procrastinated

i have refrained from posting lately due to a busy schedule. this is a lie. i have eaten such tremendous amounts of food lately that i have been ashamed to tell about it. as the school year comes to a close, copious festivities require me to eat more in order to keep up socially. this is also a lie. however, the aforementioned festivities have only added to the detriment of my weight and health. i have taken to eating out with friends and not eating only what is only on my own plate but also the remainders if my friend's plates. then when i see an obscene stack of plates before me and i realize that only one of them is actually my own, i feel an overwhelming urge to vomit and run a marathon as a means of purging myself. instead i just ask the waiter to bring another basket of bread.

Exercise is still going strong for the most part. although the past two days have been slightly less than physically taxing in an exercising manner.this is due mostly to the fact that a train ran me down somewhere in the vicinity of my sinuses. i woke up with a head full of concrete and a body that had been used as a punching bag. i couldn't hear, see, smell or taste and my throat was gently pulsing and throbbing in a manner that prevented me from turning my head. my joints had been pummeled and defeated. therein lies my excuse for not exercising. actually, i'm just stopped up and achy with no sense of taste or smell which oddly enough has caused me to eat all the more. i keep eating as if perhaps the next bite will have some taste.

Days One and Two

Well the first day and second day of my one-hundred-fifty day thing have passed. as usual, breakfast and lunch were not total disasters. i was however able to refrain from mooching my colleagues leftovers. (though i grimaced as they threw them away) being the end of the monthly fiscal period, the selections for my lunch were less than grand. i was also running late and was forced to pick some pre-packaged and high calorie, very unsatisfying food. as the day wore on and my hunger gnawed at me, i grew increasingly irritable at the thought of my meager lunch. by the time lunch came, i was quite irritable and began to make my friends pay seeing as it was clearly their fault that my lunch was so pitiful.

as far as exercising is concerned, day one was mostly a success. after having seen a deceased snake on the side of the road, i was reminded that this was the time of year when the fowl creatures were awaking from their hibernation and throwing themselves maliciously in my path. this led me to alternate my routine and steer clear from my normal woodsy route. instead, i ventured to the subdivision near my house and walked there for a bit.

on the second day, my forest path had been cleared and mowed to a decently low level and my serpentine fears were not so great so i took to the woods once more. after about five minutes the rain began to pour. i decided that this would be good preparation for snowy hikes in germany. until i was soaked ot the bone and i was afraid my iPod would die. so i went inside and loafed on the couch. i tried to do somehing productive but in the end submitted to the ever seductive call of napping.

overall, the eating and exercising wasn't a total debacle for these days. we shall see where it all goes in the coming 148 days.

50 pounds in 150 days

alright, so its not exactly fifty pounds or 150 days. its more like 43 in 145. still it is an undertaking. my actual goal is to be 200 pounds by the time i go to germany this fall. which is roughly 50 pounds in 150 days.

i decided to launch this new campaign after a week of festivity and eating. for various reasons, i spent a great deal of time celebrating and being generally jovial. this of course required excess consumption of food. i made an inappropriately large and delicious asian meal and had friends over to gorge themselves on it with me so that i would not be alone in my gluttony. we excused this little binge with saying they dropped in for an episode of lost. naturally, all of the food was fried. general tso's chicken, fried rice and egg rolls to be precise. though it was delicious, i could feel the vast tides of oil i had used to cook the food just adding layer upon layer of chunky flesh and flab to my already flabby self.

in keeping up with the pathetic trend, i dines out with friends three other times, each time eating double or triple the humane amount. i felt slightly remorseful as i sat in cracker barrel, after having consumed one of the largest breakfasts on the menu. i thought about less fortunate children who were malnourished and rarely got a full meal, and here i just ate three times what i needed. but, oh! i bet she won't eat those fries! i wonder if anyone would mind if i took the last biscuit? you see that my sympathy lies not even skin deep.

so tomorrow is the new day. and i am starting over once again. blech. maybe i could save up for a lipo-suction.

just life i spose.

well, since i last posted...i have lost FOUR POUNDS! i know, i know. you must be thinking whoever heard of such a feat? FOUR POUNDS? the man must have some magical quality about him! anyway, despite the small number, you have to start somewhere so four is not a bad place to start if i do say so myself!

seeing as today was tuesday, it meant it was the lowest calorie day of the week. i glance at the fridge as tuesday approaches an shiver with each approaching day. by the time tuesday comes, i think....okay, i can handle this. and i do, for lunch and breakfast but then by the time dinner rolls around i'm toast. ah well, i still end up eating less on such days. though i do complain, it has worked. and with only minimal suffering.

the exercising is still existing. i still prepare for the hiking by doing my little walks in the woods and the hills are still making a mockery of me. i can just hear the earth chuckle as i heave myself up a particularly nasty hill. i try to distract myself with music which is all well and good until my shinsplints lock my legs and my breath abruptly stops. the other day i decided to incorporate jogging again and i was able to push myself farther seeing as there were no creeks in my way this time. now, normally i exaggerate but this time i am serious when i say that i could barely breathe when i stopped. i tried to breathe in and something in me had hit panic mode and was not allowing normal breathing. i had seen plenty of athletes bend in half when they lost their breath so i tried this. it helped but i soon realized i was giving the neighbors quite a spectacle all bent over and huffing and whatnot. so, in order to keep the traces of my pride, i stood tall and proud and proceeded down the trail where i soon died again.

to make a quick jump, healthy food. oh how delicious, how nutritious and how utterly unsatisfying. i love a good salad and yogurt for lunch. it tastes fresh and delicious. as soon as you are done, there is this sense of accomplishment of having eaten so healthily. and then it hits you that you are completely unsatisfied and would love a chunk of anything fried or maybe just some meat...or potatoes or anything that was not green or the consistency of baby food.

Calories? and exercising?

its been a while since i last posted so i will quickly bring you up to date with my progress and lack thereof.

weekends are this horrible pit of food. i have all this time and all this food to spend it with. last weekend was no exception and the delicious food flowed in abundance. actually it wasn't really that great of a selection. i simply ate all that was in site. sunday evening, after a particularly odious day of food consumption, i decided to step on a scale. i took a deep breath as i noted how far the dial jumped. of the fifty pounds i had lost....fifteen came back. at first i tried to play it off as a comliment to myself, imagining that the fat was so unhappy to be gone from me that it had to return. then i realized something must be done!

moday evening i did a little research and by this i of course do mean googling and binging. i found a website that created a personal calorie plan for you. i punched in my age, weight, height and activity level. after it calculated my daily calorie allotment, i saw that there were more options available. it would formulate a plan for maintenance, weight loss or extreme weight loss. i selected extreme because i always overdo all things. once i had been thoroughly depressed by the shockingly low allotment i saw yet another option called calorie staggering. i selected this as well. it made a new plan where i could have a different number of calories every day. it seemed nice. until tuesday. tuesday, i all but fasted. i was hungry all day. the small meals made me almost weep but i didn't have the strength. then wednesday was a feast from start to finish.

you must understand i do exaggerate. tuesday was not all so bad and wednesday did in fact become my new favorite day of the week. this calorie staggering seems to be legitimate so i will give it the fair chance it is due.

in addition to this, i have started my "alp training." this is when i will not repeat the seventh grade and be the fattest kid at camp who huffed and puffed at the back. i WILL be fit enough to hike an Alp when i am in germany this winter! i have started a "training program" which translates to building up endurance by walking more and more every day. it has gone fairly well and my shinsplints are not actually killing me.

exercise...oh dear.

i learned in biology that Michael Phelps has a huge advantage over other swimmers. one reason is his body type. he has short legs and a very long torso along with long arms. i am built much the same way. Michael Phelps also produces less lactic acid or something like that so he doesn't get sore or tired from exercise to the extent normal people do. seeing as we are practically the same and whatnot, i thought maybe i might be able to endure large quantities of hardcore physical exertion and be none the worse for wear. how little i knew. how little i knew.

i had spent an entire four days celebrating my birthday. thursday with family, friday with one group of friends, saturday with yet another and then sunday by treating myself to a day of enjoyment. naturally, all of these festivities involved copious amounts of food. so as monday rolled around, i felt compelled to eat right and do a bit of exercise to appease the gods of guilt.

i began by plugging into my new iPod and briskly walking through the woods behind my house. after the first couple hills, i was starting to feel the burn in my legs but it was miniscule and my breathing was only somewhat ragged. at the bottom of a particularly vile hill, having gained considerable momentum, i proceeded to break into a brisk jog. i was forced to use one hand to hold up my now falling sweatpants as i puffed up the next hill. it wasn't so bad. i was breathing heavy but it wasnt that atrocious. i tuned into Matt Costa who was singing me into distraction. after only a short spurt of my jogging, i began to feel the effects. it wasn't killing me just yet. but still. i had to stop ahead at a creek that impeded my flight path. so i began to slow down, when i stopped at the creek a bus hit me.

i was dead. i could barely step across the creek. my breath was trying to murder me for being so viciously cruel. my legs wobbled and wept bitterly, trying to guilt trip me for what i'd done to them. my heart was trying to burst my eardrums and my organs were commencing a riot. i tremulously started walking again, only half the man i once was. the fast paced music seemed to mock my weakness and insufficient pace. i finished out the time i had set ( a tragically short amount which i am unwilling disclose) and crashed on the sofa in a heap of sweat and tears. a shell of the person i started out as.

Cooking?

being a fatty means that i love to eat. loving to eat has sparked a passion for cooking. being the people person that i am, i love to cook for crowds. the other night, we were having a few friends in and i was making a very simple chicken recipe for the occasion. i am convinced that if i fail to have a meltdown and panic in the middle of food preparation, the food wil turn out wretched.

to give a bit of background on culinary meltdowns, they are not funny. many people have this illusion (created by Amy Adams in the movie Julie and Julia) and seem to think that meltdowns are comical and even cute. the image of Julie Powell lying on the floor of her teeny kitchen after she has this cute little pout over her un-trussable chicken is quite the opposite of how i melt down.

let me paint a scenario for you: the recipe calls for a nonstick skillet, which i do not have. instead, i use a little oil and a stainless steel pan. should be fine. seeing as i am this culinary genius, i left the flame on as high as possible. when the pan proceeded to erupt in a bunch of pops, i began to panic. i was shouting incoherently at all who were in the kitchen. i lunged toward the rainstorm of hot grease with the tongs in hand. as i reached the tongs out to turn the stove down, (kep in mind i am a very large man, six foot four and WELL over 200 punds) flailing frantically, the grease attacked me and popped a good two feet and hit me squarely in the face. i began screaming expletives and jumping about in a manner ill fitting someone of my height age and girth.

this was not cute, nor was it comical. it was serious.