Small Thoughts for Small Minds

Earlier this year (January? February?) I was feed up with not being able to sleep worth a damn. I was always exhausted. I’d wake up and not be able to get back to sleep - just laying in bed, weaving in and out of the borders of sleep. Kel thought that my snoring was waking me - sleep apnea, perhaps. Out of frustration, I went to the doctor. He gave me a referral to an ENT specialist (Ears, nose, throat), since my soft palate is a bit too soft. The ENT said, lose thirty pounds and schedule a visit to take care of my crooked nose (75%+ blocked on one side, 50% on the other - no wonder I always feel like I have a cold…)

I did the first part, but not the second. (With my unpredictable work travel schedule, setting up a "procedure" six weeks in advance is nigh impossible.)

For the past few years, my weight has been creeping up. Last year I was over 220. Early this year, I was 225 +/- 3 pounds. So, I dieted. For many weeks. Lot’s of people asked which diet I was using (like you have to subscribe to some fad diet for it to work). I called it my "don’t eat so damn much, you fat pig" diet.

Of course, it’s just a matter of reducing the fuel intake below the level you use. All else is just window dressing. Some things are high calorie/unit weight or volume, so are easy to overdo without filling up. Avoid those things.

A diet has to be something you can do without cheating. Something that works for you.

Two things I had to account for when deciding on a diet plan:

1. I travel a lot. Restaurants don’t have any concept of smaller portions. I was raised to finish everything on my plate. (Okay, that’s just blamethrowing, but I have trouble only eating half of what is in front of me.)
2. I like beer. A lot. And the beer that I like ain’t light beer…

So I kept it simple. No breakfast. No lunch. No snacks. Dinner without any cheese, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, etc. Two beers per night.

Yes, I drank a beer instead of eating breakfast. And lunch. It’s all about priorities. If I’m gonna drink a beer, I have to eliminate the calories somewhere else.

I don’t have problems with blood sugar levels. I don’t have to eat often or risk dizziness or such.

While traveling, I tried to order something that fit the above dinner restrictions, but it wasn’t easy. But, I ate all of what they gave me.

I keep some fruit handy the first week or two, because this is a hard routine to get into. One or two pieces of fruit during the day if I get desperate.

So, how’d it work? By the time we went to Cancun in mid April, I was down to 191.5. Wearing jeans I hadn’t worn in three years. After a week in Cancun, I was around 198. Doing "the diet" in a half-assed fashion was enough to get me back to just under 195 in a week or two. (Mostly just flushing those huge buffet meals out of my system…)

Apparently I don’t snore anymore. Still don’t sleep worth a damn, though. Sigh…

Gradually, over the summer, I started getting back into my bad habits. I can polish of a one pound back of pretzels in two days (just having it in the truck while I’m driving to and from work). Same with a box of roasted garlic-flavored Triskets. Junk food for breakfast and lunch. As long as it was spicy and/or salty, I wolfed it down. Popcorn after dinner (sometimes the kids got a few bites before Hungry Hungry Hippo Daddy gobbled up the whole bowl).

So, I’ve worked my way up to 203 as of Monday morning. Sigh. Back to the diet.

199.5 this morning.

I’d like to get back under 195 before Kel & I go to Bermuda next Saturday (the 26th). We’re only going down for three nights (Kel has merely a total of two weeks of vacation, with one already used in Cancun) to celebrate the 11th anniversary of our wedding - 26 August 1995. We’re getting an early flight, so hopefully we can still do something nice on the exact date of our anniversary… (We didn’t have a lot of choice on the travel days - I used frequent flier miles to cover the plane tickets. A month or two ago, Kel had been looking into options for a long weekend. She was interested in Bermuda, but nixed it because she couldn’t find a good airfare. The next day, United sent out an email talking about redeeming a discounted number of miles to Bermuda. So I jumped on it.)

It’s tough. Especially since Kel is going through budget time at work. She’s stressed and working late. Normally we alternate who prepares dinner. But I’ve been cooking each night or it would be McDonald’s, Domino’s or fried chicken on her days.

Another nine days…

Ultimately, I’d like to get back under 180 (like before Keira was born). Even then, I had a bit of a gut, but (obviously) less than now… I’m not sure I have the willpower to do another six week diet.

And, to Elayne: I’m not trying to say that I’m "fat". I’m fatter than I want to be. It’s not about comparing my fat to that of others. It is about feeling healthier, feeling better about myself. I could pick any facet of my life and feel good about it by comparing that aspect to a select group of others. That’s no more realistic than the drive for women to reach an impossible goal of living up to movie star figures… I don’t want to catch myself saying, "Hey, at least I’m not as fat as most guys in their 40s!" That’s a free ticket to pig out…

I eat out a LOT. Something to do with how much I travel, perhaps…

When I can’t (for whatever reason) eat at a brewpub, I’ll ask the waitress what kind of beer they have. The typical response is something like, "Oh! We have ALL kinds of beer! What would you like?"

Sigh…

This normally means, "We have Bud, Bud Light, Michelob, Michelob Ultra, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller Lite, Heineken, Amstel Light, Corona, Coors, Coors Light, Killian’s and Sam Adams."

The waitperson is usually surprised that I don’t consider that to be a terribly inclusive list.

Let’s say that you go to a restaurant and ask what kind of meat they had. Would you be happy with a response like, "Oh, we have all kinds! We have McDonald’s Quarter Pounder patties, McDonald’s Big Mac patties, Burger King’s Whopper patties, Wendy’s patties, White Castle patties, Hardee’s patties and Fuddrucker’s patties!"

Umm, do you have any steak? "What’s that? Is that like meatloaf? We used to have meatloaf, but it wasn’t very popular." Hmmm… do you have any pork? Chicken? Or, if it must be ground beef, do you have any steak tartare? Or maybe chili con carne? "I’ve never heard of that stuff…"

Last year I was at an industry conference. At an evening reception (on a river boat in Savannah), the beer selection was so white-bread that I was drinking wine. One of our customers is a big wine enthusiast. (While he and I were on a cruise ship between Helsinki and Stockholm, he bought a $225 bottle of wine for us to try. The next day at dinner in Stockholm, he spent almost as much for the wine during dinner.) Anyway, I bumped into him on the boat and he was drinking beer. Surprised, I asked him why he was drinking beer instead of wine. He replied that the selection of wine was so poor that he couldn’t bring himself to drink it. He would rather drink bland beer than mediocre wine, while I was the opposite.

Ever since I bought the big screen TV (a 61" JVC Pro LCoS rear projection 1080p high def TV), I’ve spent a lot more time watching TV than ever before. (Excluding football…)

While that certainly isn’t admirable, it’s not what makes me hang my head in shame…

I’ve found myself watching a lot of the crime investigation shows: CSI, Law & Order, Without a Trace, Criminal Intent, Numb3rs, and even (shudder) The Closer. Recently, at the instigation of Chelsea and Britteny (Kel’s nieces that stayed with us a bit over the summer), I’ve added House to the rotation.

Okay, Kel gives me funny looks for spending so much time on stories about murderers, rapists and such, but that’s not my disgrace.

Here it is: I actually, willingly, watch CSI: Miami. (You know, I thought I would feel a burden lift upon confession. Instead my shame burns hotter…)

Actually, for the most part, the show is okay. The visuals, especially in high def on a big TV, are absolutely stunning. (And, as a plus, they sometimes show the cranes at the Port of Miami!) There are a couple things that bug me, though. The first is a matter of degree. Every show, the CSI team seems to be the ones that do the "take down". Are they the only cops in Miami? No? I didn’t think so. (See, they’re supposedly the group that does the analysis of the evidence - which means they only go on the crime scene after it’s been cleared of bad guys…)

The second thing that bugs me is the true reason behind my embarrassment. It can be summed up in a simple phrase: "This decades answer to Star Trek-era William Shatner, David Caruso."

This guy is beyond just a bad actor. I’m not sure that there are any lead actors in TV or movies that reach his level of overacting. The recurring gestures that indicate seriousness (since he can’t convey it with human expressions): the turtle head thrust (he drops his head down, thrusts it forward, then cocks it to the side) and the dramatic removal of his sun glasses. (And, he never does any police work except the final "take down" of the bad guy…)

Oh goodness. There are too many details that demonstrate his complete and total lack of acting ability to bother listing. Let’s leave it at this: he makes Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise and Jessica Simpson look like Shakespearian actors…

And yet I watch it.

Sigh…

<voice of the shrimp from Finding Nemo> I am ashamed. </voice>