Friday, September 3, 2010

September 2, 2010 The Devil in the Details

What is it about diets that we all seem to be involved with one. The best way to sell a book aside from doing a tell all about your former lovers is to come up with a new diet. I work for a company that has made a good deal of money over the years selling a cleansing/diet format that has been very successful. We have an entire wall of pictures of people that have lost over 100 pounds on our diet. Yet, through all of this, almost all of us weigh more than we want to. How many people have ever said that they weigh exactly what they want? My guess is that those people are extinct. We either weight too little or too much and almost all of that is because of what we eat.

I have become very philosophical about this lately because I have been dieting for the last week and a half. So far I have lost four+ pounds, which for me is nothing spectacular. In the past, I have lost as much as 10 pounds the first week. I have always had the ability to lose weight very quickly when I put my mind to it. Over the years, I have probably lost 200-300 pounds only to find what I lost and even a little extra. For whatever reason, this time has been a little rougher. I have gotten so desperate to get the weight off that I have been exercising.

Geez, it’s hard to even say that word. Somehow, I have managed to live 57 years without ever doing a great deal of exercising. I have spent a few thousand dollars over the years on gym memberships that were no more than a donation to the bottom line of whatever company it was that fooled me into believing that I would actually go. Since I don’t sleep very well anymore, I have been getting up early in the morning and hitting the elliptical machine. Julia has been very understanding in that the machine is in the bedroom and I have been hitting it before six o’clock, squeaking joints and all.

Somehow I have managed to actually get up to that magic 30 minutes I talked about last week. The only problem is that I am sweating like I have been digging a ditch in 115 degrees for five hours. To cool off before I go into work, I have to take a dip in the pool and I still come out sweating. I hate being old and flabby.

I was really working hard last night to be good and not overdo eating pizza. If there is one thing that I can eat every day, it is pizza. Thank God there isn’t a Marion’s around here or I would weigh 500 pounds. When Justin and I would go to a game at UD, we would each eat a large and then order a third one for the drive back to Columbus.

Julia and I split a fancy sounding Italian sub and I stopped after two pieces of pizza. This wasn’t too bad as I had been pretty good at lunch. However, Justin’s girlfriend who was supposed to join us, showed up late. We were nice enough to save her a couple pieces but when she said she wasn’t hungry, my mind started racing. The little devil on my left shoulder started talking to me about how good the pizza was and it would just go to waste if I didn’t take care of it. The little angel on my right shoulder was whispering to me that I had been good and should just forget about it. After resisting for about an hour, the devil won. As a result I weighed the same this morning as I did yesterday. Damn devil!!

There are two things that I don’t want to do when my time finally comes. The first is to die rich. If I die rich, I have not enjoyed myself enough in life. As I look at my credit line, I do not have to worry about dying rich. The second thing that I don’t want to do is die skinny. All I have to do is look at my waist line to know that the second will not happen. At least some good comes from the little devil on my shoulder.