Day 12

I’m on my way to my childhood home of Philadelphia.

This is going to be my greatest dietary challenge thus far. Not only was it named the “fattest city” a few years ago, but add to that the fact that I am looking forward to putting a few favorite restaurants, delis and food stands on my historical tour, and methinks there could be a slight setback in the program.

To put a positive spin on it, my stomach will continue to have “forward” progress…

Philly is not known for producing alternative eating delicacies. It is mostly a town of tradition and repetition, and this is especially the case at mealtime. Recipes have been passed down for centuries, without so much as a blink to change an ingredient. They have no clue what is outside the normal patterns of a meat & potatoes meal, followed by sitting around the telly watching Channel Six Action News with a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer you got at the local bar down the block.

There is not much awareness of much outside a 20-block radius, except for the Jersey Shore trips that fill every summer.

For instance, if you announced you were trying a vegan lifestyle, most would think you were just talking about vegging out on the couch for a while. Ketchup is considered an essential vitamin source there. And don’t tell them a tomato is not a vegetable, or prepare to have your fruity ass kicked back to the west coast!

There are local foods most of our country has never heard of, let alone tasted. I use the term “taste” loosely, because most food there is consumed without thought or touch of a taste bud. It is “wolfed,” “rifled” and “piled in,” but rarely eaten for its succulent culinary delight.  Sometimes teeth are more of an impediment to the rush to the stomach than an essential tool in digestion

Conscious eating in the City of Brotherly Love is practically non-existent. This is a place where one of the most celebrated events is the “Wing Bowl,” as 20 thousand fans gather to watch gluttons down as many chicken wings as possible before passing out.

I guess you could say it’s “unconscious” eating??

Grown men are horizontally strewn about a stadium boxing ring, wishing for a ring girl to give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and relieve them of their self induced misery.

When I wake up in the morning in my hometown, I begin with a breakfast “meat” called Scrapple. I put meat in quotes because I am not quite clear if or what meat is contained in this slab. The best guess I can give is that scrapple is one vowel away from what it probably is – a scrap pile. Yes, it is what’s left over AFTER they make sausage, which is oh-so-healthy for you!

I picture the sausage being made in a factory in rural Pennsylvania, and then a guy with a broom sweeps the leftover snouts, guts and innards into a mold. Perhaps there is some congealing fluid added (or glue), but then it is made into a 3 by 2 by 4-inch rectangular block and put into a hermetically sealed wrapper.

Okay. I am going to stop right there. I have eaten this since birth, and even I’m getting nauseous describing this day starter.

Sorry…

A helpful hint I picked up a long time ago when I am having a hard time with offensive food – put ketchup on it.

Day 11

I am indeed losing it. Down from 213 to 203 today. I don’t want to do the “goal weight” thing because it sounds like I will get some trophy at the end. For me, it also spells an end, when in this case, daily wellness is my destination.

I simply want to get into a (more) healthy program, and shed some extra pounds in the process. I guess that’s my goal, right?

I get my picture taken often, so I’d prefer to be less conscious of getting caught in the candid shot, where I am not doing the suck-in belly pose. I am smiling, but you can see that my teeth are actually being used to seal in the oxygen. If I opened my mouth slightly, you would hear a sound that resembles poking a hole in a tire.

I am doing these special shakes, which are really working. I still have energy, and feel satiated at breakfast, allowing me to have a full and refreshed morning. But once I see the lunchtime coming, I begin to obsess over my “reward” of a hearty meal. Gimme something to chew on, baby!

It is so hard to believe that I’m even thinking about losing pounds. Nostradomus would not have predicted this if he knew me as a boy.

I had four major food groups – candy, hot dogs, peanut butter and soft pretzels (with mustard). Ketchup was dumped on things like I was pouring motor oil into my car. And I always had to have Charles Potato Chips and Tasty Kakes with every meal.

I turned down so many foods. My mom had to cook on the down low, so she could hide certain ingredients. If I found an onion in something, that was the end of the meal right there on the spot! I turned into Ghandi on a fast against the British. Only my cause was not so noble…

The result of my picky eating was the body of a child Sally Struthers would raise money for. I recall thinking, when I would see her commercials with the starving kids by her side was my thought; “even those kids wouldn’t eat Lima Beans.” One time, I took my vegetables and put them in an envelope and told my mom to send them to the “starving kids across the sea,” as she called them.

My grandmother teased me about “seeing my ribs,” but nothing could get me to eat better. I was skinny to the point where I swallowed weight gain pills. In 9^th grade, I was the only wrestler who had to GAIN weight. I was my own class, below the minimum to be in a division. While the rest of the team was running in rubber suits to get down, I would be gobbling ice cream cones with sprinkles (although we called them “jimmies”).

So, I am now grown up and obviously do not have the metabolism of a field mouse anymore. I’ve been over 200 lbs for many years, which is still hard to comprehend, considering I was in high school trying to break the century mark as my “goal.”

It is sometimes hard for me to grow up, which ain’t helping with the growing “out”!

Day 10

Can’t believe how much golfing helps with the weight plan. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m playing on the surface of the sun!

Damn, are we all getting the hint from the man upstairs yet?? By the way, if he really is upstairs, I’d hate to live in his place right now. Heat rises!

Well, I guess if you are the creator, you already know that…

I haven’t been announcing my weigh-ins, but I guess today is a good day to give the update, considering I’ve been sweating like Rupert Murdoch asked to tell the truth.

I started at 213 pounds and today I logged in at 204. Not too bad, especially since I have not officially worked out in that time span.

It is also due to these shakes I’ve been drinking in the morning. I notice the difference when I don’t bring them on the road with me. When I am on a consistent program at home, I do so much better in all ways. I center when I’m around my personal space, and that includes having my infomercial scores – the magic bullet blender and slap chop.

The comedy clubs aren’t known for having a menu created by Dr Oz. Most of the time the cook is the brother-in-law of the owner, who is 3 days out of drug rehab, dripping wet in front of a deep fryer, tossing breaded food items to their sizzling death.

I guess one can see how this wellness trip has had a few detours.

Off to golf again now. It is a foursome of business clients for a film I am developing, so I can justify my time “off” with a possibility of a future investment.

At least that’s what I tell my wife….

Day 9

Ok, true confession. This is more like “day 19,” not “9.” I have been lax in my blog writing, and even more so with my diet regimen.

I don’t like the term “diet.” First, the word “die” occupies three quarters of the word, and I have no interest in dying of starvation. Now, perhaps if the word was more like “live-et,” I might jump right in with both feet!

Yes, I want to LIVE. I want to have fun with my life and enjoy every moment I can. Whenever I feel I deprive myself of something, it takes some joy out of my day. It would be like hooking up with a super model, and mid preamble she says, “Well, you can only touch this tiny portion of my body. The rest you leave for somebody else.”

Then again, models I have known are worse than a Big Mac enema for my health, so maybe that wasn’t the best comparison. The temperamental ultra beautiful ladies I’ve known have the grace of Al Qaeda if they don’t get their way. Plus, I have long said that I find their bodies to be anything BUT attractive and healthy, and have no clue why girls aspire to look emaciated.

As my friend Carlos always said, “The bone is for the dog.”

Now that I have started the conversation about women who focus on scoring a magazine cover or a Milan runway, I think I will explore this further, relating to the blog I’m writing here about my weight loss.

To be honest, I arrived to the most wonderful place in my personal life journey a few years ago, and one thing I now know is that the folks who work on their thinness are not happy people. Even with fashion magazines the women look angry, as if they are saying, “somebody give me a lamb chop.”

My theory is that they have given into some societal myth, where “you can never be too rich or too thin.”

I disagree about the “too rich” part, but will save that for my blog about money! But as far as too thin is concerned, “concerned” is the operative word. I’d say skeletal remains of someone dead of malnutrition would be “too thin.” Because of a few supposedly hip experts in the fashion world have deemed it a good thing to be skinny, we now have a country- wide epidemic of anorexia and bulimia.

These are diseases caused exclusively by culture, and if anyone put this under further review, one would see its deceptive origins, as well as the fatal outcome. Also, whenever I exist in the energetic space of lack or less, it causes angst and a sense of loss, not a loss of pounds, but an incessant deficiency of abundance and good things. The mindset of deprivation manifests itself in a variety of ways, where I end up feeling unworthy of greatness. How can I be fulfilled, when I’m not filling myself with that which causes me to feel internally uplifted?

Basically, I have had the most pleasure in my life when I am being genuine. The more honesty and core integrity I ground in, the better the results.

I find diets to be just that – disingenuous. Why do I want to force a body type that is not natural? If I am dieting, usually it is for someone else (their view of what looks good on you), and people-pleasing is never a good starting point for anything. Also, despite the ads that claim delectable treats aplenty with their particular program, I have yet to see a regimen that includes my favorite – Girl Scout Cookies.

With a diet, I’ll be eating foods that do not have the taste I find to be the most satisfying. “Delicious” is my goal, not “deprivation.”

The other issue is that I have been taught to think that fats and sugars are the only way to please the palette, and that organic (natural) eating is for the hippies who smoked the taste buds off their tongues. It is stored in my mind that sweets and fats are a reward, and that greens will not give me strength, even though hay-eating horses would kick my ass in a fight or a race.

Now, good health is another story. Instead of allowing the script to be written by societal “norms,” I now choose to look elsewhere for my positive changes. Once I began committing to wellness, my world opened up. And I mean literally it showed me a way of being that is not exposed to us on a regular basis. What is shown to us on a mega scale is the quick and easy fare, and there are billions of dollars spent promoting something that is not organic to our digestive system. Actually, a lot of it is poison, but we would not know that, since the mainstream media cannot and will not reveal these secrets, or the sponsors who pay their salaries would shut them down.

Therefore, I had to explore alternative methods of healing and wellness, and I am damn glad I did! Sure, I don’t have perfect body/perfect health, and certainly a sleeve of thin mints would contradict myself, but in general I am far closer to great living than if I took the road of the masses.

The consumer mentality has consumed much of our psyche, but the bummer is, the things we want more of are harmful to us. 

The “more whores” have taken over our collective thought patterns, and I personally want to stay clear of that. There is no end to their foundationless desire to attain happiness by accumulation, and this includes devouring a Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast or an all-you-can-eat 99-cent buffet in Reno.

Big quantities and small quality. What if we focused on re-labeling our ideas about good food, and put more importance into the octane of the fuel we put into our bodies? It’s one thing to put the 87test gasoline into a rental car, but I want to get more than a hundred thousand miles out of my vehicle!

I am digging the simplicity, depth and breadth of my current lifestyle, where I place importance on critical thinking and expanding my creative spirit. Limiting, as we do when we diet, does not serve that purpose of expanding my world.

More about this in days to come, but to sum it all up – it’s all about balance. The more I focus on the yin AND the yang, the better off I will be. The times I take a step back and look for core truth, is when I am most successful.

I will do just fine in this latest goal documentation. It will evolve into something unique and fun for me, and if I lose a few pounds in the process and can play with my family with a touch more bounce, then I done good!

Day 8

I’m not sure what day of my stated weight loss intention this is, but needless to say I am way off schedule. I do like the blogging of simply categorizing it by days, because it cuts down on my time spent coming up with clever titles for the piece.

These days, it’s always about time efficiency, isn’t it?

I have noticed this blog run has not caught on with the viewers. Kinda like having a show on Discovery Health Network; it’s interesting, but the more compelling ratings grabbers involve some sort of consequences like a fall into a sewage pit or a verbal reaming from an actor playing a military sergeant diet coach.

Frankly, my losing it has lost its steam. I went down 7 pounds immediately, but then stalled. I’m not gaining, but am stuck in neutral. Hell, I am part Swiss!

Yesterday, I realized that having kids does not help with the eating well system I’d like to fully adopt. And since they’re 3 boys 11 years apart, the variety of events and tastes adds to the bad menu choices.

For instance, yesterday I woke up earlier than I would have liked, with Jackson the (almost) two year old repeating over and over into the baby monitor, “daddy, daddy, daddy,” a beautiful thing, but hearing it at 5am diminishes the cuteness. I went in his room and rocked him in my arms for a while, which is great for my heart, yet not so good for my stomach, which is now thinking it is breakfast time and wants an omelet.

Then it’s time to get the 7 year old to camp. He is happier with the dreams he was having, so now I spend an hour trying to convince him that kickball was a better thing than the sugar plumbs (or Twix) dancing in his head. So, he’s now late and we are wolfing down food on the run, always a great idea for digestion, right? We are supposed to chew a few dozen times a bite. I think every other bite passed the teeth on the way down.

Now it’s time for my eldest son’s 13^th birthday party. By the way. Can I ask you all something? Is it “eldest” or “oldest?”

He is hosting 19 twelve year olds at a big trampoline place called “Sky High,” where kids bounce around for hours on end, with the future prison guard teenagers yelling rules every few seconds to justify their summer job. If I heard the word “policy” one more time…

So, daddy has to feed the tweeting tweens, and the place will only allow their food to be served – pizza.

My wife laughed at me when I was serving the kids, as I made sure I got my slices of pepperoni. “Honey, you are supposed to give the kids their food and then you take what is left over.”

Yeah, right.

“I’m paying. Like they’re gonna remember this party for the food. And the girls are already in their not-going-to-eat-in-front-of-boys mode anyway, so I’m taking some slices for me. I’m starving from all this work I’m doing on the party.”

Needless to say I held the same attitude when doling out the cake. My wife is cutting it like she’s trying to win a geometry contest, so I grab the knife and begins chopping away. Each square loses a little section on the pass to the plate, and all the extras went in my mouth. I’m glad they were occupied, because I was licking me some fingers.

Now we have 13 year olds not only possessing hormonal changes, but are now hopped up on sugar. Added a whole new meaning to the sky high thing.

Day 7

It’s strange to me to have to stay with a scheduled writing, as if I’m on staff for a sitcom. Luckily, I’m not getting paid to stay within a deadline, and considering only 16 people have signed up to follow this, there’s no pressure!

Last night I went off track a bit. And when I abandon a regimen, I go full out. Once I put my foot on the slippery slope, I hurtle all the way to the bottom, sliding like I’m on the grease I’m eating.

I took my wife to the movies. We saw “Tree Of Life,” a movie I had not heard of that she picked out. She is my earth girl, so I figured it was a documentary about trees. My wife gets turned on if I buy her plant seeds, so I knew this was going to lead to a good goodnight.

It was actually a feature film with a plodding story and emoting actors, one of those movies made by some serious “auteur” cats that seem to think they are making the most important film of all time. And if you don’t think so, there’s that arrogance of them being above it all and you are just too stupid to get it. It is only shown in art houses, as if all other movies in a multiplex are Top Ramen and they are beluga caviar. 

I got it all right. I got bedsores from a hundred and forty minutes sitting quietly in a theatre chair. Glad I missed the previews, or I might have had permanent damage.

Tree of Life was two hours of symbolism and irony. And I slept like a log.

But not before I loaded up on comfort food. I think this type of eating can be divided into categories, and in this case it can be put under the label of “movie munchies.” From the moment I enter a theatre I go on automatic pilot. There is no weight loss blog or voice of suggestive reason. It’s dark in there, no one can see me and I go off like a crack addict behind a dumpster, a guy in 12 steps hiding from his sponsor.

I simply must have my salt and sweet combo. My wife didn’t want anything from the snack area, so I had my own bag of popcorn and a box of candy. I had a choice of treats from the top row, or I could splurge and spend an extra fitty cent on the high-end milk chocolate. Or will I go for the stuff so imported it has its own designated area outside the window display?

But I took a detour. I turned around and there was a freezer filled with ice cream. The real good stuff, too. There really are advantages to the art house over the fart house!

I got my chocolate and popcorn mix, but forgot that this particular treat melts. I had to wolf it down before the hand thaw, always following my pattern of a one to one mouthful ratio of consumption. Problem was, I had to eat so fast it made noise, and this was one of those quiet flicks, where I had to wait for a scene with thunder so I could bury my hand in the loud paper bag.

After the movie ended, I waited through the credits, not that I needed to see who the key grip was, but because I didn’t want anyone to see the loud eater with the popcorn crumbs stuck to his shirt.

I got heartburn, too. I usually don’t get this anymore, ever since I started taking this miracle juice about four years ago, but I had rushed around and hadn’t done my afternoon shot of liquid health.

My chest aches did not stop my food run though. We had a coupon for a new restaurant, which served Tapas, so we went there to have dinner.

This was my kind of place. We ordered numerous dishes instead of traditional entrees, and this was the way to go. The selection was diverse, and unlike the movie we had just seen, I didn’t mind if it was pretentious. If this is the way snobs eat, I am all in!

Then came the moment of truth, or in the case of my belly girth, “critical mass.” We went through the variety of delectable Tapas, which is apparently a fancy way of saying “appetizers,” and needed to decide if we wanted to be stuffed or satiated.

Did I want to try one more, and also have another one of the favorites I had just enjoyed? There was one that had a sauce (me love sauces!), which was basically crabmeat in a donut. Kinda like California Roll meets Krispy Kreme.

Yes, I went for round two. No regrets. Had a wonderful night with my love, and I am well rested. Next time, I choose the movie. And if it involves trees, there better be some ninjas in ‘em!