My New Diet

A number of weeks ago I found myself over at a friend's house for dinner. That friend was Julie Goff. She had Kathryn and I over for what we have later referred to as "a delightful dinner." The fellowship was quite enjoyable and the food was rather impressive (shrimp and goat cheese quesadillas). And when it was time for the first restroom break, my night became even more amusing. They had a scale in the bathroom. A digital one. It had been a long time since I actually weighed myself and so I was quite curious to see what I weighed these days. I have never really been one to be concerned with weight, simply because I have been a walking skeleton for most of my life. (The only period in my life that I was weight-concerned was in high school when I was trying to heap on the pounds for basketball season - only so I wouldn't get mauled by the much larger men in the paint.)

So I stepped on the scale and waited. I was waiting for weight. You could say I was weight-waiting. So after a moment of weight-waiting, it finally registered on the screen. 143 pounds. I gasped in astonishment. That is a far cry away from my all time highest weight - a whopping 190 pounds (this was acquired while living in Baton Rouge due to a steady diet of late night fried chicken fingers, Taco Bell, and pizza). I went back into the other room and reported my terrible news. Somehow or other over the past 2 years I have lost 50 pounds. And that is without the aid of a tapeworm. Julie informed me that I was doing it wrong, that I had to tap on it and let the scale calibrate to zero, and then step on it. I returned to the bathroom with new hopes, with new expectations, and with more weight-waiting.

This time I weighed in at 170 pounds. This was much better than before - but still disappointing. I stood there on that digital scale, peering down at my skeletal frame and made a decision right then and there. I would go on a diet. A diet to gain weight. A diet to get back to 190 pounds.

So far, my new diet has been going great. The second night of my diet involved me eating a late night chicken leg and half a tub of ice cream to my wife's astonishment. The rules of this diet are fairly simple - eat everything. And when you get full, keep eating. And eat a lot of crap that is bad for you. Candy, ice cream, fried foods, soda (though not too much....you remember how delicate my teeth are these days), etc. So far, I have been loving my new diet, though I have been much more lethargic as of late. I have been going for seconds every night at dinner, which has been nice, though the leftovers have been depleted as a result. Breakfasts are still the trickiest meal - they involve preparing something while you are still half asleep. But I make sure to catch up on lunch and dinner.

I wonder how much I weigh now, after a week of pure Thanksgiving gluttony. I did not hold back. And I wish I would have. Several nights I went to bed groaning while holding my sides. But I was still thankful.