Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Shovel it in, boys

I can already see what this week's struggle is going to be; I am going to have to slap myself silly every time I get ready to eat a meal or a snack to keep them normal, regular sized meals. That's because I am so mad and discouraged right now that I want to eat a side of beef slathered with herb butter, topped off with a couple of loaves of buttered mozzarella garlic bread, and a few heads of steamed broccoli dripping with butter and lemon. Notice a butter theme developing here?

I want to fry a dozen eggs in butter and then fry a pound of bacon in butter. Heck, I even want to stir melted butter into my orange juice. I want to whip up 10 batches of my divine double Dutch fudge Ghiardelli chocolate brownies and put three inches of chocolate butter cream frosting on top.

Yeah, I know. Some women lie awake at night thinking about men. I lie awake chewing the edge of my blanket and I think about butter.

...and men.

Butter and men...hmm, sounds like a very tasty combination, but too calorific. Still, if I had to chose one or the other, I confess it would be butter, but only because it's pasteurized.

Anyway, instead of binging I have decided to add Body Flex to my exercise routine. I seriously considered weight training and know I will do that soon; but for the moment I don't yet feel strong enough physically to take that on. Body Flex is strength training, breathing and stretching all rolled into one, but it's a gentle program suitable for an ancient fossil like me. I can do it without risking life or limb.

For all my big butter talk, I know I couldn't handle binging. I can barely handle Christmas dinner or a wedding reception because I am a grazer, not a porker. I nibble all day long. My friends always make fun of me for never being able to finish a meal, and for always taking home doggy bags from restaurants. It's just that I have never been able to eat in one sitting the amount of food served as a typical meal at a typical restaurant.

Oh sure, you're saying. Then how did I get fat? I got fat because I am sedentary, took in about 25,000 liquid sugar calories a month in the form of Coca-Cola, and I never stopped eating. Even though I only took in little bits here and there over the course of a day, those little bits added up to a lot of calories.

No matter what, I am not going to quit now. I have come too far psychologically speaking, even if I've barely made it off the starting block in terms of my results. But here's the deal; when I was stepping off the scale this morning one of my hands brushed across my stomach.

I could swear I felt a muscle in there.

Planet Fat Cat