Centenarians And Other Interesting People

This was an interesting weekend food and body wise in the sunshine state (what a misnomer). It started off Friday night by seeing two old and terrific friends Tony and Susan who I probably haven't seen in 15 years. Tony is 80 years old and looks younger than me and that's not an exaggeration. He works out a couple times a week, plays tennis and is otherwise active playing cards etc and it shows on how he looks and how he feels. Susan who is in her 70s  is still thin, also plays tennis and is otherwise active. Neither one of them really recognized me. This is all because of eating better and being active. Lesson's that I have to learn. But on Saturday we met John's grandmother who is 102 and is as sharp as anyone you can imagine. While of course she doesn't work out, you can tell she took care of herself or she wouldn't have gotten to that age. Her daughter (John's mother) was also there and she had to be in her 70s and she looked beyond terrific and much younger than me, all because of being active. The weatherman (Chris) who is a youngster was also there. He is thin, good looking and appears to be 45. Turns out he is 58. Just amazing.

But on Sunday I met Robin's grandfather, who is going to be 105 and he was in incredible shape with a sharp sharp mind. He was a boxer much much earlier in life and you could tell he took care of himself.  It looked like he had an older caretaker who appeared to be around 70 who didn't age well although she was hoping all over the place doing things for the grandfather. Well it turns out she is not the caretaker but his wife and she is 91. For her age she was in the best shape of her life. Imagine this, they got married when he was 75 and she 62 and have been together for over 30 years now.

All of the above had one thing in common - weight. Not one was heavy. It appears that I am living in the land of longevity and I am standing out for one reason, and if this reason is not an excuse to lose weight nothing will be. After most left Meryl and I remained with John and Robin and Robin was talking about wanting to retire. (She is a child at 54) While she doesn't have to lose nearly as much as me, she candidly admits she needs to lose weight as well and told me she could retire if during retirement she was able to go to the gym work out as well as eat right while making this her part time job. She was absolutely right. This has to be a job in the sense that when working you have to go to work even if you don't like it, and this is something you have to do, again, even if you don't feel like it.

I am going to remember this weekend and the people I saw as well as the advice I got for a long time, and I hope by actually losing weight I will be going a long way to have this ability to remember this for the long time I am contemplating.

Finally No Excuses

I have started and stopped my diets more times than I have been married and I always had an excuse for both  but this time there is no excuse. I am not even going to use my excruciating bad back which although prevents me from exercising (hopefully just for now) since it doesn't prevent me from eating. Now I retired from work so I can't blame the food at work that I smelled constantly, nor can I blame the people there who loved food almost as much as me.  Having  moved from New York so I can't blame the pull of all the great restaurants there (although Delray has its own great food) and I can't blame the NY Deli's which have to be the best in the world. Bye Woodro - while I do miss eating with Danielle every week, I won't miss you. (It still bothers me that they wouldn't let me put the tip on the charge - my own pet peeve). If I don't lose weight this time, the only person to blame is the person who previously never deserved any blame at all for whatever he did - ME. So I started last week at a svelte 249.0 and in a week I am already down to 246.0 in a week that included two holiday dinners. So here we go, a new phase in my life in a thinner frame. Stay tuned.

The Last Indignity

I have started and stopped dieting so many times that that I am certain that yoyos are embarrassed for me.  But yesterday was the last indignity. I needed to buy a suit for a business trip to Las Vegas. The one suit that I have been wearing for five previous court appearances last year was beyond embarrassing and telling myself that I will lose weight so why by another suit is another one of those great lies that I have told myself.

Well on Sunday I went to Macy's to get a bigger suit. It was time. If I lose weight, great so I spent a few extra dollars, if I don't well at least I will have a decent suit. Not a great suit, I am only looking for decent. Well I get there and try on the biggest size in the store and it's too tight. The biggest suit Macy's sells didnt fit. I can't imagine a greater indignity.Now if I can keep this rememberance in my mind along with a visual picture of my stomach, then finally I can do something about this. No more lying to myself. I am fat, really fat and I am going to be fat for a long long time but it's time to get started for the last time without stopping. Yes there will be speed bumps but I am going to stay on the road. I am too embarrassed not to.

A New Definition of Friendship

This past eight days has been a learning experience for me. It started with last Saturday when I learned I was the heaviest I have even been in my life and trust me for a guy with big feet that's no small feat. I then learned that no one, and I mean no one, believes me when I say that this time I am staying on my diet for good. When we found out that there were no weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq 20% of the population still believed President Bush. When virtually every accredited scientist attested to the fact that there is a huge problem with global warming 25% of the population did not believe them. (If you only count Republicans the figure is substantially higher) and when President Clinton said that he did not have sexual relations with Miss Lewinsky even Hillary seemed to believe him, but me, honest as the day is long Bill Kain, no one believes. But of all the things I learned this week, the one that stands out in my mind is the new meaning of friendship. Starting with my good "stoop shouldered" friend Jeff who pointed out that I now have jowls on my jowls, to my great friend AV who referred to me affectionately as a "fat f...." nine times this week (breaking her previous record by two FFs) to Sue who rolled her eyes into her head upon hearing about my diet down to my third world country like emaciated friend Vinny who rolled his eyes in to Sue's eyes they all poo-pooed my latest effort. Only Meryl stood by me (although probably not as close as she would have liked to stand). Yep I learned that a synonym for friendship is ridicule and I can't wait to add that definition to Wikipedia so that everyone can learn it.

Back After A Brief Hiatus

When I last left everyone I was down to 223 lbs. I still had a long way to go but I had lost 14 pounds and I thought it was easy. Then a cruise came along so I took off the week before and three weeks after and then a wedding in Cancun where I repeated my winning formula of weight loss and gain and then September came along. Actually nothing really happened in September other than I just kept eating straight through to Thanksgiving. when I finally got back on scale. And as Claude Rains once said, I was shocked .. shocked that there was gambling in his establishment and weight back in my stomach. So now before a join a family of Goodyear blimps I am back to dieting for good. This time I really mean it. And for those of you who believed me the last twelve times when I really meant it, this time you, finally, I won't disappoint you. And you can be sure of that since 13 was always my lucky number.

WHY COULDN'T SHE LIE TO ME?

Now I know that losing .8 of a pound is better than gaining weight, better than gaining .8 of a pound and is clearly better than staying the same weight, but it seems worse. I am convinced that the key to dieting, in addition to the actual diet and exercise, is your mental frame of mind to keep going. Mentally I believe I could diet forever or until I reach my goal , whichever comes first, as long as I lose at least a pound a week. But what the heck is .8 of pound? It's a lot like a tie in Hockey or kissing your sister. It's not bad, there are a lot worse things in life, but its not good either. That's how I feel. Now if I didn't lose any weight or if I gained weight I know I would have to deal with that psychological impact as well, but if you don't come close, you should have to deal with it. But for .2 of a pound, I have to feel bad. I was so close to being a contender. Why couldn't the WeightWatcher lady lie to me and tell me I lost a pound? If I asked her if she liked my new shirt I am sure she would have said yes even though I know it's hideous. So clearly she is not beyond lying. So why couldn't she lie to me? It would have meant so little to her and so much to me. Typical of my luck - meeting honest people.

The End of Spring Training

Just like Baseball has an extended spring training to test things out before the real season starts, fat for now but soon to be thin bloggers have the same thing. During my spring training I found that I could blog and lose weight at a decent pace but now I am ready for the real season. Of course I didn't think I was in spring training until the tsunami of all dieting failures hit me and that of course was the cursed "Cruise" One would think that a man with my incredible will power could resist this tropical food storm, but I caved in worse than Rush Limbaugh at a Viagra convention. The cruise was "just" eight days, but my downfall started a week before since why diet when you know you are going to eat anyway. Well that did lead up to eight of the best eating days I ever had. If you don't count sleep and since when did sleep ever count, the meals were longer than the periods between the meals. And naturally as the expert dieter that I am, I knew that to get back to dieting, I had to ween myself off of eating enormous meals by taking the following week to eat just large meals with no exercise. It's a proven method believe me. And yes it worked. When I finally ended my three week interruption I found that I only gained nine pounds. Only three pounds a week as I like to look at it. So it was back to the diet and as I like to think of it, now on to the start of my regular season. And how did I do during my first week (of diet and exercise) of the regular season, you might ask? Glad you asked - better than Roger Clemons on steroids, I lost 6.4 pounds which even impressed the Weightwatcher lady with the large cleavage who takes my weight each week as I pretend to stare down at the counter. What a week.