A good diet in theory

Just replace Jimmy Kimmel with a lunch container et voila!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Go get some tasty tasty calories.

A diet I can understand

Let's face it, most diets are usually one or more of a few things:

A) fads that are extraordinarily stupid and make no sense
B) harmful and stupid
C) stupid
D) all of the above

Simply opting for a more balanced diet with a more active lifestyle should suffice. The number on the scale matters less than most would think unless you're going over an edge is one direction or the other. When I'm 190 and my shirts are tight across the shoulders: no problem. When I'm 190 and the buttons are popping off my pants: PROBLEM!

It's where and what the weight is that matters most. So make the most of it.

Then Speedster brought this to my attention. I salute you Mr. Wilson.

Now it's simple enough: drink beer for Lent. Now I gave up giving up things for lent ages ago. Can't say I'm devout anything other than an agnostic beer drinker. Devoted only to the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516.

I can't go the full-on atheist route for one very humble reason: There's got to be something out there more powerful than humans because let's face it, if we're the epitome of sentience in the universe we're a pretty sad example. History is loaded with moments exemplifying how stupid we are. Ridiculous lemon water detox diets included.

Religion aside, I commend Wilson's rational approach and proliferating the knowledge that monks are awesome brewers. Because they are, Belgium is full of them and has been for centuries. Though this is a mixture of much of the aforementioned troubles diets can be. I can only imagine what shade of blue his liver will be by the end.

Regardless, this brave soul is undertaking a Lenten journey of understanding. His liver will tell the tale.

I give up

Recently, I was sweating profusely in hot yoga, and while staring at my reflection, it occurred to me that I can live with this. By "this", I was referring to my body: the back fat, the birdlike chest, the soft sausage arms, the knocked knees covered in scars.
I have been skinnier in my life, but it required a level of dietary vigilance and/or physical exertion that took my attention away from enjoying the fruits of my labour. Skinny came hand-in-hand with an unrelenting obsession with food, constant monitoring of my hunger level, and loads of laundry.
It makes sense to simply accept my body as is, given that I exercise a few times a week, I eat healthy, and my body has not betrayed me with malfunction or disease in any major way. And it's a relief not to be my own worst enemy, every morning.
Of course, admitting a problem is not the end of it. I may be coaxed back into borderline anorexia by being called "fatty" or by fluorescent lighting in a swimsuit fitting room. In the meantime, I will enjoy this unfamiliar acceptance of my body, until one of my fellow Thinspiration XXL becomes enviably thin, and dissatisfaction with my body rears its ugly head.

Accidental Bulimia

No pictures for you. None. I am too sick. There may be a picture on my screen: my own vomit. But no one wants to see that.

Is it something I ate? Or didn't eat? Or am I ill?

Whatever the case, my digestive tract is undergoing some ethnic cleansing of my appetite. And I have never been thinner! Well, of late, anyway.

Typical meal plan of the day:

Coffee and a muffin
Coffee
Coffee
Dinner of some sort
Fiber supplement

Typical night:

1-2 am - Attempt to sleep
4-6 am - Wake up to a dance recital in my digestive tract
6-8 am - Go back to sleep
9 am-10 am - Wake up feeling atrocious, but thin

Kill me now!

Tight clothes vs. loose clothes

When you're a hot model, tight clothes look sexy. When you're an overweight man, tight clothes look terrible. So a natural recourse is for overweight people to wear loose clothes, as I have done so in the past. The problem is that baggy loose clothes only make you look bigger than you actually are. In fact, I had a closet full of "relax fit" jeans and extra large sweaters. Royal Pinguo has declared war on these terrible eye sores. They are slowly making their way out of my wardrobe and into the hands of the homeless. (We donate our old clothes, but it's creepy thinking that you may run into a homeless person who is wearing your old clothes... it's still better than giving them to your fat friends.)

With loose clothes out of the picture, I decided to boldly explore the other side of the spectrum. On Boxing Day, I bought clothes that were one size too small for me. For shirts and sweaters, this means medium. For jeans, this means size 34. (Thanks to Thinspiration, I can actually fit into 34's again... but it's not comfortable by any means.) What does this mean? It means I look ridiculous in tight clothes, but it's also a public reminder for me to try to fit into these clothes. That is a big bonus when it comes to wearing tight clothes. The human body is like a goldfish that adjusts to the size of it's bowl. If you wear loose baggy clothes, they start to fit you just fine after a while. If you wear tight clothes, you get constantly reminded to trim yourself down a bit.

On a side note, I weighed myself shortly after New Year's. After all the turkey, turkey, and more turkey... I weigh in at 204 lbs. It's a weight gain since the Thinspiration finale, but not by very much. I'm still close to breaking the 200 lb barrier. I'll let you know how it goes.

I Blame My Boots!

I don't have a pre-holiday weigh-in, in early December with my birthday, Christmas and New Years binges all incoming, I ran in fear from the scale.

Last weigh-in on January 10: 187 lbs.

I solely blame this on the fact I was wearing my steel toed work boots, that should account for at LEAST 25lbs I swear.

I am rationalizing here but at this time last year was almost precisely when I was kissing the Clydesdale mark at a nearby 197. So maybe it's not so bad. The fact that my pants are tight and my shirts are loose gives me reason to believe that it may indeed be that bad.

I look in the mirror and I remember there being shoulders in there somewhere.

At work there is now a gym, I am going to go join it, use it and actually, maybe for once use my new sewing kit acquired during Christmas to put buttons back on pants that last year's me had popped off.

Congratulations! It's a beautiful baby...

It's the second week of January and while my vacations are officially over, I will carry the memories formed during the last weeks with me for months to come. Like many young families with far too much free time on their hands in the winter months, I have conceived a child. And also, like most pregnancies, my impending child was an accident. I am debating the names "Oops" or "Teresa" if a girl, and "Lumpy" or "Rambo" if a boy. Here I shall describe the circumstances leading up to his/her conception.



...

I left Toronto on the night of the lunar eclipse. It was an early flight, and I found myself on the street during the event itself, my steps struggling to retreat from the blood red stare of the pregnant moon. In retrospect, perhaps I should have recognized it as an omen of the events to come.

As is often the case, it was a cloudy day in Vancouver when I arrived. After an unexpected and graceful swan dive into the wooden docks of Granville Island and a number of beers to numb both the pain and the embarrassment, I found myself within the downtown core. An air of romance seemed to perfuse the city. In reality, it was likely the cold drawing blood from my brain.

I soon arrived outside of a restaurant. Her restaurant. Her eyes immediately found me at the door. It wasn't hard; the place was empty. Her eyes bore a squint of suspicion as I entered. She warmed up quickly, showing me to a seat with a broad smile and a squint of welcome in her eyes, before sauntering away. I struggled to assemble the puzzle of the menu and of its proprietor, who watched over my decision with an inquisitive squint in her eyes. I made two decisions in those moments: I would have the green curry chicken; and she was not squinting, she was Asian. I entered the restaurant in search of food, but something indescribable happened that day. At the conclusion of my meal, she arrived with the bill and a look of mystery on her face. The cost was a mere $12, but I tipped her my heart.

Within days of arriving at home, I noticed a change. I was suffering from strange cravings. Despite being surrounded by healthy, delicious, and at times gourmet fare, I felt a physiological need for banana bread. And not just banana bread, but cake, cupcakes, butter tarts, chocolate, candy apples, and potato chips. Along with a change in diet, I often felt ill in the mornings. My clothing became tighter. That was when I realized: I was having a baby! A food baby.

My feelings for my child are as fickle as the child itself. My diet has changed more than Jennifer Aniston's relationships. The most recent phase has revolved around the eating of gummy products. I spent three days unable to eat anything but for gummy worms and gummy bears.



People claim that having a child is magical, and yet aside from a strange fascination with the nests of animals in the wild, perhaps related to my own nesting response, I found my mind drifting to the macabre. I alternated between joy and a strong desire to kill this baby through reckless activity ranging from ice skating, dangerous hiking, and tobaggoning. I have also tried to abort it through alcohol and starvation. But all has been to no avail. Animal crackers have become a daily staple. My food baby kicks after a short time without a meal. And strangely, I couldn't be happier.

I have come to terms. I now accept my child, since it was born of hot and spicy Thai love; that and butter. My only concern is that my reckless behavior has damaged it. Since its conception, my dreams have become haunted by images of Michael Moore and depressed reindeer.

Am I ready to carry this potentially damaged child for months to come? Or will I abort it through an orgy of activity? Only time will tell.

A week of hell

For the month of December, I let myself go. I ate whatever I wanted (usually not healthy) and didn't really exercise. In the end, I got sick and felt bloated. It was not worth it.

My new year's resolution is to get back to being healthy...Thinspiration XXL healthy, that is. Since January 1, I've reduced my daily caloric intake to 1500 calories or less with the help of a calorie count application on my cell phone. I have also resumed hot yoga and running.

I must admit that the first few days of drastic stomach shrinking was psychologically and physically uncomfortable. But, now I feel better. No, really. I have lost 2 pounds already.

If I were to inflict my methods on the other competitors, I wonder what would happen? Science research requires volunteers. Anyone? Anyone?

I call it... Perspective

Okay, yet another item in the ever-growing list of things I do that I DO NOT recommend anyone following suit. Thinspiration is if anything a wonderful place to learn from other peoples mistakes.

No matter how much I try to convince my body otherwise nor how many of my daily calories are dervied from it, ALCOHOL is not a food group.

Booze occasionally interspersed with bouts of more chewable digestibles does not necessarily consitute a healthy diet. Especially if those bits of more solid calories are chocolate, gravy covered meats, melted cheeses or other various bits of tasty, usually unnecessarily salty hip-expansion vices.




The last three days have been frozen pizza and beer. My sodium levels must be through the roof right now.









This doesnt even include the bottles emptied and left behind at my sisters over the holidays. I can't even recall how many there was then, a fair more than few.









Many of my birthday and christmas presents were drinkable.










My liver hurts.

A predictable resolution

A vacation in Paris and the usual holiday binge-fest has resulted in the expected weight gain.

Pre-Paris: 122 lbs

Post-Christmas: 126 lbs

Frankly, I'm surprised that my body has held on so stubbornly to the vestiges of fitness.

Of course, I have the Toronto Half-Marathon (May 15, 2011) to train for, but I think some more immediate challenges might be in order. I have some suggestions:

My Own Personal Kichadi - the Kichadi diet was a winning strategy for Doctor Cook, but no one, not even Doctor Cook, wants to do it again. But, what if every competitor could choose their own "kichadi" to consume for a week? A chocolate cake strategy would be wonderful but result in weight gain. A gruel strategy could result in weight loss but kichadi-like suffering. How will competitors balance taste and nutrition?

My Own Personal Hell - Hot yoga is a exercise combining flexibility, strength and cardio challenges in one. It has also been called a form of torture. In an effort to entice new clients, many hot yoga studios offer trial periods for a lower price. All competitors could take advantage of this deal to see who is capable of taking the most punishment...er...mind blowing physical transformation.

New Year's Eve will be one last hurdle before everyone joins the Thinspiration XXL band wagon - hopefully the competitors will be amongst the passengers.

A is for Anorexia

Thinspiration: One compound word with the power to evoke so much change in one's life. Allow me to share some of the life lessons I have learned in my recent months of blog silence, presented in Q & A form.

Q. "Just what have you been eating lately?"
A. "My taste buds have run quite the gamut of late, partaking of items such as duck tongue and gizzard, liters of Lipton Instant Chicken Noodle Soup, dozens of Tootsie Pops, McDonald's and Burger King by the handful, cake, cupcakes, cookies, a container of frosting, and a pound of chocolate covered coffee beans."

Q. "A diet of predominantly candy and chocolate covered coffee beans? Are you insane?"
A. "Yes. But I ate better than any of you suckers. In fact, for a few days there, all I ate were suckers."

Q. "Did you gain massive amounts of weight? Did you give yourself diabetes?"
A. "No. Contrary to popular belief, diabetes is not linked directly to sugar intake, but rather to obesity. And, coupling candy with my well-entrenched anorexic tendencies, any weight changes were minimal."

Q. "Surely there must have been some consequences. How are you still alive?"
A. "Surprisingly not. The only odd and slightly disturbing observation following 3 days of eating dozens of tootsie pops was the odor of candy in my urine! However, this effect is nothing compared with eating Lipton Instant Chicken Soup even two days in a row. Both the color AND odor of urine soon matches the soup, perhaps hinting at its origin."

Q. "Would you recommend others adopt a candy regime in lieu of 'sensible' diets?"
A. "Yes."

Q. "Will you return to glory in the next installment of Thinspiration, if it ever happens?"
A. "How dare you suggest that I ever left my state of glory?!" *storms off*

Epilogue...whatever...

Thinspiration XXL has died with a whimper instead of a vengeance. Or perhaps, it just ate too much and is now hibernating.

Here's the epilogue and some of it might even be true.

celestialspeedster continues to count calories and has started exercising on a regular basis. Hot yoga is her latest thing and she will continue to do it until winter goes away. Unfortunately, she has signed up for the Toronto Half-Marathon and will be forced to run in the cold at some point.

Doctor Cook continues to make questionable life choices like eating frosting for dinner. He will be moving to the West Coast in the new year where taking up snowboarding or taking up a drug habit are both equally plausible. Well, at least the competitors of Thinspiration XXL won't be legally liable for that one. Ha!

Flocons plans to sign up for the Toronto Half-Marathon, but, first, he must survive the avalanche of food to come in December. Unfortunately, his baking skills are in high demand nowadays, and every good baker must sample his own goods.

Opiate has bucked the trend by signing up for the Mississauga Half-Marathon, which happens at the same time as the Toronto Half-Marathon. It is a smart choice since Mayor Hazel McCallion will likely knight Opiate, bestowing upon him a ham and a condo right beside Square One, whereas Mayor Rob Ford will probably throw pork hocks at runners of the Toronto event from his penthouse condo.

Royal Pinguo will attempt to hold Flocons back from the December buffet. When she loses weight in the new year, it will be for herself, and not that cute Cuban guy she met during a recent vacation. No, not at all.

Thorn is still Batman.

The end...for now...

Anti-climactic Catwoman Finale Part 2 to come

The second Catwoman Competition finale will take place this Saturday, November 20: Beautiful Day. Competitors will be measured and are expected to bring their own version of the recently departed Double Down. The visual food orgy to come should be exciting...well, at least more exciting than the Catwoman Competition, which has been a non-starter.

If the competitors do not agree on a challenge for the next round that causes everyone to giggle like frenzied school girls, then this may well mark the finale of Thinspiration XXL.

Obesity rates to rise at Central Tech

Just as Canadians begin pining over the departure of the Double Down, Krispy Kreme has returned from oblivion to fill the void. The chain that had Torontonians running for the (Mississauga) border disappeared in 2004 in the midst of financial woes. Now, Krispy Kreme has set up shop near the intersection of Bathurst and Harbord, within waddling distance of Central Technical School.

Just a reminder that one Krispy Kreme donut equals 250 calories. Take two Krispy Kreme donuts, insert some cheese and bacon in between, and the end result is something even more monstrous (or wonderful?) than the Double Down.

Lunch: Mountains and Molehills

The Twinkie Diet thing reminded me of a post I'd started, stopped and started again.... Think it's time I got back to that thought.

Lunch, the lesser appreciated of the three traditional daily binges. It can be awesome or devastating. We're all so busy in our daily lives that it rarely is used an opportunity for eating something good so much as just vacuuming down some calories to carry you through until dinner. Historically for my 10 years at this job I've done one of two things for lunch:

1. brought in a huge container of one single meal item. Seriously for me I might as well have been using a garbage can. Be it rice or pasta, everything was awash in meat/tomato sauce. I loaded up as much as I could into the biggest container I could find and of course would eat the entire pile in one sitting
2. wandered downtown or to the cafeteria to find some overpriced meal that would ultimately suck as a waste of time, money and tastebud satisfaction

Add this to the fact I skipped breakfast due to my innate laziness of hitting the snoozebar countless times in the morning before rushing out the door. This is bad.

So I was glutting down large amounts of food of dubious nutritional value on a previously empty stomach (barring a coffee) and basically forcing my metabolism to cope with the massive influx all at once. And it did....by making me 197lbs. The body can only burn so much as fuel efficiently in such a span of time, the rest goes to our portly pocket zones. In my case, the beer gut.

Over the last year or two I've been thinspired by many things to change my habits, TXXL has only reinforced that this is a wise course of action.

To be honest, it was also getting really really boring. My tastebuds are tired of monotonous daily meals of convenience so this also adds some meal variety to the routine of my 9-5 desk job grind.

Since I still skip breakfast to an extent I've finally settled on a more reasonable approach.

Solution:

1. Little tiny containers.
   
2. More of them.
   
3. With different non-meatpasta items in each.
4. Bring cereal bars and slices of bread for breakfast when I get to work
   
5. Keep items like peanut butter at work for breakfast bread
   

No. 4 & 5 keep me in check until lunch itself and provides something for my body to burn in the meantime, regulating the metabolism a bit better. The tiny containers are obvious portion control and more options adds more veggies and fruits into my otherwise meatcarby diet. It also has proven to be a quick meal to slice up tomato, onion, lettuce, cheese and meat the night before, throw it all into a container and bring two pieces of bread in another. Put container contents on bread, voila you have a sandwich and the bread isn't soggy.

For lunch I generally still have my mound of pasta, only a smaller molehill with more veggies in the sauce instead of a Half Dome-comparable load of meat and carbs. Half Dome is huge, see pic at the top, the view from the apex is incomparable.

I'm also bringing two juice boxes, one to go with breakfast and another for lunch to keep myself from running down the hallway to the nearest pop machine when I'm tired of just water.

Also common inclusions now in lunch in said tiny containers or on the side:

1. olives and pickles
   
2. mandarin orange pieces
   
3. yogurt
   
4. grapes
   
5. sliced sweet peppers
   
6. apples
   
7. oranges
   
8. bananas
   

I'm also a cheap bastard. This has proved a good cost-cutting measure as I got tired of spending too much money on bad unhealthy food prepared and served by obnoxious staff at unacceptable dives downtown when I either forgot to pack or got tired of my garbage can of carbmeat.

Sodium being a monster flab-builder in the Triad of Trouble (sugar, fat, salt), and being an addict to "pickled anything" which is of course a haven for high sodium.... I've happily discovered Bick's makes a garlic dill with 50% less salt. They taste almost identical to the regular pickles.

Behold the awesomeness of a low-sodium pickle!

Fatty would have come in second

Kansas State University nutrition professor, Mark Haub, has lost 26 pounds in 10 weeks with his Twinkie diet. Starting at 201 pounds, Haub lost 12.9% of his total weight. If he had competed in the original Thinspiration XXL competition, Haub would have come in second! Insert scientific conclusion here.

My latest gimmick

The fact is that I have been exercising on a regular basis in the last few weeks, and in spite of eating more, my weight has not changed. Also static, but less encouraging, are my body measurements.

With the three week extension to the Catwoman Competition, I have decided to take desperate measures. I will be attending Bikram Yoga classes for the month of November. My friend, the Storymaster insists that this is a surefire way to melt away the fat. Having only tried it once before, I can vouch that it is debatable form of torture.

Madonna does Ashtanga yoga, and she has zero body fat. I have been told that my hands look like Madonna's so perhaps doing Bikram Yoga will cause this similarity to spread throughout my body. One guy doesn't think Bikram Yoga is healthy for Madonna. Well, that's enough faulty logic for today. See you at the sweat mark.

Catwoman Competition results: inconclusive

At the finale of the Catwoman Competition, body measurements were quickly forgotten as competitors gorged on homemade baked goods by Flocons, and a sushi party tray. The competitors were then distracted by the need to show off their costumes to unwilling spectators, like friend and non-follower of Thinspiration XXL, Senan. Fortunately, Senan's child was already safely ensconced in bed, and did not have her Halloween ruined by six creepy adults.

After sorely testing the hospitality of Senan, the competitors returned to the home of Flocons and Royal Pinguo to play Just Dance 2 on the Wii, with the body parts of Jon Levy distributed to the winner of each round. This will be news to Jon Levy, who assumes that cannibalism is simply a topic of debate, rather than a real personal concern.

Frankly, no one looked good in a catsuit, even prior to the binge eating that has become status quo at Thinspiration XXL events. Hence, the 'Catwoman' competition will continue and conclude on Beautiful Day: November 20.

Save the date by marking it on your calendars (especially you, Jon Levy, you tasty, tasty morsel).

A Catsuit for All Seasons

The Catwoman Competition concludes this Sunday on Halloween.

It is unclear how a winner will be determined since the winning criteria have never been made clear, but the competitors will be judged, and judged harshly, as they strut about in skin tight outfits.

To quash false hope right now: there will not be any photos posted; only results.

Stay tuned!