Progress Report

I’ve lost 10 pounds. I don’t know where I put it. If you see it, let me know.

I’ve lost 10 pounds. I don’t know how much that is in Euros, but it’s about $25 American.

I’ve lost 10 pounds. It was easy. I just chopped off my right arm. I was planning on dropping 20 pounds, but then I realized I had no way to chop off my left arm. I suppose I could chop off my head, but I’d like to have dinner first.

I’ve lost 10 pounds, and it’s not the most exciting thing to write about, so I’m trying to give you a couple of small chuckles before this thing gets loaded down with statistics.

It’s been 25 days since Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when I started my annual combination religious ritual and softball spring training diet. At that time, I gave up all foods containing flour and all dairy products (except for the half-and-half I put in my coffee, which keeps me relatively sane.) The result has been a loss of 10 pounds, which is fairly astounding considering my beginning weight (195) and for such a short time span.

My goal was 180, and I’ve got another 21 days to drop the additional 5 pounds. It appears that I’ll make it rather easily, unless I fall off of the wagon again like I did this weekend.

Yes, the reason I’m writing this is because of guilt. I broke down and had an entire barbecue chicken pizza this morning (Saturday) and now I need to make myself feel good about what I’d accomplished prior to that. So, I’m touting my success while concurrently confessing my sin. I expect you’ll leave a comment telling me that I’m doing great and that I shouldn’t worry about one aberration from my regimen. I thank you in advance.

I’m not so much dismayed about having broken the spring training diet with the pizza – which I rather enjoyed, by the way – as I am about breaking the religious component of the fast. I like to imagine myself as someone who would literally die for his beliefs, if push came to shove – whatever the hell that means. Instead, I have to face the reality that I am unlikely to stare down a radical atheist with a machine gun if all it takes to get me to fall off the path of good is to place a pizza in my path. Yeah, sure, I’ll die in a hail of bullets, but would you mind if I ate some dough and cheese first?

(If you’re an atheist, I don’t mean to imply that you, personally, would gun me down. You’re probably a really nice person, despite being a heathen. I just needed a handy opposite to my beliefs in order to illustrate my point, which is that I’m a hypocritical wimp - although a slightly lighter hypocritical wimp than I was 25 days ago.)

So, anyway, I suppose I shouldn’t feel too bad, since this is the only time, thus far, I’ve failed in my… well, no, that’s not entirely true. When the folks in at work threw me a birthday party, I ate a huge slice of Boston cream pie. I figured it would have been a bigger sin to let it go to waste after they so graciously decided to fete me with it. And then there were the two éclairs I ate at a subsequent birthday bash at My Mom’s place. Can’t disobey Mom when she tells you to eat an éclair; it says so in Deuteronomy. OK, maybe not those exact words, and My Mother didn’t ORDER me to eat an éclair (let alone two) but I think I’m generally covered.

What the hell. I’ve still dropped 10 pounds, and there are lots of folks out there who observe Lent by giving up things they don’t even enjoy, like stewed prunes, and they don’t have my gift for rationalization, either. And let’s not forget the atheists with machine guns. All things considered, I haven’t done too badly. The only real regret I have is that I didn’t take a ‘before’ photo. It would have been really cool to put side-by-side with an ‘after’ photo come Easter. Oh, well. Maybe next year, after I’ve ballooned back to 195 again over the off-season. Or, if I really want it to be impressive, maybe I’ll try to get up to 250 over the winter. I truly have no idea what my capacity is for Boston cream pie, éclairs, and pizza. Finding out might be fun.

In the meantime, I’m still shooting for 180 by April 4th. Lead me not into temptation or the bakery aisle.

Soon, with more better stuff.