That's It

I have known I needed to do something about it but I've been putting it off for months now and last night I decided that's it.

I need to change my eating habits and lose significant weight.

I am within a pound of my highest weight and I hate myself for allowing circumstances to let that happen. Those circumstances are several things. Laziness. I just refuse to go for a walk a few days a week because it's too cold, too hot, too early, too late, or fifty other reason to not go do it. Snacking. This one piece of cake isn't going to hurt anything and I might as well wash it down with three cookies and a Milky Way.

However the single biggest cause of my weight gain is stress eating. What are you stressed about Dan, I hear you asking. I have been mentally under duress ever since the orange felon won the election in November. I have allowed his victory to get to me in a way nothing has ever gotten to me before. I am consumed with anger, hate, and despair and I have been feeding those emotions, literally, with way too much bad food and lack of exercise.

Last night I decided that I may not be able to stop his destruction of our country but I can stop him from killing me with food. Therefore, effective immediately, I am taking back control of my diet and health.

Here is a sentence I thought I would never write. My cardiologist says I'm in pretty decent shape since my stents were put in eight years ago but I need to get my A1C and weight back under control. I'm not going to bore you with what A1C is, you can Google it if you really care, but he would like to see me get it to under 6.4. I was trending wonderfully in that direction before last November. I had gone from 7.7 to 7.4 to 7.1 and then made a major drop down to 6.6 and he and my GP were pretty excited. My last test six weeks ago showed I had a fallback to a horrible 7.6. My GP nearly died and my cardiologist almost had a stroke himself.

Add to that my weight gain was a whopping sixteen pounds from the last check up and they were a bit concerned. I told them it was too many cookies at Christmas but I knew better and frankly, so did they.

We have adopted different eating habits since I retired. I/we eat a decent breakfast. Monday through Thursday cereal and on the weekend I treat myself to eggs, meat, and potatoes. Lunch is our biggest meal and we eat that between eleven AM and Noon, sometimes we might be hungry and eat at ten thirty-ish. That is our last meal of the day unless we are meeting friends for dinner then we eat a lighter lunch.

Normally, the rest of the day we will snack on fruit and we drink plenty of water. Occasionally we will have a few M & M's, or one mini candy bar. Around three o'clock or four we have a bagel, cheese and crackers, or some other light snack. I then will not eat anything or drink anything after six.

That's how we were doing things and we both lost significant weight. Linda has mostly kept hers off while I managed to eat my way back up two belt sizes and a barrel full of disgust with myself when I look in the mirror. I see how much weight I've gained and I'm reminded of Kramer telling Jerry to, "not look at me, I'm hideous," when he took up cigar smoking.

I need to get myself back under control for a few reasons. First, I'm not quite ready to pack it in yet and so if I want to continue to be vertical I need to drop about twenty. Second, I have to get my A1C under 6.4 or the doctors are going to make me start taking insulin shots to control my diabetes and that will not happen. Third, and maybe the most important reason, is that I will not let the deranged felon beat me. I know I'm tougher than he is and I need to start proving it to myself.

I'm pretty good at getting things done when I make up my mind to do it so I'm hopeful I still have it in me one more time. Stay tuned.