Money, Ho-Hos and Clothes, All a Fatty Knows

Losing a lot of weight very quickly has many unexpected - sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrible - consequences. One of the very best is the feeling of being able to bend over and tie your shoes without having to lift your foot onto a chair. It's the number one trademark of a fat person to do that. I still haven't broken the habit. Even a few inches helps. Holls has a short stool she uses to grab those upper-cabinet things that are always a little beyond reach, such as crock pots and that set of glasses we won't see again until we move out. So yes, the habit is still ingrained in me to the point where I will make a concerted effort to seek out the stool and plop my 13 4E sneaker 4 inches off the ground.

And you know what they say about guys with big feet, right? Heh heh...


Small hands...:(


Anyway, tying my shoes has nothing to do with the rest of this entry. What it does have a lot to do with is the rest of my wardrobe. Since April, I've dropped from a 40 to a 36 (comfortable) waist. Awesome, right? (In a weird related story, the length of my pants has grown from 30 to 32, so either I'm still going through puberty or I'm turning into Gulliver). And as is typical of losing a bunch of weight, the greatest reward is slipping on those old pants and seeing how much real estate is there. And you pull out the extra pants and say, "Damn, I lost a lot of weight! Well, goodbye fat pants! Time to slip in my svelte sexy jeans and take my ass to Subway!"

Imagine, however, you take off the old fat pants, and quickly realize you don't have any new pants to slip into. Soooo...that's correct, I have to spend a lot of time in old fat pants wearing a belt that I might have to carve an extra notch into.

I feel like a new man!

And pants are expensive! Old Navy, Kohl's, Target: it costs some cash to cover my ass. Lower your prices! I bought one pair of size 36's: $18. How much money do you think I have? Do you think money just shoots out of my butt? Well, you can find out, because pretty soon all my fat pants are going to be sliding down my legs when I walk, and you'll be able to see for yourself if money walks.

So I'm taking donations to the Keep Chris's Ass in His Pants Foundation. Corduroy For Chris. March of Dungarees. Whatever you want to call it. Just hurry, because I'm one dropped pencil away from a full moon rising.

Me discussing my previous point with the CEO of JC Penney's


*****

Now, you can call me crazy...

People think heavy people get heavy because they load up on sweets. For some, that may be true. Growing up for me, however, I was more of the Second Helping variety. Not so much cookies and ice cream, more like "More meat loaf, please."

Stop right there! Not that Meat Loaf

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the pleasures of a sweet tooth. But I was never one of those Oprah guests who sits and eats four rolls of raw cookie dough because I had a tough day at work. Lately, though, the Call of Candy is too prevalent for me these days. I work for a grocery store chain, and next to nearly every register is stack upon stack of delicious, extremely fatty, nutty sweets and chocolates. For some reason, whenever I try to eat healthy, I end up beelining for the chocolate factory like Augustus Gloop. It's infuriating. I've been eating Butterfingers, Peanut M&Ms, Twizzlers - hell, I even partook in a Baby Grand. They still make those things!

I can't explain it. I'm not sure there's a scientific conclusion for it. I was never one to load up on sweets (chips, maybe). But even chips have not held a huge appeal for me lately, either. Just give me the candy. So for the next phase of my workout, I'm cutting out sweets altogether. And no, I will not allow you to point out the obvious contradiction when I say I've not lost a ton of weight because of my new workout, but meanwhile I'm stuffing my face with empty calories. Has nothing to do with it. So far as you know.

"Das bullshit!"

Shut up, German boy!

Weeks 18/19: Fin

In 1994, movie critic Roger Ebert, upon reviewing the Rob Reiner flick "North", wrote a review that became so popular, he used an abbreviated version of it for the title of his book years later. I shall paraphrase the most famous lines of that review to describe my feelings on my particular workout:

I hate this workout. Hate hate hate hate hate this workout. Hate it.

Much like Reiner, at some point I had a severe lapse in judgment, only in my case, instead of hiring Elijah Wood and Bruce Willis, I decided I needed a workout that played to my worst fitness characteristic: flexibility. Time and time again, I've learned that my undoing every single time is my trust in myself. I cannot afford a workout that tells me I don't have to go to the gym six days a week, but only two. I can't have a workout that says in between my gym time, I should be doing other exercise activities. Stupid as it sounds, I need a workout that says, "On Monday, you're going to the gym. Tuesday, you're going to run five miles. Wednesday, you're not going to Burger King, etc., etc."

I'm happy to say that for now, Wednesday seems to be the only day I'm in compliance with.

*****

The whole idea for this workout started earlier this summer. I had been diligently pounding the gym six days a week since mid-April, and the results were astounding. 34 pounds lost in ten weeks, more than I could have hoped for. Even when I took a much-deserved Week Off, I still managed to lose another 4 pounds. But since then, I've only dropped 1.1 pounds. There were fluctuations each week, but still...that's pretty terrible. I don't think it's enough to say that eventually you'll hit a plateau. Of course I will, but not when I'm still about 60 lbs. overweight.

I have one more week of this godforsaken workout, then I'm starting a new one. That new one will be announced next weekend. Holls thinks I should go back to my old workout, and I agree, but not quite yet. As Winston Zeddemore says, "We've got the tools, we've got the talent!" Interpret that as you will. The new workout will not give me a ton of flexibility, but will get me back to that much-desired quality I so desperately seek: consistency. As in, "Wow, that guy sure is consistent in his workout routine," and not, "Wow, that guy is consistently spilling cheese on his belly."

In a related story, I now want cheese.


WEIGHT AFTER EIGHTEEN WEEKS - MIDNIGHT, MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010: 262.8 LBS. (-4.6 LBS.)

WEIGHT AFTER NINETEEN WEEKS - MIDNIGHT, MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010: 262.6 LBS. (-0.2 LBS.)

*****

How do I feel at this exact moment? What the hell: On a scale of Olga Sherer to Gilbert Grape's mom, I'm Rob Reiner: got off to a blazing start, "consistently" continued to churn out awesome work, and then one bad mov(i)e and I have to start all over again. Also, one more week of so-so progress and I'm afraid Holls will start referring to me as "Meathead."

In a related story, I now want meat.