Do you know that moment when you have been on a diet for a while and suddenly you fit into your old jeans and you can reach that other notch on your belt that has been unattainable for a while? No this is not a Progresso Soup commercial, but I did have that experience this morning. Very motivating.
So if you are one of the two readers of this blog you will know that in the last couple of years I have struggled with my weight, my blood pressure, my glucose levels, and my cholesterol levels. This is because I am a pig. In England they would say that I am "greedy". That sounds a bit better, but the reality of the situation is I don't do well with moderation. All the more sad then that I studied Aristotle in college. I didn’t just study Aristotle, I majored in Philosophy. See, I couldn't even do that in moderation.
Last month I learned that an old friend of mine died of a stroke two years ago when he was the age I am now. He actually died on my birthday in 2010. This really shook me up. As such I have been on a no alcohol / no wheat diet since January 2nd. January 1st was necessarily spent with a magnum of Cava and an all-day AbFab marathon as it should have been. This recent abstinence is on top of me giving up meat last year and me stopping eating anything that is white.
Yes I really just typed that. No alcohol, no wheat, no meat, nothing white.
I was surprised how easy it was to give up meat. I never was that big of a fan of dead cow, but lamb? I love lamb. Giving up meat had nothing to do with my health though. I was in Maui last March at the Surfing Goat Dairy buying goat cheese and all these super cute little goats were running around and frolicking on their surfboards. There was just no way to look at these little goats and be OK about eating an animal. I am a total hypocrite though. I am still eating chickens and anything that swims. I probably will reach a point of ending my bird consumption, but I have no plans to quit eating seafood, ever, under any circumstances. I realise that in some karmic way this increases the likelyhood of me getting devoured by a shark exponentially.
I should fess up that massive amounts of dead pigs were consumed by me in Barcelona. And I ate and drank nearly as many bad things in San Francisco. I don’t care. I reserve the right to consume anything I want while on vacation. Fortunately all I ever eat in Hawaii is fish anyway.
Why am I blabbering on about all this right now? Because I went in for a checkup this week. Blood was drawn, fingers were inserted, knees where thwacked. As the news is? I have lost 14 pounds since the first of the year and my blood pressure is better. But there is a huge change though from a year ago. My glucose levels are almost normal and my cholesterol levels are normal too. This just goes to show that if you quit eating cute little animals you will live longer.
I am so relieved. I really, really do not want to get diabetes. Or have a stroke. Or die. Unless a Republican is elected president in the fall, but then that pretty much assures that the Mayans were right and the world is going to end in 2012 anyway so it won’t matter.
Seriously, I feel like I have dodged a bullet again. I hope I can stay on this diet for a while and actually lose some real weight. What would it be like to go to Europe and not be immediately recognized as an American because I am enormous and wearing white tennis shoes?
Goal for 2012: Try to stop looking like enormous American. And buy different colored tennis shoes.
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