Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Shedding Dead Weight...


In 1996 I married a woman that was of very slight stature. She was about 5' 5" and 103 LB. Although she wore her thinness well, she eventually gained a few pounds and that was fine. I think she got to a whopping 118 at some point.


One day, we were going somewhere that required dressing up a little and we were about to leave the house when we passed a full length mirror. As do most women, she stopped with me at her side and struck a pose. She looked fine, but Holy Cow, I looked like a whale next to a minnow! How did this happen? I was always tall and thin, I never had a weight problem whatsoever. Now I was all stomach and what you might call paunchy. She asked what was wrong, but rather than start explaining, I just said, "Let's go" and we headed out the door. I made a mental note to do something about my increased weight.


I tried getting on a scale and found out that my 190 LB with the comfort of marriage had increased to 220. When did that happen and why didn't someone tell me? Never having had a weight problem before, I didn't have a clue as to how to approach it, but I knew something was going to need to be done.


Subway Sandwich Shops were advertising the 6 grams of fat sandwich with their young fat guy as their example. I figured, why not, I'll try that? If their fat actor could lose all that weight, I could surely lose a lousy 20 or 30 LB, right? What was his name, Darren?

Usually, when I do something, I do it all of the way. That I can say about myself. When I quit smoking, I JUST quit. I didn't talk about it or take pills or patches, I just stopped lighting cigarettes and putting them in my mouth, that worked great. It's been 20 years next month and the only thing I have to do is remember is, NEVER to smoke. It's easy.


Back to my diet, here's what I did. For breakfast, I gave up the eggs and sausage and toast with butter. I really missed it, but it had as many fat grams as I was allowed in 2 days. Instead, I had dry rye toast dipped in coffee, in order to make it palatable. I still had milk and sugar in my coffee. For lunch I had a 6" Subway sandwich that I stretched out until 2 PM, that way it wasn't such a long haul till dinner. That sandwich had ham or turkey, with all the vegetables I wanted, with mustard on white (no cheese or Mayo), along with a diet coke, something I was never able to swallow. Now, that's all I'll drink. For dinner and dinner was late too, I had a chicken breast with a cooked vegetable and believe it or not, the first few days I was hungry, but after that I got used to it and around 10 PM I had an apple. That was it. The first month I lost 18 LB. The second month I lost only about 10 LB, because I got lazy or bored and ate steak for dinner on occasion. The third month I lost about 8 LB and reached 185. I was feeling invincible and great when I went to a doctor's visit. Old Dr. Cedric looked at me over his glasses and said with his Tennessee accent, "Mel, did ya know you lost 35 LB since you were here last year"? I said, yes I lost it in 90 days. He said, STOP, that's enough! I said okay and went for a Whopper, the first one I'd had in months. It was good, but I've kept that weight off still. Here is what I'm saying. The Subway Diet worked! I felt great, wore size 32 Levis for the first time since high school and I could run up the stairs without huffing and puffing. You should try it too! Here lies the problem...... I NEVER want to see another Subway sandwich.............ever!

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