A few minor changes to my diet, and I can just about get back into my 31s again (that’s 31 inch waste jeans).  Except…I gave my 31s all to Goodwill in despair several summers ago.  Oh Ye Of Little Faith…

My diet has simply been to stop eating junk food and between meal Kit-Kat bars, potato chips, Doritos…that sort of stuff I basically snacked on all day long not too long ago.  I was used to getting the energy kick in the afternoons from the Kit-Kat bars, and Hershey bars, and Ghirardelli bars, and little did I know how many goddamned calories I was consuming in a day.  Now when I get a urge for something sweet I’ll go have a couple slices of apple.  I like the Red Delicious ones because they’re…delicious.  And…red.

That’s it.  I still eat out of the deep fryer on a regular basis.  Still eat mostly everything that I used to.  I’ve just cut out the junk stuff between meals.  And I’m using Splenda now instead of sugar in my tea.  And I’ve dropped from 170 to about 148 until just this week, when I’d dropped some more to 146.  My body has thinned out noticeably, and counter intuitively, by eating less, I feel more energetic.  I’m much more active during the day then I used to be.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed that a straight co-worker who had gained some weight had suddenly lost it and gotten back into shape again (straight guys put on weight too, after their wives give birth.  It’s true.  I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.).  He said that he was doing the South Beach Diet, and for the first time I got an explanation of what that was.  It struck me as a kinda-sorta modified Atkins, but instead of shunning carbs, it omits the ones that are absorbed quickly by the body.  It also makes a distinction between good and bad fats.  It emphasizes protein initially, and does not require counting calories.

So I adjusted my diet a tad, ate less fried potato and substituted more whole grain breads for the Wonder white I love, and added a tad more eggs and ham.  Nothing major.  Just minor changes.  I’ve heard the quickest way to fail at dieting is to jump into something radical whole hog.  In a couple weeks I’d lost two more pounds.  Just this morning it seemed, all my 32s were a tad too big. I keep this up and I’ll have to go out and buy a bunch of new 31s again.  And…new hip huggers.  It’s money I’ll be absolutely delighted to spend.

I want to emphasize I am not suggesting it will be this easy for everyone.  Nearly all my life I was thin as a rail, and then suddenly in my late thirties I started putting it on.  Sizing it all up now, I think my diet simply took a turn for the worse when I suddenly had money to spend, and I could eat all the junk food I wanted.  But my body just doesn’t want to be that heavy.  It was complaining to me in a number of different ways that I’d always put down to "getting old".  But…damn…I’m feeling just great now.  This is where my body wants to be, I just needed to feed it right.  Your mileage may vary.  I know it’s a real struggle for some folks.  They have to fight their bodies to loose weight.  I was, in a sense, forcing mine to put it on.  Now that I’m not, it’s slimming back down again.

When I was having to wear 33s, and they were starting to get too tight, I sensed my diet was a tad too rich, and I’d put it down to getting older and having a slower metabolism.  But that weight gain Just Happened To Coincide with my getting work as a computer programmer, and having that much better income.  I’m thinking now that it wasn’t my body slowing down at all, or not that much.  I could just afford to indulge my sweet tooth more, and my taste for fast food crap more, and it was wreaking my figure.