day until death but I also embrace that fact. It is very liberating to think of all of your patterns, habits, simple life prolonging functions like sleeping and going to the bathroom, job, leisure activities such as watching TV or sex and everything else that you do with any type normal consistency as automatic. Put eating in the same category and there you have it. No variety. No change. Doing everything the exact same way every day for months at a time will produce results in either direction. If you are eating like a pig everyday, you will be fat. If you eat nothing but tuna salad every day over the coarse of a couple of years, you are going to be able to lose over a hundred pounds. I guarantee that.
I still think of life as nothing more than a pleasant prison sentence. I have been in my own “Groundhog Day” for years now and it does not bother me one damn bit. I can and, undoubtedly, will go on like this for the rest of my life and I can live with it- if you call this living.
But we are past the tuna salad diet.
Yes, I am horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 216
Eaten = bowl of raisin bran with extra raisins, cup of apple juice, tuna salad and crackers, three polish dill pickle spears, one Yoplait non-fat yogurt, cup of orange juice
Push ups = 50
Crunches = 150
Walk = two and half miles
Day 5 – 02/03/02
It is the fifth day of the latest in a never ending series of diet projects and I have already lost five pounds. If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that losing weight is not that hard at all when you are not really eating anything. Eat less and get some exercise and you will lose weight. Practically starve yourself and the blubber virtually disappears. Eat nothing but tuna salad for months and… We have been here before.
The entire diet industry is built on the premise that people do not have enough discipline or will power to keep themselves from jamming cake-filled pies in their mouths. The diet industry exists because of the belief that nobody has the strength of character to stop eating. The diet industry preys on you, lazy fat ass, because they know that nobody can eat just one Lay’s. I can’t. You can’t. Nobody can.
But I cannot eat ANY Lay’s and so can you. This is the super top secret information that the MAN does not want you to have. It is possible to not eat ANY Lay’s. Or cake-filled pies for that matter. It is possible to walk away from the trough of fast food. You can take off the feed bag of gooey fat treats. You can push your chair away from the table of pierogie covered pizzas that lay before and just not eat any of it. You cannot eat anything and so can I.
I am preaching the religion of starvation. Your goal every day on this diet, if you are playing along at home, is not to eat anything. Every item that you put in your mouth should be counted as a failure. Every Saltine that I eat is another testament to my weakness. It is impossible to gain weight if you don’t eat anything. Salt, fat and sugar should be the obvious things that you don’t want to touch your lips but you should really make a concentrated effort to attempt to not eat anything. You are capable of this. It is not that hard. Just decide in your head that you are not going to eat anything and then you are on your way to fantastically thinner you.
Food coma.
Runner’s high.
The bliss of Starvation.
You cannot die from your diet.
Now we both know the secret of dieting but we can’t do it, can we? Why not?
The why not is why I am on another diet. I can starve myself to perfection for months and I can also eat like a pig and put on weight like a giant blimp but I have yet to, in thirty years of life and over a dozen years of diets, figure out how to eat like a normal person. E-mail iamthea@aol.com if you have any advice on how to eat like a normal person.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 214
Eaten = day off (not from eating as it should be but from the starvation thing because I am weak and I am hungry)
Push ups = 50
Crunches = 150
Walk = two and a half miles
Day 6 – 02/04/02
For me, one of the keys to the diet is the day off. I know that this is contrary to my religion of willpower and discipline – only weak people who are fat and disgusting need a day off – but I think that if I did not take Sundays off I would get too depressed from dieting and kill myself. Besides, Sunday is a day of rest. I think that it is in the Bible or something.
Thoughts on the day off:
On Sundays, I allow myself to eat whatever I want. This does not mean that I sit down in front of TV with a big bowl of ice cream smothered with marshmallow sauce or eat a giant cake with little pies baked into it. None of this garbage should be in your house to begin with. You are on a diet, Fatso. And don’t go to the store to buy that shit. It is forbidden.
My days off consist of no breakfast, a regular lunch and dinner consisting of something a little bit fun like a sandwich, pizza or a chicken fajita and a snack of dry cereal and juice before bed. I think that I might have a granola bar during the afternoon if I am hungry. Ooh look out world, that is one crazy day off.
The point for me is that I need a break. If you look at what I have been eating on most days, you will see that it really is not that much – especially when consider that I spend most of my free time laboring on my home. e.g. Today, I tore out all of the old drywall in my basement after dinner, a full day of work and the Monday Morning Radio Show. I did not eat enough today to satisfy the energy requirement needed to swing a demolition hammer for four hours. That is a fact. And most of my days are the same with the basic idea behind a diet being to eat less food that body requires to get through the day so it automatically burns the fat reserves to keep the machine going. What? Is that all there is to dieting?
The day off puts me in a better mood. It reminds me that I am a man as well as a machine. I will tell the viewer again and again that the only way to succeed (and it is all about success – isn’t it?) at a diet is to approach it with an unflinching fanatical obsession with every detail of your life. Everything must be monitored, noted and thoroughly analyzed if you are not going to be a big tub anymore.
You must be in the zone. You simply must. But I need a little time off from the zone to keep me from going nuts.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 214
Eaten = turkey sandwich, three pickle spears, handful of pretzels, banana and one cup or orange juice
Push ups = 60
Crunches = 180
Day 7 – 02/05/02
Today’s installment: Chris’ dirty little secret or I have the same body imaging issues as a wannabe anorexic junior high school girl.
In seventh and eighth grade at my alma mater, Ss. Peter & Paul elementary school in Garfield Heights, Ohio, there was had an annual science fair. It was an opportunity for all of the little scholars to pursue the science behind your favorite hobby or leisure time activity.
How do model airplanes fly?
What makes a television work?
How do you make soap?
In seventh grade, my partner Kevund and my topic was drugs. In eighth grade I studied phobias. This is a peak into the future of Chris as an adult.
The fashionable topic for the junior high schools was anorexia nervosa. A disclaimer: This topic was popular with the cheerleaders and other assorted “A” list girls. True fat girls and nerds stuck with soap making. All of the cool girls did their projects on anorexia and other eating disorders and, lo and behold, all of the popular girls developed cases eating disorders. The Cult of Anorexia. It was like when you read about somebody getting anthrax and then you think you have it.
Most of these girls had no legitimate claim to wait loss issues then and are mostly rather fat now. I laugh at them. And I laugh at me now because I constantly obsess about my weight just like those teenage girls. What full grown thirty year old man diets with such vigor like I do? Most dudes get fat and don’t give a shit. Or get fat and complain but don’t do anything about it.
I am not most dudes.
I have been as heavy as 304 lbs. and as low as 186 lbs. as an adult but I have always seen the exact same disgusting fat person in the mirror. No matter how much weight I lose, I am always going to see myself as the same fat person. I have no control over these feelings and sometimes, I have to admit, they border on the ridiculous. But like my sisters in junior high, I am going to look at my butt in the mirror and think that it is the fattest butt that I have ever seen in my life. And then I am going to skip breakfast – for the rest of my life.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 214
Eaten = oatmeal, apple, can of asparagus, can of tuna, cup of orange juice and banana
Push ups = 60
Crunches = 180
Walk = two miles
Day 8 – 02/06/02
Working in an office can be hazardous to your diet. There are many dangerous obstacles on your path to less fat (you will never not be fat) and less disgusting (you will always sicken me) that will reveal themselves to you under the numbing fluorescent lighting during your countless walks back and forth on the industrial gray carpeting from one soul stealing cubicle to another.
The first enemy to your dieting goals is your co-workers. They want you to be fat because it makes them feel better about themselves. If they are not fat like you, they are most likely a fat person trapped inside a normal person’s body. Watch them eat at the food court of the near by mall everyday. Only a fat person eats at “The Great Steak and Fry Co.” three times a week filling in the last two days with McDonald’s and a visit to Taco Bell. They are fat people. They just have not put on any weight. These people, with zero attention to diet or exercise, sit on the couch sucking on beers, watching TV and swallowing pizzas and potato chips without ever putting on a pound are the worst people who ever lived. You hate them. They might not be showing any signs of weight gain but they have all the habits of the morbidly obese. They are offensive. Avoid these enemies of diet at all cost. They are only inviting you out to lunch so they can monitor what you eat and proclaim to themselves after watching you finish your meal that was half the size of theirs that that is why you are so fat.
Diets have no friends.
The office itself is against you. At the front desk there is a candy dish. The candy dish contains candy. The candy dish wants you fat. There is a vending machine in the break room that contains snacks. Don’t eat those snacks, fatty. The snacks are not good for you. A few women in the office think that they are a modern descendant of Betty Crocker or your office’s own Martha Stewart in the flesh. They bring in any number of harmful baked goods – cookies, donuts, cakes, pies, cakes filled with tiny pies, etc. – so share with the other fat or would be fat people who sit next to you one office over and wait for you to fail. They want you to be fat. Eat the goodies, tubby.
Stay out of the coffee room so you do not see the pastries. Or, better yet, go into the coffee room and throw the pastries in the garbage. You will be doing the fat ass next to you a favor.
There are any numbers of clients and vendors who are always dumping free food such as chocolate covered potato chips, lemon meringue pie or chicken wings on the office in the name of civil business operations. These pitfalls to the diet can go to hell.
Working at an office, with all of the sitting around doing nothing and not moving that is inherently built into office work, is pure evil. The cards of that environment are stacked against the novice dieter. I have no advice but to keep moving. Walk up and down the hallways noticing the size of you co-workers asses. Keep moving in the hopes that yours is never that big. Keep moving.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs = 212
Eaten = three bananas, oatmeal, apple, pasta and tomato sauce, slice of turkey, six pretzels minis, cup of milk, cup or orange juice and dry raisin bran
Push ups = 75
Crunches = 225
Walked = two miles
Day 9 – 02/07/02
I really pigged out yesterday. Three bananas. What? I am going out of my mind. I am insane. Look out world. I am John Candy – eating myself to death.
I ate all of the extra food at the advice of my secretary who I made the mistake of telling that I had lost seven pounds in a week.
“Seven pounds in a week,” she said, “That’s not good.”
She then when on to account her own lame theory of dieting - a false diet that involved six small meals a day. I listened to her because she is older than me and I was taught – falsely – that we are to respect our elders but, really, the only person who would be happy on the six meals a day diet is the fat person. This is why we are a nation of lard asses and blubber butts – somehow the notion that six meals a day will make you lose weight has infected the public mind. I will loudly say for the record that eating six meals a day is only a diet for somebody who eats a dozen meals a day and if you are really serious about losing weight you should really try to eat nothing.
There are several points to be gleaned from this exchange:
My secretary is crazy.
Everybody in the office is truly out to get you. I am not kidding. They want to see you fail.
Dieting in our fat society involves eating more meals than you normally would.
What is wrong with us? How can we convince ourselves that eating more will help us lose weight? You would have had to have seen the look of earnestness in my secretary’s face when she was telling me to eat six meals a day to truly appreciate the delusions that amateur dieters are operating under. It is the foolish dieter than says that eating more meals a day will help you lose weight or the plain fool.
To lose weight, you need to eat less meals per day.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. 212
Eaten = banana, apple, Power Bar, huge salsa salad, chicken breast, rice, green beans
Day 10 – 02/08/02
An artist who denies his influence is a liar. The same with the dieter. You have to get it from somewhere.
Yesterday’s diet related activities, although having the illusion of coming straight from God, where inspired by the cast of characters who perform in the daily farce entitled “My Life”.
There is a woman at the office who shall remain nameless. Weight gain. She is approaching her mid - thirties now and is dealing with the difficulties of the second marriage. Weight gain. She is also trying to shed the image that she possessed before this second marriage, which was that of the office slut. Weight gain. She wants to be viewed now as the stern yet mothering authority on all issues relating to office procedure. Weight gain. And she has also been trying to translate her administrative dominance into the domestic realm. Weight gain. She brought in an apple pie to work today. Weight gain. I did not eat any of the apple pie. Weight gain. I would rather be a sex kitten. Weight gain. Like she used to be. Weight gain.
Where there are enemies to the diet in the office that you must deal with daily, the domestic environment should be one of nurturing support. Your kitchen should be a safe harbor of nutritional sustenance and an abundance of calorie free soft drinks. It should be a happy place for you.
Not so with my abode. I arrived home from work yesterday and my wife was finishing off the last batch of chocolate chip cookies that she had made. I asked her if she was crazy. I asked her if she was trying to kill me. I asked her if she wanted me to be a disgusting fat person all of my life.
She innocently told me no. She said that she was making cookies.
I expect the rest of the world to be against me during my quest for the less fat (I will never be thin) me but, for Pete’s sake, my own wife? I was initially devastated by the treachery but then came to the understanding that I was going to have to do this diet in spite of her as well. I will rise above all of the people that are trying to keep this brother down.
My partner in this diet, the lovely and talented Thea, has been an abundance of inspiration to me over the last decade. Not only has she been a constant source of comic content but she has also driven me to produce because she has never ever given me my propers. I can’t think of one compliment that I have ever received from her in probably the one a year that I have received since we met that I thought was sincere.
I am constantly offering praise and support to Thea and I have literally received next to nothing in return. I have the attitude when dealing with Thea of “I’ll show her”.
Besides all of the vindictive drive that she has blessed me with, she also delivers some true gems of wisdom on occasion. Her whole sleeping way too much to make dieting easier thing actually is a good idea. I went to bed last night after just nine o’clock there by beating the cookies soundly while dreaming. I know that I am a long distance away from Thea’s marathon eighteen hour power naps but there is always hope.
Thank you, Thea.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 212
Eaten =
Push ups = 75
Crunches = 225
Walk = two miles
Day 11 – 02/09/02
Saturday is the loneliest day of the week. No matter how hard I try to fill the void in my life that exists with me at home all day while my wife works with meaningful activity like the quest for the perfectly renovated homeor totally worthless bullshit like wandering around the mall for a couple of hours looking at the other assholes that occupy the world, there is always going to be a couple of hours of the day when I am left alone to deal with the black hole that is my soul. It is the couple of hours each week that I deal with the fact that my life is completely void of any purpose or meaning. That is reality and it is also not a real pleasant thought but, damn it, that is the truth.
How I am going to deal with that all-powerful fact and how you deal with it is life.
It is not what you do that it is important but how you deal with the fact that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to imply purpose or meaning to your existence, there is no point. Ultimately, there is no significance to your or my life.
It really should be liberating. I should be able to embrace the freedom that comes with the truth that it really does not matter. I should be able to say fuck it all. And laugh. But I don’t. I just bothers me.
I think about the fact that that my life is pointless every Saturday afternoon and get depressed. This happens to me every week. Month after month. Year after year. It is worse in the winter because I can’t stand the cold. This is what my life has been for years.
Ten years ago, when I had too much time to kill on a lonely and boring Saturday, I would smoke dope and listen to records. That killed some time.
Five years ago, when I couldn’t busy myself with something else to pass the time, I would drink all day and watch TV. That made the day go by faster.
Today, with all of the good vices gone and a guilty conscious when it comes to blowing too much time, I am left with the same appetites for vice and the same need for an escape or some time to disappear unaccounted for. What happens? A Dagwood sized sandwich and maybe some dabbling in the blackest of arts? Today I rose above it and had some cubed pineapples and some microwave popcorn. I read a book. That is good as it gets when I am facing the abyss on lonely Saturday afternoons.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 212
Eaten = can of pineapple, bag of light popcorn, pear, grapes and a cup of orange juice
Push ups = 80
Crunches = 240
Walk = two and a half miles
Day 12 – 02/10/02
Going to the grocery store is good for the diet enthusiast for many reasons. The first of which is the experience will test the dieter’s will power and resolve. When you are sitting in the comfort and seclusion of your Rocky River compound, it easy to convince yourself through self-hypnosis or self-delusion that you hate ice cream. It is another thing to be staring the frozen treats in treats in the eye and say I will not eat it. Look at how close you are to the fudge topping that hardens into candy when you put on the ice cream from the cold. Think about the candy. Candy. Candy. When you are in the grocery store, it is all there. Everything that you are trying like hell to avoid: glazed croissants, double stuffed Oreo cookies, potato chips, corn chips, cheese curls, false onion rings and countless varieties of cheese and meat.
Go to the grocery store on an empty stomach. Read the calorie and fat counters on the sides of the packages. Don’t buy the Little Debbie snack cakes even though they cost next to nothing and taste a million times better than chick peas and balsamic vinegar. Don’t buy anything. Triumph over food. Be a victorious dieter.
Besides testing your steel will, a trip to the grocery store will provide you with many up close and personal examples of the people that you are trying to avoid becoming through your diet. It easy to become numb, through the repetition of your daily routine, to the pieces of human garbage that you work with, ride the bus with, are friends with or are related to. These people, with all of their frightening eating habits and gross personal appearances, no longer have the inspirational impact that they should. You need to see brand new fat people to shock you into not eating. They grocery store is a great place to see loathsome human gumbo.
It is a fact that super fat people eat. Where do super fat people go to buy food? That’s right. The grocery store. You will see giant fat men with exposed ass cracked buying pounds of steak and bags of potatoes. You will see bloated fat woman wearing skin tight sweat clothes in a non-workout environment buying Pepsi and chocolate. You will see dirty chubby fat kids crying that they want corn dogs and pizza rolls for dinner. You will see the bloated fat woman wearing skin tight sweat clothes in a non-workout environment buy the corn dogs and pizza rolls for the dirty chubby fat kid.
That should make you not want to eat.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 211
Eaten = day off (not from eating as it should be but from the starvation thing because I am weak and I am hungry)
Push ups = 80
Crunches = 240
Day 13 – 02/11/02
Through out all of this dieting, which has lasted many years through many meals with many highs and lows, my goal has always been to just be normal. That is all that ever wanted out of life and a diet.
What lead me to a life of dieting, besides the fact that I weighed 304 lbs. thereby qualifying as morbidly obese, was the desire to shop at a regular store in a mall not the big and tall shop where I had to buy my clothes until I lost the first fifty pounds. If the truth ever was to be told, I did not even think that I was that fat until I saw the 304 lbs. on the scale. I knew that I was overweight but I did not look at myself as having a problem. I was crazy. I was delusional. I did not hate looking at myself in the mirror as much as I do now.
But I wanted to shop at a regular store. I just wanted to feel normal.
I remember the first time I bought a regular XL flannel shirt from Silverman’s on Turney Road after I lost the first fifty pounds. The first fifty pounds are the easy fifty pounds. I bought a couple of flannel shirts on a lunch break (I could not eat) from my job at the grocery store. I have a problem with food. I did not really think I was going to fit into the shirts but thought that I would keep them as an incentive to lose more weight. I tried one of them on in the bathroom before I got bag to bagging groceries. It fit and I, quite literally, almost broke into tears.
And then it was Iron Maiden T shirts that did not have to be manually stretched out before wearing them and now I wear a size L dress shirt.
I keep on dieting. Not because I care one way or the other about being overweight, I actually like being a bigger dude, but because I am a horrible fat person who can’t control what I eat and then I put on weight forcing my clothes to get tighter and pushing me a little bit further into line at the big and tall shop again. No fucking way. I just want to be normal.
I wish that I could remove the part of my tapestry of mental illness that controls my eating disorder from my head. I just don’t want to think about it anymore.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 211
Eaten = two pierogis, two vegetable patties, salsa salad with one chopped up red pepper, glass of orange juice
Push ups = 85
Crunches = 250
Walk = three miles
Day 14 – 02/12/02
Fat Tuesday.
I used to know a lady who liked to eat walnuts covered in maple syrup. She was fat. She had three fat daughters and a big husband named Hoss. They tried to diet. Although they lost weight initially and repeatedly, they never were able to keep the weight off and, over the coarse of many years and many diets, are fatter now than they have ever been. The daughters all married fat men and have fat babies who like to eat walnuts covered in maple syrup.
Fat Tuesday.
I used to know a compulsive eater type guy who, when the urge to eat would hit him hard, would rummage through the refrigerator and cabinets of the house eating anything that he could get his hands on. Cold spaghetti. Orange juice. Slice after slice of American cheese. A slice of American cheese wrapped in bologna. Pickles. Dry chow mein noodles. Peanut butter. Lemon ice tea mix with sugar. BBQ sauce on crackers. He would wolf down all of this random food between meals. He would feel guilty about this haphazard eating. He would wonder why he was not feeling full or satisfied and then he would feel guilty about that. Something had to fill his expanding with each day of over eating stomach. Popcorn – a huge salad bowl covered in not quite a half of stick of butter and some lemon ice tea with sugar that was so strong it could be qualified as concentrate. He was full after that. And then it was time for dinner.
Fat Tuesday.
I knew that it was going to be my last regular meal before I started the diet when we pulled off of the highway. I really did not want to eat at the Marie Callender (Marie Callender's restaurants developed a significant reputation for offering generous portions of scrumptious, well-prepared foods and, of course, Marie's irresistible pies.) restaurant at Magic Mountain in beautiful Southern California but I did not feel like driving anymore. It was high noon on a business day so the place was packed with guys in polo shirts tucked into their chinos, older men in bad gray business suits and women dressed like they worked in offices. They all seemed to have nametags on and spoke with a great deal of enthusiasm about whatever business they were in.
On the menu was the worst type of pseudo home cooking bullshit that you could imagine. I ordered shit. My wife ordered shit. I overheard a woman at the next table say that she was only going to get the salad bar because she was watching here weight. I followed her to the salad bar. I watched her load her plate through the glimmering sneeze guard with macaroni salad, pasta salad and a tossed salad covered with eggs, bacon bits, croutons, two types of cheese and a couple of ladles of blue cheese dressing.
Fat Tuesday.
I am dieting with more of a purpose than wanting to be thin.
Fat Tuesday.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 211
Eaten = raisin bran, cup of apple juice, power bar, apple, can of tuna, can of green beans and cup of orange juice
Push ups = 90
Crunches = 270
Walk = two miles
Day 15 – 02/13/02
Your scale may be mocking you right now. It is a liar. It hates you. But here’s the thing, on this diet, it is the only friend you’ve got.
Ash Wednesday.
Everybody else at the office (I wish I had a circle of influence outside of that office – maybe some friends or a church group. But I don’t. I am fat and lonely.) who is going to follow the Lenten self improvement deal started today.
I listened to the stories.
I am not going to eat any candy during Lent. I am giving up beer for Lent. I am trying to quit smoking. I am eating healthy and going to the gym four times a week. Everybody had one.
I laughed.
No, your are going to be eating candy tomorrow or the next day. Your butt is going to get even bigger. You are going to have a beer this Sunday at you nieces birthday party. You already told me that you had a cigarette last night to see how you would react. I wonder how you would feel after a whole pack. Going to the gym with lipstick on and your hair done because you never know who you are going to meet… uhh…OK?… I really don’t see you getting a lot of work done on the machines. I don’t know. It might just be me.
I can see where surrounding yourself with all of this failure could be hazardous to your ability to succeed. Stand around in the coffee room for long enough listening to these people convince themselves that it is OK to let it slide for a minute and you will, of course, be soon convincing yourself that it is OK for you to be a loser too.
One Valentine’s Day cookie is not going to hurt anything. Bullshit. It is not going to make you gain any weight but it is going to put the idea in your head that it is OK to be weak.
Do not let this happen to you. It is not OK to relax for a minute on this diet. You have put yourself on a program for a reason. The reason is that you are fat. Sticking to your program, no matter what program it is except for the one where you eat anything that you want like a big disgusting fat person program, is of the utmost importance. There is only one way to be less fat (you will never not be fat) and that is through rigid discipline.
You should be glad that you got the jump on the other pathetic losers around you by a couple of weeks. You should listen to their stories about their lame efforts towards personal improvement and quietly laugh to yourself in anticipation of their ultimate and repeated failure. Let the fact that they can’t stick on a program for only a couple of days inspire you to stick on yours for a couple of months.
The best part about associating with people who are also false dieters is giving them false words of encouragement when they are eating another fat filled muffin in the morning. I give them a look that says I am with them or we are in the same boat and lie to them while saying something like “Rome wasn’t built in a day” or “You don’t want to starve yourself”.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 210
Eaten = oatmeal, power bar, apple, two pierogis, chicken breast, salsa salad with one chopped up red pepper, cup of orange juice
Push ups = 90
Crunches = 270
Day 16 – 02/14/02
I usually write my dieting journal in the morning because I am only good to write in the morning while I am drinking my coffee. The rest of the day, I really am too tired and hungry to get even the most basic tasks completed. My productivity at work has fallen off to almost nothing and the remodeling job that I am doing on my basement is moving along at a snail’s pace. You can’t patch concrete on an empty stomach. Trust me. You can’t.
As somebody who gets his sense of self worth from how productive he is, it is extremely difficult being on any type diet of dieting program for too long. Oh sure, I could go on the lazy fat person diet and eat more food than I should and still get stuff done but I am trying to lose weight. The hardest part about this dieting program is dealing with that decreased amount of productivity. I hate being tired all of the time. Last night, after an hour long trip to the hardware store, I needed to sit down and read paint brochures and “how to” manuals for an hour before getting down to the basement and seeing what I needed to see. I slowly putzed around the basement. I wondered if it was possible to bet it refinished before Easter which is my goal. Probably. No. Definitely. But it is going to take some dedication to work on the projects for the one hour at night when I am not ready to fall asleep.
Because I write in the morning, I write out what I am going to eat that day and how much exercise I am going to do before I even leave the house. That way, I force myself to stick with the routine because it is already written down on paper. That is one of the tricks of the trade.
Today is St. Valentine’s Day. I love my wife. I love my diet program.
My wife and I are going out to dinner tonight. I don’t know what I am going to do. What I am going to eat is blank. I’ll take care of it tomorrow. Let’s see how this works.
Yes, I am a horrible fat person.
Lbs. = 210
Eaten =
posted by Thea at 8:53 PM 