On the way to the gym today, I passed a McDonald's truck parked on the side of the road. The driver was checking his oil, but I barely noticed. You want to know why? Because I saw this on the back door of his trailer:
Now, few things in this world can actually make me stop a vehicle in traffic, but there are a few. In order:
1) My life is in danger
2) The Cloverfield monster just crossed the street in front of me
3) Somebody ran out in traffic
4) I've been dieting and exercising for almost three days now and a 10-foot carton of french fries is sitting on the side of the road
Forget the fact that it's all paint and metal; those fries was lookin' gooooood. And yes, I know, McDonald's is the worst, their foods are unhealthy, they're baby-killers, etc., etc., etc.
(And for the record, people who spend their entire lives gloating to other people about how fast food is the worst need to just clam up. We all know. All of us. You're not helping anybody. I hardly ever go to McDonald's because I know their food is bad for me. BUT....I would be lying if I said that ONCE IN A GREAT WHILE there is nothing sweeter than sucking down a double-quarter-pounder with cheese, followed by a carton of fries and 3- or 400 hundred gallons of Diet Coke. I always feel like I just took a bath in toxic waste, but it's Sweet Nectar of the Gods about your third or fourth bite.)
Needless to say, I almost braked in traffic watching that truck on the side of the road. Nevertheless, I must push forward and shed those pounds. And since there's no such thing as the Deep-Fried Diet, the gym and water it must be.
Which brings me to my next point. For the first two weeks of this new workout, I will be drinking nothing but water. No juice, no COFFEE, no SODA, no BEER (you can tell I'm heartbroken about the juice). While water is good for you physically, mentally it cleans my system. I always feel cleaner after I drink water. And I'm not allowing myself any milk, any flavored waters, any sweetened waters, either. Just boring old water. It has the excitement of a Jim Lehrer karaoke CD, I know, but I need to jump-start this routine somehow.
Speaking of which, if you're ever thinking of undertaking something like this, don't do what I did this week, which is suck down a bottle of water every time you're hungry. While it might kill cravings, eventually you start feeling like you just tried breathing underwater: just a nasty, waterlogged feeling starts to overtake you. I'm limiting myself to a handful of bottles every day.
(And yes, all you McDonald's haters. I know bottled water is direct support of corporate America, the Republican party, the warmongers, blah, blah, blah. It goes against the very idea of free natural resources, boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo. You know something? If corporate America can chisel me down about 100 pounds, then I don't really care how bad it is for everybody else. I will gladly make 17 trips to my local convenience store to purchase a $1.75 bottle of "evil" Aquafina.)
One last thing about drinking water: you, um....well...there's not a nice way to say this. I have to pee. A lot. I'm probably in the bathroom more than I am the office lately. There's actually a RESERVED sign on the first urinal from the left. And when I first started this workout, I felt good after each session, because I was lighter, more springy and I just felt healthier. Now, however, I dread feeling that internal buzzer that goes off whenever the tub is full. That means if I don't find a bathroom in about 2 minutes, I will shoot a Snake River right down my right leg. Hence, this workout, while trying to keep me young, has turned me into an 80-year-old man in a matter of two days.
As for the workout, it was actually pretty easy. Today, I did my legs. Now, for all intents and purposes, you may not know how I look right now. But I'll tell you this: while my upper half may be more Stay-Puft than Scottie Pippen, my legs look like Gaston's from Beauty and the Beast. They already pretty much look like they belong to a guy who's in shape. The only logic for it is that they've probably had to support my cheese log of a body for the past 25 years, therefore they are in magnificent form. You can probably crack a walnut on those puppies. But I digress.
3 sets of the leg press, 3 sets of surprisingly difficult lunges (where I almost blew out my knee at one point), 3 sets of the dead lift, and 3 sets of the straight leg dead lift (wherein I think I shaved about 5 years off my back's life). Not a terrible workout. Did my 1 mile of cardio, and quietly petered about for the rest of the day. Dinner was homemade mac and cheese with asparagus, which Holls brought to work for me, and we ate dinner together. And hey, when you got a loved one rooting for you on the sidelines, what better health do you need?
Of course, if she had brought french fries, I would have married her the next day, but that's a different story.
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