Friday, November 24, 2006

Big Fat Fatty McFattersons

That's me. At my doctor's office this past week I weighed in at 254 pounds. Now, that's a perfect weight if you're a 6'8" power forward in the NBA. If you're just under six feet tall and spend most of your day standing in one place or sitting in one place ... not so much.

I
t is the most I have ever weighed. In all of my 49+ years on the planet. I am appalled at myself.

And it must go. I must lose weight. And not just lose it, but take it out deep into the woods and set it free someplace where it will never find its way home again.

And you're going to help me. I hope. Your job is to provide tips, advice, and most of all, encouragement. I'll post a monthly update here on the blog and I expect you to use the comments section to keep me going. Here are the targets:

225 makes me a happy guy.
200 makes my doctor a happy guy.
180 makes my insurance company happy people.

Behavioral science tells us it takes three weeks of repeating an activity for it to become a habit, and that's the impetus behind the "Change One" Diet Plan. Change one thing about your lifestyle or diet for three weeks, until it's locked in, then change one more thing. It's a gradual lifestyle change in hopes it will be a lasting lifestyle change.

I'm going to give it a try. Starting today - the day after Thanksgiving - I'm going to attack this weight problem and cure or at least alleviate some of the ills that plague me (hiatal hernia, diabetes, constant fatigue).

My first step is to begin a food journal. They say when you write down everything that goes into your mouth, you wind up eating less. I guess it's because you're more aware of what you're doing. At any rate, I start today.

That means you're on the clock with me. I thank you.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

The Cat


Usually being the first one up in the morning, I stumble into the bathroom with the cat fast upon my heels, having apparently missed the company of humans for all of five or six hours. And there we are, the cat rubbing up against my legs, purring, meowing, telling me her food bowl is empty and I'm the only one in the world who cares about her and WHY HAVEN'T YOU FILLED IT YET???

Meanwhile, I'm telling her, "Look, I don't bother you when you're in the litter box, so leave me alone." To date, she has never understood this.

Many times when my wife comes around a corner of our house, the cat will bounce on her feet for a moment, then move away. I am constantly hearing her tell the cat, "It's me. It's always me. It's always going to be me."

Lately though, I confess the cat seems to be mellowing out a bit. She's over three years old, now, and she'll actually let me lie down on the bed - disturbing her nap, mind you - without jumping off and running away. We'll actually even nap together. I'll always wonder if she thinks my snoring is just my way of purring.

The other day I was staying home with my daughter, who was ill and didn't go to school, and while I was at the computer, she actually jumped up to my lap and curled up in the crook of my elbow for about 45 minutes, until I had to put her down and see if the joint would still work. Getting old sucks.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

A Pile of Potpourri

That deep rumbling you heard last night was the country, moving to the left.

My personal preference is to have Congress balance the White House. Republican president? I'll take a Democratic Congress. Democrat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Gimme a Republican House and Senate. That way whatever laws make it out of D.C. are bound to be ones *everyone* wants, and that's the only way to play this game we call politics.

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My parents flashed me an emergency email prayer request, so I'm passing it on in that spirit of an "eCommunity of Prayer" (see the blog index to your left). It seems that during the years my parents wintered in Texas, they made some good friends. One family (Ray and Pat F.), just passed on a prayer request about Chad, who was shot in the head while riding in a HumVee through Fallujah in Iraq. He is currently in critical, but stable condition, waiting to be stable enough to transport to a better medical facility in Germany.
Please pray for a complete recovery.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF FINISHING YOUR MEDICATION: You know how you catch one of those ucky respiratory infections and your doctor gives you some pills to make it go away? Take all of them, even if you feel like you've gotten better. My daughter had the creepy-crawly crud a couple of weeks ago and when she got to feeling better, we stopped enforcing the pill routine. Well, her infection wasn't completely gone so guess what? It came back in spades and the pills we made her start taking again didn't help because her body had built up an immunity to them. So now she's missed three days of school with a temperature over 100 degrees and she's on a heavier antibiotic ... and you can bet your proverbial bippy she'll finish ALL of those pills.

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I see the Detroit Tigers hitting coach - Don Slaught - fell on his sword over the team's woeful hitting performance in the World Series and he resigned. A shame we can't blame the *real* culprits. Golly, you'd think paying someone - several someones - $12 million a year would mean they could hit a ball where the defenders aren't every once in awhile. Ah well, let not this miserable ending to a fantasy season detract from Detroit's accomplishment in achieving heights in the baseball world no one could have ever predicted.

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Hey, it's time to start making supper so I gotta run.