Setting My Sites on Weight Loss and How I Got So Big

OK, almost everyone has done it. Tried to lose weight only to find that they cannot shed the unwanted pounds or they can lose weight but they tend to follow their success with congratulatory binge eating and subsequent weight gain, often exceeding their original weight by more than a modest amount. I certainly have been there.
With regards to my weight, today I take my stand. I mean it. I am “getting after it” starting this morning. I intend to lose all those unwanted pounds and get super healthy.
Let me rethink this for one minute. Perhaps tomorrow is better for me. Can you blame me? I mean, I spent good money for this chocolate eclair I am about to eat. Trust me, it’s not about the eclair, however scrumptious it appears. Sure it’s full of buttery cream, and smothered in deep, dark chocolate. I get it that this sweet pastry will undoubtedly melt in my mouth. Not the point. No, this about the money I spent on the eclair, not the eclair itself. Seriously, I can’t, in good conscience, put to waste money that I dedicated to the purchase of this sweet, chocolaty confection. Not in this economy. No way!
So, this morning I eat the eclair. Tomorrow I diet!
So that’s it. Tomorrow I begin, once again, to pit myself against myself in the epic weight loss battle that so many of us have fought and lost. That statement alone begs the question “how can you lose a battle where you are pitted against yourself? It can be done. I believe that when talking of weight loss, it can, indeed, be done. I know. I’ve lost the battle with myself many times.
Back to weight loss. Tomorrow is the day when I start to track my daily efforts to lose 20 pounds of ugly, embarrassing fat. Some have suggested I cut off my head. They submit that by doing so I would remove 20 lbs. of ugly fat very quickly. Funny!
No, this is going to be a serious effort to lose 20 lbs. I know everything in my life will improve dramatically with the loss of this excess tonnage. Never mind that my life is not all that bad just as it is. I will work on the premise there is always room for improvement.
So how did I get to the point where enough is enough and it’s time to “roll” on this issue? Let me explain.
I have almost always been overweight. Some times a little, some times a lot. But always with a sense that I could do a little bit more to lose those extra kilos.
But, as with most of us, there have been different stages in life where eating unhealthy and fattening food seemed an unfortunate way of life. It was that way form me. Let me give you an example.
In my younger days a lot of extra pounds were added to my frame as a result of a simple gallon of ice cream.
I'll explain. The setting: My family, circa 1964, after dinner and watching television together. “Who wants to serve the ice cream?” my mother would say as we all camped out in front of the black and white TV watching shows like The Ed Sullivan Show or The Flintstones. “I’ll get it, mother”, I would shout, knowing that my plan for ingesting more ice cream than any one in the family was once again about to be implemented. I headed for the kitchen.
Desert bowls lined up on the counter, ice cream melted to just the right texture for scooping and the solid steel ice cream scoop, heated to the perfect “scooping” temperature, a result of my having held it under the faucet while running piping hot tap water over the business end. I was now ready to lift the creamy, cool substance into the bowls. I began the process of distribution: “One for Dad, one for me (I would sloppily ingest a scoop of ice cream each time the count came back to me)”. “One for Mother and one for me”, I continued. I would repeat these words to myself as the distribution continued every second scoop finding its way into my mouth. This went on until everyone in the family had a fair portion and I had eaten about half of the creamy substance. It is worth noting that this clandestine plan of mine required that no one in the family was paying particular attention to me and that they were focused mainly on the television and the shows that were playing.
The next step was to distribute a nice cool bowl of ice cream to each of my family members. They smiled as they accepted the bowls of ice cream, happy that they did not have to miss a minute of the television show they were watching.
The last step in my plan was for me to act as if I had suddenly realized that there were no dessert bowls remaining with which to place my portion of the ice cream. Pretending as if I were the odd man out I said that it was OK. I “offered it up to Jesus”, an act of individual martyrdom known only to my mother and Father Murphy and said, “I will eat my portion out of the bottom of the carton, mom”. “Besides”, I said, “there was not that much left, anyway”. I knew that there was a fairly large portion of ice cream remaining in the bottom of the carton and that I would greedily gobble it up. My plan was, again, carried out to perfection. I sat down with my family, focused my attention on the tv show and happily spooned the tasty, smooth ice cream into my wide open mouth, feeling as if this was my own personal heaven, secretly affirming, that each bite I took was a continuation of my relentless trek towards youthful obesity. I hated it.