Ali, at a weigh in looking cooler than I ever will. But, that look on his face somewhat captures the “yougottabeshittin me” that I felt.

The Struggle is real.

I’m a husky dude. I have been for almost all of my life. And after months doing what I thought was the right thing… I’m still Husky.

I’ve been huffing and puffing, rope skipping and sweating on a more or less regular basis since winter. If Youtube offered educational credits for viewing their fitness content, I’d have an Associate’s Degree in Lose Pounds Fast!

But when my fat arms wouldn’t fit into my favorite shirt, I knew something was wrong. I mean, I know I’m putting on muscle (right?) but why is the shirt stretched so tight at the seams? And isn’t that middle button supposed to go into that hole? I mean, it did last year.

I began reading Pavel’s Enter the Kettlebell. It isn’t exactly a high point in Russian Literature, but it is a great primer on the basics of the Kettlebell. And as you know from back when I broke my floor, my kettlebell enthusiam often out paces my skill level.

I also began reading Ultra-Metabolism, by Mark Hyman MD. Although I’ve finished the part where he told me why I am fat, there is still a whole bunch of, “This is what you’re going to do about it.” on the horizon. But in a nutshell, Hyman thinks that we should eat whole, unprocessed foods, chill on the sugar and put down our cell phones at the dinner table.

I also bought a scale from Walgreens. It’s made out of glass. It didn’t crack when I stood on it.

Two weeks ago I weighed myself. I was 228 pounds.

At my lightest, when I was obsessed with Bikram yoga, I got down to 189. Bikram classes are about 115 degrees. It’s a wet, sticky, gooey heat. All of my dietary choices were geared towards not farting during the bow pose. You’d be surprised how many things that eliminates.

That was a long time ago. I knew I wasn’t 189 anymore, but Dayummmm! That was all I could say, two weeks ago, standing on that glass Walgreen scale. I wanted to crack it. I’m pretty sure my fat foot would have smushed it if I stomped down on it’s center. Instead I told myself that I would make it right.

I cut out my morning oatmeal, replacing it with spinach  omelets and things like that. What’s wrong with oatmeal? Nothing, unless you like taste. I put so much extra shit in mine that it ends up tasting like salted caramel corn. Absolutely delicious. If Dr. Hyman ever saw me, I’m pretty sure he would knock it out of my hands.

I ate wierdness for lunch, like brussel sprouts with sardines. As I said, I haven’t gotten to the point where he told me exactly what I should be eating instead of the poisonous non-food that I had been feading myself. But he likes veggies, and he likes sardines. How could I go wrong with a bowl both? I know it sounds horrible, but it didn’t taste bad.

I bought bags of raw pumkin seeds from the co-op, to curb my hunger. Because the internet thinks that apple cider vinegar is the duct tape of health foods, I sipped it every morning.  And I drank water. Staggering ammounts of water. So much water, that my piss is crystal clear and damn near effervescent.

For two weeks I walked the earth with a spagetti jar full of water and pumkin seeds in my beard. I planned my existence around bathroom availability. All of that water had to go somewhere. And when it did, it had to go now.

And for two weeks I avoided the scale. I wanted to look down, absolutely shocked and proud at all of the fat that had melted off of my body in the form of sardine smelling sweat. And if I peeked, mid week, I would spoil it.

Yesterday I looked. I weighed 229.4 pounds.

Yeah…