I normally like to post market updates on Monday mornings. I also normally like to drink coffee with cream and sugar on Monday mornings. Most mornings really. The problem isn’t with Monday morning, nor with the coffee. The problem lies with the cream. To say I like it wouldn’t be fair to the other things I merely like. Like Pad Thai. I like Pad Thai, but I don’t love it. To say I love cream might make me sound like a complete nut, but it also makes other things I love feel inferior. I love calamari confit, but that love isn’t on par with the love I reserve for cream. I’m having a hard time getting to my point, but it is Monday, and I didn’t have my normal dosage of cream with my coffee.
Enough beating around the caloric bush. I, David Curry, am way too fat. I am. I may be fatter in my mind than I am in physicality, but I’m fat nonetheless. How fat? Well, I watched a show a week ago or a month ago, or last fall, about a half ton man. He must have had a name, but the proper name for the sake of the show was The Half Ton Man. The show chronicled this thousand pounder, and poked unintended fun at his diet. This monstrous man said his normal lunch consisted of a two liter of Diet Coke, three hamburgers, two orders of fries, a milkshake, and half a box of donuts. The information was intended to showcase the gross gluttony that led to his obesity, and I’m sure most who watched it stared in horror at the sheer volume of food. Me? I called my brother to say I thought this guys lunch seemed reasonable. I also may or may not have actually become a bit hungry after watching the show.
And this, is my problem. I love food. See these photos throughout this post? I took them. I also baked the items in the pictures. I had a difficult work day two Saturday’s ago, and I came home around 3 pm in a bit of a funk. Normal men might drink. Or sleep. Or watch TV. I proofed brioche dough. And pretzel roll dough. Then I figured that if the brioche dough was the perfect dough to use as hamburger buns, it would certainly be good rolled into cinnamon rolls. Then, later that night, while I ate my first oven fresh cinnamon roll, I thought about the donuts I had made around Christmas. The donuts were derived from a Krispy Kreme knock-off recipe, and they were delicious. I thought that if the donuts were good as donuts, the dough might be even better if rolled out and used to make cinnamon rolls. I thought that then, but it wasn’t until last Tuesday night that I made the jump from concept to application. I made krispy kreme donut dough cinnamon rolls. And I wonder why I can perfectly balance a cream splashed cup of coffee on my stomach while I lay on my couch.
The same cup on the belly trick was pulled off quite nicely by my own father, and as a kid, I remember thinking the feat was both cool and horrible. I figured, to have a belly big enough to serve coffee on musn’t be a good thing. Yet, at the tender age of almost 32, I have my very own fleshy cup holder. And I hate it.
And so, like the diet of 2009 that was crushed under the weight of fall comfort food- primarily my desire to perfect my pizza recipe- I must now embark on the diet of 2010. The Diet of 2009 was a success for as long as it lasted, and I lost a total of 22 pounds. Regrettably, the 22 pounds I lost in the fall, I found during the winter, and they’re now home safe with me, holding up my coffee cup. I’m writing about the new diet on a Monday because I read once that diets implemented on a Monday had a much better chance of success, and I need as much momentum as possible.
And since I’ve complained about my back plenty on this blog, I must report that my back is on the mend. I’ve been playing tennis once a week, which is a far cry from my desired schedule, but it’s pretty exciting given my limited tennis health since the fateful, disc shredding match on June 30th of 2008. I’ve been pretty faithful in “working out” at the Grand Geneva four to five days a week since mid January, and this “working out” consists of lumbering on a treadmill for 30-40 minutes, then sweating through about 15 minutes of back exercises that are either going to strengthen my back or render me a shoe in for a spinal fusion at some point in the near future. I’ve been on a very weak diet for the past couple months, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why I haven’t lost any weight. Consider the routine… I wake up and drink cream spiked coffee. Then I drink some water. Then I eat an oatmeal type bar around 10 am, and then I “work out” during lunch. I eat another bar (not diet or energy bars) or apple or orange and drink more water. I feel pretty good by the time I come home around 5. By then, I’ve gone the whole day on about 400 calories. Then, between 6 and 9, I eat pretty much anything I can find in quantities that would make the Half Ton Man blush.
Today, the diet begins. In some strange world I think that if I was of a superior fitness level, I’d sell more vacation homes. Doubtful, but I’ll also use that as some motivation. I’ll be mixing up increased “work out” durations with less eating, and much less baking. Now that the weather is on the mend, I should be able to start walking my beloved shore path which will help me walk further than I can ever walk on a treadmill. A half hour on a treadmill feels like three days to me, whereas a half hour on the shore path feels pretty much like a half hour. The diet must succeed, and I’m going to set a very reasonable goal of 30 pounds lost in the next 10 weeks. Very doable for a gentleman of my circumference. I don’t want to lose too much weight, because the frightful sight of the newly angular Alton Brown is in my mind, and I have no interest in becoming a way-too-skinny caricature of myself.
Why does this matter to you? It doesn’t. But I also read somewhere that if you’re accountable to someone while on a diet you’ll be more prone to stick with it. Since about 180 people will read this post today, and several hundred more over the next couple days, that means I’ll be accountable to more individuals, which, in turn, should increase the effectiveness of my diet. To those who hate when I write about anything other than the lake and the surrounding real estate, I promise to write something fascinatingly focused tomorrow. Wish me luck. Or just hide the cream. Either way.