So, I recently lost some weight. Not “oh my god did you have gastric bypass surgery” amounts, but enough that’s its noticeable. It started after an Easter meal. Everyone was loosening belts and groaning about how full they were. This led to the inevitable mutterings of “damn, I’ve got to get in shape/lose a few pounds/get ready for summer”. Someone joked that they should try to get on that Biggest Loser show. You can guess what happened next… “hey, why don’t we do one of those biggest loser contests ourselves?!” Start and end dates are set, entrance fees and weigh-in criteria created, and a winners prize is defined. A line in the sand is drawn and off we go.
With clothes on, probably nobody would call me fat. My face gets kinda full and my upper body isn’t quite in proportion with my little toothpick legs. However, lurking underneath my stylish hipster outfits was a BMI of 27. Man-boobs drifting towards support-worthy. A spare tire that actually qualifies as a tire. I had the consistency of Jell-O or one of those Tempur-Pedic mattresses. It sorta looks firm, but touch it and it’s surprisingly soft and jiggly. Are you getting turned on yet? Never mind, don’t answer that.
Anyway to make a long story short, much of that is gone. Not completely. There’s still plenty of work to do. It’s a little disturbing how vain you can get once you start feeling better about yourself. I don’t leave the house now without just the right pair of skinny jeans, Justin Bieber belt, and enough product in my hair to trap pigeons. Now that the excess adipose tissue is gone, I’ve discovered that I was born with a shockingly complete lack of muscle tone. I’ve purchased a Jane Fonda Thighmaster and a ShakeWeight from craigslist and am working on rectifying this genetic injustice.
Completely unrelated to the start of the weight loss contest, I enrolled in a nutrition class. This, combined with the fact that A) I lost weight, and B) I read the Intranet, makes me extremely qualified to advise you on weight loss strategies. Here are a few tips from chapter 113 of my upcoming autobiography:
- Ice cream, pie, soda, and massive piles of steak nachos are not part of any diet. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no magic combination of pills or “toning” exercises that will counteract that number of calories.
- I ate about 1500 calories a day. Yes you need to keep track. Life’s a bitch like that sometimes.
- There are no “free” days. It’s simple physics. To lose weight you have to burn more than you take in. Exceed your calorie target and it will either take you longer to reach your goal or you’ll need to run a marathon to break even.
- Lots of protein, frightening amounts of steamed vegetables, and saturated fat.
- Water. Lots of water. Get used to peeing. Often.
- Exercise. Not just stroll on the treadmill while reading a book “exercise”, but real work. Like you might barf up a lung levels of work. Not what you wanted to hear. Sorry ’bout that.
- Get the ab toning “flex belt” http://www.theflexbelt.com/ It’s a miracle device. Builds abs of steel without working out. Trust me, would I lie?
With an upcoming trip to a Mexican beach, it’s time to go shop for a bathing suit for my newly svelte self. One last tip guys (apologies to any European friends), unless you’re swimming competitively, a speedo is not ok. Yo, pasty white British dudes – only about 1% of the male population has the body to legitimately wear a banana hammock. You’re not one of them. A real man wears jorts.
troutdog 