I’ve always been steeped in bitter, secret jealousy of guys like wooferstl who are so completely comfortable with their bodies that they can do stuff like post themselves jay-bird-ass-naked on their weblogs or show up to the bar on a Saturday night wearing assless pants.
Sure – I know how to comment-mine and throw some skin in occasionally when (at least subconsciously) I’m screaming for some sort of sexual validation…. but page back and look… chances are if it shows much of anything – it’s through a heavy blur filter in photoshop.
I wish I could say the cliché diet “before / after” pics above was entirely a “planned” study – but honestly they weren’t.
I took the “before” shot one Saturday afternoon last November when I was toying with the idea of getting a tattoo* to memorialize my father and make some sort of morbid statement about being the last name-bearing male on our branch of the family tree.
*tattoos = a pastime of mine – (planning them not getting them) – since my 20’s… I like to look at this rock-solid, neurotic lack of follow-through as sort of a gift… yeah.. that’s it.
so.. yeah – anyway:
Nothing like having your relatively young father come down with a nasty case of cancer to give you a swift kick in the ass with the mortality boot.
The stress of caregiving… speedy new ADHD meds… a completely new way of looking at food (and consumption in general) along with a sobering assessment of the genetic cards I’ve been dealt – and… wooah… lookie there:
I started loosing weight.
But wait.. it gets worse.
I joined a gym too…
*crickets*
…but not until February… So I figure based on what I’m learning about bodies having about a 3-month lag time, I should post another progress pic sometime in May.
Funny stuff happens when you loose weight in significant numbers…. You notice stuff coming back that you hadn’t noticed left in the first place.
I can touch my toes my palms to the floor.
I can run up a few flights of stairs without getting winded.
… and stuff like that.
The whole “gym-culture” experience has been chock-full of blog fodder as well – but that’d be best explored in a future post.
Figured first I had to stop sitting on these images as I have for the last 30 days feeling self-conscious about sharing them.
So if you want the whole rambling “how’d you do / are doing this” schpiel – it’s behind .
1. Change your mind…. About everything…
Just because it’s sold in a store and has a brand attached to it does not make it healthy – let alone safe… Fast food was never intended to be a mainstay of our diets. Our “lifestyles” simply mandate that on any 1 mile strip of commerce you can be afforded 20 fast-food options and 1 grocery store where you can buy a piece of fruit. (Note – this “lifestyle” is fueled by the acceptance feedback loop of advertising and a horse-shit construct filling us with piggy expectations and a sense of entitlement that has to rival any other point in human history)….
*wipes spit and venom from monitor*
Here’s a simpler way to express that big ole ball of leftist hot air:
“Every meal can’t be (and shouldn’t be) a feast”
We’re conditioned (in this country) to believe they are… You want ice-cream? GO GET SOME! You want potatoes AND macaroni – THEN YOU HAVE IT … You want all the fried crab-rangoon you can eat? WHY HELL YES – YOU DESERVE IT – GOD BLESS AMERICA!
The prosperity our grandparents worked so very hard for has become the perverse killers of our parents…
yes neo – this is “take the red-pill” kinda shit I’m talking about here…. and there’s no way I can tell you until you do it yourself.
2. Pay Attention
Sure – I’ve got pills to help me do that… without ’em I’m not much good to anyone – including myself. My search for a non-pharm way to manage my brain-type continues…
I used (am using) an online nutrition and exercise tracker called My Fitness Pal 
There’s a lot of ’em out there – I just liked their clean interface and light ad load.
My target caloric intake for the day is between 1800 and 2000 cals a day…. If I go over – I go over… No points or strange sacrafice codecs to follow like with Weight Watchers and stuff… the point is to “track” what you put in your body… the very act of doing that made me more mindful about what I was eating – and thus – made it easier to keep to my daily goal.
2.5 Stop Drinking Soda Pop
There’s nothing redeeming about the stuff.. It’s just chemically sugar-salt water.
Despite all this head-unplugging / reprograming – I still find Diet Dr. Pepper complete crack… Mom has been keeping a stash of them at Dad’s which I have to confess I’ve raided a few times… but alas – see DISCLAIMER below.
3. Move More
I’d like to say prior to the gym I was doing something like “taking a walk around the neighborhood at night” – but I really wasn’t… but the time I’d get home from dad’s I’d collapse from exhaustion… but through all that I was surely moving a LOT more… cleaning, carrying, running the dog, lifting, etc…
DISCLAIMER:
Nothing’s absolute… Nothing’s black.. Nothing’s white…. I still eat cheese burgers…. Just not a “lot”…. We just look at stuff like that as a once-a-month “treat”…
OK – I’m starting to sound like Susan Powter…
*withdraws from keyboard in terror*
Otherwise…. so there…
that’s it… I’m not ready to go assless at the bar yet – Woofer’s got a LONG time before he’s got any competition on Saturday nights. 🙂