up and down

Thursday morning, 6:00 a.m., and getting ready to leave on our annual vacation trip, this time to the East Coast once again. I've been very undisciplined so it didn't shock me to see the number 263 on the scale this morning. I scream. Those malts!

All these diets are enough to drive one mad. The DR Diet, as I dubbed it some time ago, is probably the best. Eat what you like, in normal, human quantities. Beware of binging. Don't eat after dinner. And "never eat anything that's not delicious" (Calvin Trillin). Add some walking to the mix and how could it fail?

John Lennon wrote about God being the "concept by which we measure our pain." Take it for what it's worth, but even as an "almost-believer" (yeah, I know, "almost" doesn't count except in horseshoes) I find it offensive. A more valid and forceful measure of my pain is my weight. Despite an easy summer physically, the bucks weren't there and it was stressful. A malted a day keeps the doctor away? Not indefinitely, for sure, and perhaps worse, it's what got me where I am today. And now mom with her confidential and "helpful" advice, which my poor daughter will also, no doubt, be the beneficiary of this weekend.

So off we go, but not first after taking a nap to make up for the usual failure to sleep soundly throughout the night (it was five hours this time). Not much for me to do: shave, pack, and some little odds and ends in the apartment--then we're off! Back by next weekend, but who knows?

holding steady, amazingly

Same 261, which given what I've eaten over the past few days is surprising. There's been no discipline and lots of near-depression. So, all things considered, not so terrible. Now off to Flint for appointment--last day of summer season.

make that 97!

A couple of days and a few pounds of bloat. I was thinking of setting up long-term goals, something I was preoccupied with as a teenager but with little success. All the same, I'd like to imagine something like this:

July 21 -- 264
July 24 -- 261
Aug 1 -- 258
Sept 1 -- 251
Oct 1 -- 245
Nov 1 -- 240
Dec 1 -- 236
Jan 1 -- 232
Feb 1 -- 229
Aug 1 -- 212
Jan 1, 2012 -- 197
Aug 1, 2012 -- 176
Jan 1, 2013 -- 164

Wow, two-plus years seems like an awful long time, doesn't it? Yet it was three years ago that I was where I'm at today.

yes it did/yes it will

Nearing 61 and roughly 100 pounds overweight, feeling like an old man, tired all the time and lacking endurance. What a change from the early years! Weighed in both yesterday and today at an astonishing 264 lbs.! One hundred pounds is an awful lot of excess and I guess I should think realistically in terms of goals--a two-year project, getting down to 200 by August 1, 2011 and 164 by August 1, 2012 (just in time for the election!). Two points from my previous blog, which I can't seem to gain access to anymore (having forgotten user name and password--LOL): "never eat anything that's not delicious" and "eat like a human being"--the first from Calvin Trillin, the second a commonly-used expression. Let the real me reveal himself underneath the layers of blubber that have accumulated over the years. Stop wearing the fat as the equivalent of a coat of armor hiding the insecurities of my early years as a skinny kid. I am what I am. And now it's a question of health.

So, a few random thoughts to start off this blog. Later.