The Fat Is In The Fire

Well, it's that time of year again. My wife and I had to decide what our New Year's Resolution is. Yes, we know it's the 11th of January... maybe next year our resolution will be to give up procrastination and actually do it on the first.

The bottom line: We're sick of every day being Fat Tuesday. So, we've decided it's time to pull our firehosey feeding tubes. Don't worry, we won't die. It will actually help us live longer.

It's time. We're huge. I'm 6-foot-3 and weigh 335 pounds. I won't disclose my wife's weight because I actually want to live to see the thinner me. :-) We've both been overweight for most of our lives, but we each had one shining moment in our past where we lost a wide load of weight only to gain it back and then some later.

It finally hit me. When my doctor called me "morbidly obese," I think it was his nice way of telling me "You are so fucking fat it's scary." When he was giving me the usual speech about my size making me more at risk for heart disease, strokes, diabetes, arthritis, etc., I finally decided even though I ate like a competitive eater I was never going to turn pro. My killer appetite was probably just that, and it was time to do something about it.

We're not really sure if we're going to even follow a specific diet like Adkins or South Beach. We're just going to quit eating like termites in a lumber yard and add an exercise regimin. That should lose some lard.

Sure, there are a few quicker fixes out there, like going under the knife and doing the gastric bypass thing. I just can't do that. It has taken me years to perfect my digestive system into the farting machine it is, and I just can't throw that all away by having part of my intestines altered. Besides, I guess I feel I have to try losing weight the old-fashioned way before ever opting for surgery.

If only it would be as easy as that Stephen King book. Find a gypsy woman, piss her off, and the next thing you know you're Thinner thanks to being cursed.

An even better option would be to somehow donate all this baby fat to some Nip & Tuck-esque plastic surgery specialist. Surely Hollywood could use my blubber to make Angelina Jolie's lips puffier.
Or, better yet, split my beer gut in half and wow would those be some nice hooters (ironically partially built with beer and hot wings - maybe some lucky wannabe waitress could be the lucky recipient of a rack reminiscent of Pam Anderson).

Why diet now? What finally pushed me over the edge after being over 300 pounds for the last 7 years? Is it because I've blown out more pairs of pants than tires on my car? Well, not really. But it's part of the addition in the equation. I guess I can't really pin it on any one thing, but I did come up with 10 contributing factors...

10. For starters, I've been Party Size for an awfully long time. It's not that I long to be Fun Size, I just worry that I eventually might cross over to Family Size or Economy Size. But the King Size warning was accidentally heckling "You pansy ass! I can eat five times that much!" while watching the documentary Super Size Me at a local theater, sitting between a popcorn tub the size of a wastebasket and a party ball of Coke.

9. I feel dirty even when I shop for clothes. I really get looks when I ask the sales clerks if they "have anything in XXX?" It's as if I'm perusing the porno section of the video store. I try to reassure them that the only hardcore penetration in my future is trying to stuff my monster drumsticks inside the pant legs of the outfit I'm about to try on.

8. Someone suggested I make a toast at a New Year's Eve party, so I immediately went to the kitchen and looked for bread and some peanut butter. After my impromptu snack, I was pretty embarassed coming back into the room seeing all of these people waiting with their glasses hoisted going "What the fuck?!"

7. My wife wanted to get crazy and do a body shot off of me at said New Year's Eve party. She poured a 1.75 jug of Jack Daniels whiskey on me but didn't even get a lick. Apparently I'm also super absorbent, like Spongebob Squarepants.

6. I used to laugh at those geeks who would camp out overnight just to be the first in line to purchase tickets to a Star Wars movie, etc. Deep down, I kind of understood their obsession as I camped overnight to be first in line at the grand opening of an Old Country Buffet.

5. I am against Jell-O wrestling of any form and have even picketed events. I know one of their advertising slogans is "watch it wiggle," but this is taking it too far. Not because it's sexist, but because it's a waste of perfectly good Jell-O.

4. Some of my pants look like low-riders, but they aren't. My big ass just doesn't fit in them. I wish I could convince myself I am "in" with fashion a la Heidi Klum and that I'm wearing Levi's Plumber's Cut. But the truth is I have to take precautions before bending over so I don't have people behind me saying "Just say no to crack!"

3. My wife and I went to a salsa dancing class with a big-ass bag of tortilla chips. Some chick who thought she was Kelly Monaco got all pissy when I accidentally dribbled chunky chipotle on her cha-cha gown. I really thought it was left-dunk-right-bite, but I must have mixed it up.

2. I knew I had hit rock-bottom when I started running at cakewalks. The addiction started out with normal walking, but then slowly progressed to skips and then light jogging. Before I knew it, I was just sprinting to try to land on the magic number and score that sweet seven-layer cake.

Of course, when the cakewalk judge saw a 335-pound man running faster than Randy Moss, she thought my performance was enhanced. I wasn't on steroids! I'm a clean cakewalker. I proved it when the only artificial things found in my piss test were blue #2, red #40, and yellow #5 and #6. So there.

1. What finally pushed me over the edge was when my wife and I went to the grocery store yesterday. I spotted an Us Weekly, featuring a cover of Lindsay Lohan wearing a bikini above a "Diet Secrets" headline. Contrary to what other magazines have been reporting, the secret wasn't tickling her tonsils with her index finger.

That's kind of a relief. Because bulimia is not a funny thing. I should know. I have more eating disorders than I can count. Example: I'm half bulimic. I've got the binging part down. I just can't follow through with the purging.

So wish my wife and me luck. This is a huge step for us. It sure as hell won't be a cakewalk. There'll be plenty of walking around in circles, but there's a fat chance we'll be rewarded with a cake when the music stops. We'll get used to it.