Published: September 10, 2008 11:33 am            

Losing weight... so much effort

My doctor told me I should lose 40 to 50 pounds.

Or, I could just die one of these days.

I’m weighing my options.

For reasons of health I need to give up all sugar, and all grease.

There are two main ingredients I crave in everything I eat.

Sugar and grease.

These two items will give you heart disease, which I don’t have. And Type 2 diabetes, which I do have.

They will also give you a large waistline, which I already own. So the sugar and grease now is more or less something to be inhaled in order to maintain destructive body weight.

These two items, I’m told, will also clog your arteries.

Look, I take Crestor.

Plague isn’t the only clogger, I’m told.

Exercise has been recommended along with the weight loss.

When I was young I ran and played. Now that I’m an adult, I put away such healthful things and just play.

I do occasionally walk around the shopping center where this newspaper is located.

Three times around comes to just over two miles.

I’ve been told that’s far enough for anybody to walk. Everything else is just ego.

I’ve got more than enough of that already, so two miles is plenty.

They say to walk briskly.

Sure, but one man’s brisk is another man’s sprint.

You’re not supposed to sprint when you walk.

When they show all of those commercials about stress, isn’t somebody always walking too fast?

 “Let’s talk while we walk,” the doctor on television says, freaking out all the worn out interns who must obey him.

I’ve been doing this mostly sedentary work for 38 years now. Can you imagine writing a story while walking?

Over the years I’ve built up my sedentary tolerance to marathon levels.

Do I really want to destroy a proven method for the last 38 years.

A lot of guys get out of their Lazy Boys after 30 years of imprinting their backside shape into the recliner.

Next thing you know, they’re lying on the side of the road having a heart attack.

Granted, they look great in their coffins, but do I really care at that point what I look like. I don’t even care much now.

I’ve gotten adjusted to my look over the last 38 years. It’s pretty much the same as it’s always been, with the exception of my Moses hair.

Granted, there’s family, the presidential race, football, and my dog to keep me going.

Oh, yeah, there’s five grandchildren, too. I’d like to see them graduate. All of them.

Maybe I’ll take a close look at these Weight Watcher’s recipes on the Internet.

Maybe I could take off 20 or 30 pounds.

You just wonder to yourself, why couldn’t the bad foods be broccoli and seaweed?

And why couldn’t it be that doctors were always warning you to cut down on excessive vegetable consumption, and to watch out for those fruits and liquids.

Why couldn’t the food pyramid have strawberry cheese cake on the wide part of it down on the bottom.

And why can’t chocolate be the magic elixir that every body takes to get energy before exercising?

lI told the doc it’s not as bad as it might seem. We have very large bone structures in my family.

He told me my family has bigger fat cells.

I don’t know about

you, but I’m fired up.

I’m going to lose the first 10 by Christmas.

The next 10 will be off by Easter.

That should be followed by 10 more pounds of weight loss by summer, followed by a 10-pound vacation back by next fall.

Then I’ll get back to 30 pounds off by the end of the regular season in high school football.

I’ll then lose 10 more by Christmas, ‘‘09.

When you think about it, I’ll be 40 pounds less a man by the beginning of 2010.

Unless, of course, my attitude backslides.

It’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I hate it when people aren’t accountable.

        

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