Weight Loss. This Time I Really Mean It. No, Really. I'm Going to Stick with the Program.

Our pastor has been giving a series of sermons on how Christians should live a life in which they attend to their minds, spirits and bodies. This has been fairly interesting, but there is an undertone of old fashioned railing against sin. Sunday before last, we were reminded that our bodies were temples, and the preacher admonished folks for gluttony. Those of us who are overweight were squirming in our seats a little bit. Ours is the one sin that really stands out. We wear our gluttony on our frames, as opposed to lustful or envious folks who can lust or envy in secret. I treat my body as a temple. It’s just that I’ve sacrificed a lot of animals at the altar.

Yesterday, one of my doctors really read me the riot act about being overweight. I swear the scale in her office is situated on some kind of gravitational anomaly. It shows me 12 pound heavier than my scale at home or the scale the insurance company nurse used on me two weeks ago.

Now I read that I’m wasting gasoline by driving while fat! Pretty soon, the war on obesity is going to become the war on the obese, and I’ll end up in a gulag for fatties. That’s why I’m getting serious about my weight. I know I’ve said this before, but this time I mean it. I joined a gym, and I actually went to it and worked out! The gym is more expensive than the last one I joined and almost never visited, and I am counting on Mrs Vache Folle’s theory that you are more likely to exercise if you have forked over serious money for gym membership or sneakers. That way, my streak of parsimony will help to motivate me. Mrs VF’s frugality will certainly lead her to nag me about going to the gym, and, trust me, nobody wants her in full on shrew mode. The gym also has other middle aged and malformed clients rather than twenty something body builders, and it has a cadre of trainers and a curriculum of classes. There are indoor tennis and basketball courts, too.

And I’ve modified my diet significantly on my doctor’s recommendation because of some gastrointestinal distress I had been experiencing. Instead of being a pure carnivore, I have added a healthy, if unappetizing, dose of fruits, vegetables and fiber. I am even starting to like them. I have cut out snacks, deep fat fried stuff, biscuits and gravy (sob!), pasta, desserts of all kinds, and most bread. Meat makes up less of my diet than before. I am already feeling a lot better even if I have not lost any weight yet. If I can just stick it out for a month, I will be in the habit of exercising and eating sensibly, and it will be easier to keep it up. It was rough eating sensibly while on the road last week, but I managed to do so.

I have had bad eating habits most of my life. Before I was thirty, I was scary thin and could (and did) eat anything I wanted without gaining weight. After thirty, I reckon the old metabolism slowed down, and I crept up in weight little by little. About ten years ago, I managed to lose 60 pounds and develop good habits, but I blew it when I started a desk job. I didn’t handle the stress of all the life changes too well, and I reverted to my slothful, gluttonous default. It’s as though I have bulimia but keep forgetting to purge. I would just avoid mirrors and keep buying bigger clothes.

Now that I have been made to understand by my pastor that Jesus doesn’t like fatties and by my doctor that I’m literally killing myself, I am pretty motivated. Let’s hope it lasts. Just to put pressure on myself, I’m planning to report my progress on this blog from time to time so that my imaginary readership can shame me if I falter.

My weight this morning was 251.4 pounds. My goal: be scary thin and make Nicole Richie look like a cow. Seriously, I aim to lose 75 pounds within the next twelve months. Then I’ll be at the weight where I used to think I was getting fat.