Diary of a Fat Man

Goals are great, especially in weight loss. I’ve tried to lose weight before without any real goals, figuring I could just Spicoli my way through with no worries. It bombed, every time. This time I set goals, but they've tended to slide from specific “I want to do this by the end of the month” goals to the more general “I would like to not be fat in the near future.” I don’t think this is a negative, but I do feel it’s not very productive.

I want to make smaller, more frequent goals, maybe in week-long or even daily intervals. I still have Light Club, but it’s not the cutthroat competition I wanted it to be. Now it’s full of feelings and positive re-enforcement. Ugh. 

I have a couple of ideas, though...

I gained 10 pounds last week. I tried to figure out how I could sugar coat that, but it wasn’t happening. That’s a large newborn, just hanging off my gut.

I feel optimistic and this distresses me.

Last week I was convinced I hadn’t lost any weight, and was proven wrong. This week I’m pretty sure I’ve lost weight, which, if history has taught me anything, the scale tomorrow will display a =( and snap into two sad pieces. It’s hanging over my head like some sort of cream cloud. 

So, I’m optimistic about the weigh-in, but also dreading it. I’ve created my own paradox in fact, but first a little background:

No matter how well I do with any sort of weight loss measure, I’m always acutely aware of being half a step away from falling off the wagon so hard I break something. When I was 18 or 19, I went on the Atkins diet, and lost quite a bit of weight. I can’t give you an exact number because I was scalephobic at the time, but I was definitely looking trim, relatively speaking. After about a month and a half of pure shrinking, my family went to Hawaii for a wedding....

I’ve had weight progress two weeks in a row. I should be ecstatic, but I just feel anxious. The scale says 268, which makes 14 pounds in about as many days. I don’t feel like I’ve lost any weight, but my girlfriend says my boobs look smaller, so... yay. 

About a month ago, my girlfriend and I made a promise. When one of us hit our goal weight, the other would have to spend astonishing amounts of dollars on a prize for the other one. When Bakery hits her goal, I have to buy “an entire wardrobe” for her. I am operating under the assumption that this means 70 dollars worth of Target gift cards. I may be mistaken.

So some dudes at the University of Alabama released a study that claims to smash a bunch of weight loss myths. This should be a really cool article, but everyone has been quick to point out that many of the authors of this thing are so financially tied to weight loss companies they’re probably wearing Slim Fast t-shirts under their lab coats.

By far the most interesting myth to get debunked was that sex apparently isn’t the calorie-shredding marathon we all expect it to be. On average, sex lasts about six minutes, and burns as many calories as a brisk walk to the Taco Bell. I’m not going to make everything awkward by commenting on that statistic, but who admits to six-minute sex? Poll your local locker room and you’ll find that, on average, no sexual encounter lasts less than 48 minutes -- the approximate runtime of Crazy Town’s “The Gift of Game.” I don’t know what angle these research guys are playing, but I’m wary.

I guess also gym class isn’t actually super impactful for weight loss in kids, but whatever. Even before you know what calories were, you knew you weren’t burning them under that giant parachute thing your P.E teacher pulled out like twice a year. (I don’t have any kids, so I don’t know if that’s big news to some parents out there.)

The article does manage to do a very good job of illustrating my biggest issue with weight loss as a product, though.

Does anyone know anything about greasepaint, and the removal thereof? If you’re a juggalo and know some sweet tricks, get at me. Soon, if possible, because my eyes  are really starting to sting and work is really awkward when you look like Clan of the Cave Bear.

I finally feel like I’m getting my diet under control. I’m making smartish decisions on almost a regular basis, and even when I know I’m being dumb, the Keto diet lets me mitigate the damage I’m doing to myself. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been bouncing between 280 and 274, this week though, I’m wobbling between 276, and 274. That’s without even making it to the gym or boxing this week. This is actually not even a motivational failure, I’ve been staying late at work, a lot.

I am still trying to figure this diet out. What works, and what doesn’t. My weight bungees between 279 and 274 pretty regularly and I should probably look into whether or not that’s normal.

I feel skinnier, for sure. I’m going to attribute this to the working out that I’m doing, but I don’t know. I read other blogs that cover topics like “I gained 3lbs this week, and here’s why” and I want that, I want that so bad. Obviously food equals fat, but even something as powerful as common sense seems to hold no weight. 

Trying to figure out why my body does what it does is like reading a crazy person’s shorthand. Sometimes I luck out and things make sense, but the rest of the time it’s just loops and what I guess are mean looking cat letters.