50 in 5, and 6

The domestic pandemic entered its second year a few weeks back, keeping me out of regular swim training indefinitely. I ain’t about to swim on my own. Luckily for me, easy exercises for 30 minutes a day over two months got me to a point where I now feel comfortable to begin something that resembles working out – and less like a GenX mall walker with a Cinnabon hangover. 

It is time for a challenge!

Lose 50 pounds over the next five months, and get a six-pack of abs in the process. The last time I earned a six pack Bill Clinton still had intern privileges.

My consultant of crunches, The ODJ, is up for dietary and work out mastery required for this challenge. He will be taxed to the max while developing an exercise regimen to get me one ab... much less six of them. Hopefully his lingering injuries will turn the corner soon, so we can get back to the gym together – if not to motivate, surely to publicly fat shame me into shape. Traditional motivation techniques are hyperbole to The ODJ; he believes in a more direct style of bring your manhood and fragile ego into the octagon.

Fun begins February 1^st, and ends July 1^st. Just in time for my biennial Tennessee pilgrimage. 4th of July party sponsored by Krystals. 12-packs of steaming hot gut bombs to cover up the six-pack of ab gain. The perfect reward for months of hard work and dedication.... What???... Do you think that is odd???... These are challenges, folks, not lifestyle changes!

30 fo 30

It has been six months since my last entry. I experienced a rapid descent into complete fitness and nutrition failure, which began the day after completing Jillian Michaels workouts and The ODJ’s Groundhog’s Day Food Challenge. Complete failure! 

I allowed back ever pound, plus an extra seven for good measure. I gained it all in less than five months -- a personal high and fastest increase. The digestive system was thrown out of whack by the excessive healthy food during the low-calorie high intake portion of the food challenge, causing me to fear the good. To add insult to gut injury, the continued pandemic restrictions has prevented real swim training, which is the best system regulator. 

My years of empowering fat storage, followed by wild weight loss programs, has been the driving force behind No Fat Jokes Please powered by the ODJ. However, this most recent loss-gain cycle was nasty. The record weight gain would've been ok on its own, but I experienced new body calamities: aches that mimicked post workout strains while not having worked out for months; food went from comforting the soul to taking on back ally addiction qualities; there was prolonged gut pains that sent me back into the arms of bland processed foods; and gym conditions deteriorated to new levels during extended pandemic restrictions. I am winded just writing. 

By Thanksgiving week my waistline had used up all the extra elastic. Seams holding my slacks together were beyond structural integrity parameters, within days of an embarrassing crotch blowouts. Catastrophic zipper to belt ripping is a sure bet at that gut size. An office walk of shame was in my immediate future -- my dress coat tied around my waist and pride in ruins. With gravy and stuffing only days away, things had to quickly change.

First off, I dropped my guilty pleasure sodas. Second, got off the “Wo unto me” chocolate medication. Lastly, white ain’t right... Stopped all bread consumption. Getting down with brown!

The diet was in some form of repair going into the worst eating season of the year, which only gave me a little time to focus on workouts. Son of a fat woman’s high heel pump! I was needing to go strong during the most restrictive mask and occupancy mandate of the entire pandemic. Challenge accepted.

Challenge was accepted with zeal. Then I began my first work out... NOPE! No strength or endurance could be mustard. There was no way I was jumping back into an ODJ program at my current state of fat and fatigue. Time for remedy... aka remedial workouts. Think of them as one step above water aerobics. Introducing “30 for 30” workout program.

30 days

30 minutes of activity

            Push up, jump rope, crunches

            Planks and prayers

            Seated stationary bike 

            Neighborhood power walk    

            Rowing machine and push ups

If all goes well, I will be in decent enough shape to complete an ODJ recovery day workout by Inauguration Day.  

The finish is harder than the start.

90 days of Jillian Michaels workouts

51 days of low-calorie intermittent fasting meal plan

20 days of Modere probiotic supplements

100 days and counting of a pandemic preventing swimming

Every so often I become attached to a workout-diet challenge Jaron sets forth – longing for a few more days, as if reading a great novel that I don’t want to end.

Completing the Groundhog’s Day Diet in support of my 90-day Jillian Michaels' exercise program caused me to feel a small hole open up in my life. The routine became comforting – an autopilot of sorts that steered me to great results in less than two months. This was the most drastic weight loss in the shortest amount of time: 35 pounds in 51 days.

In the decade-plus I have been documenting fat cycles, which are periodically interrupted by skinny me, I loved this program. Clarity and energy flowed freely with the cleansing nature of the meal plan. Jillian’s workouts were low impact with enough variety over the 90-days that I did not get bored. With the gyms and competition pools closed, having a home-based video workout made life easier. (Important caveat, Jaron would never condone mass produced video workouts. Something about generalization is an abomination. Bunch of other big words.)

There are hints that the ODJ is putting together an organic meal plan for August. Just in time for the 8^th anniversary of our great “Destination 195” program.

Until that time, could someone tell me where to find the chocolate covered raisins?! Need to bulk up to before the next challenge.

Stockholm, my Gretel

With less than a week left on the Groundhog’s Day Diet I am suffering from meal plan Stockholm Syndrome. I am currently dining with id’s autopilot – same meals, same times, same places. The daily routine has drawn me closer to my capture – longing for the same shall hold no shame.

But wait, there is more!

Fat guy me tendencies will always be there. He is held up like a warlord in the deep recesses of my mind where flattered egos dare not venture in the fear of finding one’s true self sucking down milkshakes with extreme prejudice. All the while fat guy me plots a revenge so great that my stretchy paints will be overwhelmed by gut rolls and jelly thighs. She can’t take much more, Captain!

I am expecting to be down over thirty pounds in seven weeks after the GDD is completed midweek next. At this pace I’ll be 195 pounds by Labor Day. With that type of momentum, I might as well just consider buying a quaint cottage in Stockholm to continue my summer of slim. Relocate to one of them thar pet groundhog friendly HOAs.

But wait, there is more!

Hansel and Gretel were fools to think the birds would leave their breadcrumb alone. Rookies! Fat guy me placed donut cairns all along the trail, because he knows my weak constitution will fold like a cheap menu at the first all-you-can-eat Twinkies & fried chicken joint I happen across. That feed trough will point me right back to fat guy me’s lair of simple carb comfort by Halloween.

But wait, there is... nope... never mind... Just s'mores!

Put down the cheeseburger, nobody gets hurt!

The engine’s roar could be heard a block away, then quickly drowned out by a siren’s wail. Neighbors pay no mind when police go code these days – times are strange. Probably another marriage resorting to fist and nails therapy. But then another patrol car follows. Then another, and another. People step out on their front porches.

This ain’t a domestic issue, this is menace.

“EXIT THE VEHICLE.” The programmed voice came over the SWAT megaphone. A boom, followed by yelling. The straights are scared stiff. The faint smell of chemical repellent wafts across the backyard BBQs and pool parties. Silence. Threat neutralized. Normalcy returns.

The 11 p.m. news reported that a disgruntled man tossed a flaming trashcan through a gym’s plate glass window. “The arresting officer reported,” the plastic faced news caster read from the prompter, “that the unidentified perpetrator, before being tased and maced by SWAT, had become agitated with gym staff for not providing him access to a treadmill that would, in his words, ‘out run a bad diet.’ Now to Janet for our weather.”

“Thank you Ron. I guess he could not, [add air quotes Janet] “Out run a bad case of whoop ass,” Ron.” [Janet to wink toward camera for added affect.]

GDD

Shelter-in-place and nonessential business closures have stripped away all the frills and randomness of the outside world. Wake, rinse, commute, lunch to-go, commute, isolate, repeat. The Great Pause caused the Universe’s DVD to skip.

In honor of all those who cannot tell if today is Tuesday, Saturday, or Yesterday -- for the poor souls forced to watch major league reruns on ESPN Classic -- to all the February “natural” blondes who are now May proud multi-dimensionalist -- I offer up the Groundhog’s Day Diet.

The scientific name for the Groundhog’s Day Diet is Low-Calories/High-Volume. I will be having the same three meals each day for as long as possible. The ODJ's money is on eight weeks. Any time after that could result in mild insanity or bouts of face eating. Coincidentally, eight weeks seems to be the length of time that the majority of non-Chinese humanity is willing to obey state recommended lock downs.

Breakfast:

Egg whites with one whole egg scrambled

Turkey sausage

Salsa for flare

Lunch:

One hardboiled egg

Low calorie dressing

Unlimited amount leafy greens. (Or anything not fun.)

Dinner:

Skinless chicken or fish, or both

Unlimited amount of leafy unfun greens.

Add salsa for excitement

Snacks:

Whole pickles

Celery

Rice cakes

English cucumbers

It is important to note, over the past decade The ODJ and I have concocted numerous diet-exercise combos. During that span of time he has tossed around low-calorie high-volume – and every time he has presented the plan, I looked away in horror. My fragile constitution avoided eye contact with that bucktoothed Punxsutawney light bender. 

No more! I do this for those stuck on repeat.

Today is not a new day. Today is the same day.

COVID video workouts

Our eldest daughter interrupts the pushup set in search of taco sauce. She is tonight’s short order cook. The freaking dog won’t stop licking sweat off my forehead as seconds tick slower and slower during a prolonged plank set. -- ”TAKE THIS TIME FOR YOU!” Constant encouragement from the exercise televangelist. “YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO!” -- The wife and I are executing decent Warrior II poses during our second week of Jillian Michaels at home work outs. Then a nerf something of the sort whizzes under my extended arm. And that damn dog is still licking!

One month into the COVID isolation the only part of life not on pause is my weight.

Call it a hunch, but I strongly believe that I knew way back last fall of the pending pandemic and outright panic run on the super markets this spring. Or call it lucky laziness. Either way, I already tacked on an extra supply of gut cushion coming off of a spectacular Hallow-Giving-Noel season.

I am the Nostradamus of flesh expansion… storing up my Quarantine-15 weight back in January when most people thought the Coronavirus was a Tijuana hangover.

These days the battle of the bulge is an evolving exercise regimen resembling a Norman Rockwell painting commissioned shortly after immerging from a decade long isolation with his progeny.

“IF YOU KNOW YOUR WHY, THE HOW WILL BE EASY!”