Back With A Bang

First of all, let me apologize to the faithful readers of You Have To Eat... (all three or four of you). I had a crazy month and have been on a bit of a roller coaster lately adding and losing weight. What I'm learning is that weight loss is as much about the management of time as anything else (more on that to come later).

That out of the way, I thought I'd recount a recent experience that underscores that a healthier lifestyle isn't just manifested in pounds lost. Allow me to explain...

I took my three year old daughter on a field trip with her school last week. On our way home I asked if she wanted to go to lunch, and being three years old, she spent a few minutes mulling the pros and cons of Chuck E Cheese, Chick Fil-A and McDonald's. She finally decided on McyD's and demanded that we "dine-in" so that she could spend some quality time on the playground.

Having not eaten at a fast food joint in over 3 months (although I did stop and get a turkey sandwich at an Arby's a while back), I figured Chick Fil-A would be my best option. But when I tried to steer her in that direction, I was told chicken nuggets were "nasty." So we ended up at McDonald's where she proceeded to order... you guessed it, chicken nuggets. Then came my moment of truth. Was I going to try to maintain some level of healthiness - grilled chicken sandwich or salad - or just throw caution to the wind and strap on a good old fashioned #1 combo meal? Like a moth flying directly to a flame, I never had a chance.

So we sat down to enjoy our meal. Her with a box of chicken nuggets, small fries and apple "dippers," me with a Big Mac, large fry and barrel of Sprite. Besides the fact that I somehow located the only McDonald's in the English speaking world that does not have a playground, our meal together was pleasant.

I must admit, before starting the Rehab Diet, I judged the merit of a McDonald's on the saltiness of their fries. Nothing got my fat blood boiling like pulling away from the drive-thru only to realize the "Fry Guy" was chinzy with the salt. Now maybe it's because I don't eat them two to three times a day anymore or maybe this Fry Guy needs to go back to McUniversity, but these fries tasted like they'd been deep-fried in salt, dredged in a bed of sea salt then doused with numerous shakes of an industrial-sized salt shaker. They were almost inedible. The key word being "almost."

So I'm choking down the burger and salt sticks when I get an uncomfortable pang in my stomach. You know, the one that lets you know this isn't going to end well? I fought through it, though, and was just about finished when my bowels cramped up - letting me know that not only was this not going to end well, it was going to end soon. Very soon.

At this point I should let you in on the dining habits of my youngest daughter. She might possibly be the absolute slowest eater on the face of the planet. I can down a chicken nugget without chewing. I suspect the average human eats one in two bites. Granted she's three, but this child takes five or six bites around the nugget before even thinking about getting started on what's left. She eats each fry, one by one. Every tiny bite of apple is pain-stakingly dipped in caramel. All of this as she repeatedly turns in her seat to wave to the homeless guy dining behind us or the table of day laborers in front of us.

At this point, I'm considering asking either one if they mind keeping an eye on her while I sprint to the restroom. Instead, when she turns away, I start eating her food. Not surprisingly, this does not help the civil war raging in my bowels and elicits screams of disapproval from my daughter. Finally, I can take no more. I scoop up what's left of her lunch, throw her over my shoulder and make a run for the car. Strapped in her car seat and covered in McDonald's food, she is perfectly content as we squeal out of the parking lot and race home.

Thanks to a Mario Andretti-like display of driving, I made it (just barely) and the ensuing assault on my toilet was swift and unforgiving. I'll spare you any further detail, but suffice it to say, I don't think I'll be eating fast food again anytime soon.

Weigh In - 4/9

Another week - another 4 pounds.

I'm at 282, tantalizingly close to the 270's. For some reason the 270's represent some monumental threshold for me. I think that's where I feel like I go from being really overweight to "my God, he's going to explode."

On a similar note, I'm starting to jiggle again. Now, I know for most of you skinny people who've struggled with 5-10 pounds your whole life, jiggling is actually a bad thing. But for the good and fat, our bodies can get so big and stretched to capacity that they hardly jiggle anymore. So I consider getting to the point where parts of my body are actually jiggling around again serious progress.

On to Step 10...

Step 9 - Breakfast

Eat breakfast.
Every day.

Skinny people claim eating breakfast every day is one of the most important things an overweight person can do to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Numerous studies show people who regularly eat breakfast lose more weight, consume fewer calories and fat overall during the day, exercise more and are better able to keep the weight off than those of us who skip out on the first meal of the day.

So if it's so good for us why is it so damn hard to do?

First and foremost, it takes time – something we all have precious little of in the morning. As much as I'd love to start my day with an egg white omelet with fresh veggies and a cup of oats, I'm not willing to sacrifice twenty minutes of sleep to get it.

Plus, I'm just not hungry right when I wake up or even before I leave the house for work. Which begs the question, why the hell did I used to stop for fast food every morning? As a fat man trying to shed a few pounds, it seems counter-intuitive to eat when I'm not hungry when I'm struggling the rest of the day to not eat when I am hungry.

But that's evidently the whole point. By "breaking the fast" in the morning, I'm less likely to gorge myself come lunchtime and I'm kick starting my metabolism for the day – something I must admit, scares the hell out of me. Eating begets eating with me, so I'm doubtful that having breakfast every morning will actually lead to me eating less.

Still, I've bought into the hype and have committed to forcing down breakfast every morning as Step 9. But what to eat? Much like everything else I've tried to do on the Rehab Diet, I know if I don't keep it simple I won't be able to stick with it. So it's got to be something I can make in less than two minutes and eat as I'm running around the house getting ready. Then it occurred to me when I read this article about the eight foods you should eat every day, that a certain frozen yogurt treat from my childhood would actually knock out half of them before 9am:

Yogurt
Nuts (Almonds, Walnuts, etc)
Oats
Blueberries

For those of you not familiar with the legendary Humphrey Yogurt from Counter Culture the basic recipe is unflavored real yogurt (it's got to have that twang), granola, fresh fruit and a drizzle of honey. To keep prep time to a minimum I've substituted the fresh fruit with a handful of mixed fruit (blueberry, strawberry, blackberry & raspberry) from a bag I keep in the freezer. It's quick and easy to make and tastes like I'm having dessert for breakfast.

How's that for getting a fat person to eat something in the morning?

Don't Eat That!!!

Or That! Or That!! And no matter what you do, don't ever eat that and that together!

Ever get tired of skinny people telling you what you can and cannot eat? Me too. First they told us to stop eating calories. Then it was fat. Then it was carbs. Carbs, they told us, were too easily broken down into simple sugars that wreak havoc inside our rotund bodies.

To make matters worse, these so called experts created the glycemic index – a handy little tool us fatties could use to see how everything from potatoes to oranges to carrots were spiking our sugar levels and making us tip the scales. Seriously. Carrots.

It's these kinds of absurd absolutes the diet machine spits out every few years that undermine the average fat persons understanding of food. By the time we've all purged our frigidaires of anything and everything orange, they've "tweaked" their warning by admitting what we already knew: eating a carrot is not quite the same as eating a handful of candy.

Remember Susan Powter and her truckload of potatoes? Has a particular food gone from canonized to vilified as swiftly and dramatically as the humble potato? Potato consumption in the US has yet to recover to pre-Atkins Diet levels — I still get a slight twinge of guilt every time I put a scoop on my plate. So we're eating less and less of them (except the french-fried variety), yet go figure, we're still getting fatter and fatter.

Could it be that the particular food is not the problem - the amount of the food is?

To tell a fat person a carb is not his friend is to take away one of his biggest allies in weight control. Not that I expect any of these nutritionists or trainers to understand, but when you're big, you're hungry. And what gives a fat person the biggest bang for the buck when he's hungry? Some good old fashioned carbs. And I'm not talking about the "good" carbs or even the "better" carbs. I'm talking (cover your ears skinny people) white bread, white pasta and white rice.

Yeah, I said it. But before you start in again, walk a mile in my 3XL shirt and then come talk to me about never eating a "bad" carb again.

Italians eat pasta all the time. The Japanese live on rice. Yet neither of these cultures has anywhere close to the obesity issue America has. Why? They don't eat anywhere close to the same amount we do in one sitting. A pasta plate in Italy is actually a second course and about two to three ounces served before the meat. Ever see the "bowl" of rice Japanese people have with their meals? It's about the size of a coffee cup – think old and porcelain, not the mega-latte-grande's we down every day.

Depsite my philosophy on the Rehab Diet, I don't believe I have to stop eating anything in particular (especially pasta and rice) to lose weight. I just have to eat less of it. This gal ate McDonalds for two months and lost 18 pounds. She wanted to prove with a little common sense, the documentary Super Size Me wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining.

My problem is I don't have enough common sense (or self control) to go to McDonalds everyday and not strap on a Big Mac and shoe box full of French Fries. But that doesn't mean I think the potato is evil. Or the bun or even the meat.

So what's obvious to me – but evidently, to no one else in the diet industry – is that good food is good for you. And too much of anything isn't.

Weigh In - 4/2

286 and back on track - 4 pounds lost for the week (skinny people, please read this before commenting).

Full Disclosure: I've actually started exercising more than 3 times a week even though I'm not slated to start that for a couple more weeks.

As I stated at the onset of the Rehab Diet, my hope is that after the twelve weeks are over some of these good steps will have evolved into good habits. It appears that the exercise and water are starting to stick.

I've been exercising around the same time every day and a few weeks ago I started getting restless about that time on the days I wasn't working out. I figured what the hell, and before I knew it, I was going five times a week. I'm not holding myself to that until Step 11, but I'm encouraged by the fact that I'm "skipping ahead" even though I don't have to.

On to Step 9...