Looking At Food

Just when I thought I was starting to make progress on the weight loss… I saw a picture of something that looked tasty and started getting fat again…
What is it about THIS AGE that all I have to do is THINK about food and I can put on weight??? There’s no sense in even eating – why waste the energy? All I have to do is picture it in my head and the pounds just pour on. I can drink water and think about ice cream and you’d think I was eating double churn vanilla the way the weight comes on…I hate getting old…

The Battle Of The Bulge

Why is it SOOOO easy to put ON weight and so hard to get it off again? When I was a kid I could eat like a horse and my weight stayed the same. I could GORGE on food – no matter what kind – and my weight stayed the same. NOW it seems that all I have to do is LOOK at food and the weight goes on. And not in the proportions I ate it, either. NOOOO!! Food multiplies as I eat it and adds twice its weight to my love handles as I take in!!! So now I have to eat in much smaller amounts than I SHOULD have to just to stay even.
And why does it NEVER come off in the places I WANT it to come off? It always comes off NEXT TO where I want it to come off so that where I WANT it to come off looks even BIGGER!!! Lose the love handles??? NOOOOO. Lose above and below so the love handles look even BIGGER!!! Great… there’s nothing sexier in an old man than a bird-chest and big love handles. God loves his little jokes…
I know there are about a million diets out there – and I know they all work to one degree or another. The ones that advertise you’ll lose 200 pounds in a week are usually the ones to steer away from, but most of the others get the weight off with some kind of torture or other. “Eat only cardboard” or “Put a picture of a fat person on your refrigerator” (I think they may have discounted that the ‘fat person’ in the picture is actually the size we are trying to get down to) or “Eat only .” Whatever the diet they always get the weight off of you – and sometimes you have to be a little more patient than you want to be, but it still comes off. The problem is KEEPING it off!!!
For every million diets - and there seems to be at least that many - there are a handful of ‘maintenance programs.’ Perpetual diet and exercise seems to be the most predominant programs (continual torture for the rest of your life, basically), but it seems that the one that makes the most sense – as an aging person – is the timing of the meals. Eat the larger meals earlier in the day and eat smaller meals LATER in the day. Because as our bodies changed over the years we slowed down the digestive process. I’ve talked to all kinds of nutritionalists, personal trainers, doctors, nurses and read some of those celebrities who think they have something to add (and rarely do) – and the bottom line is you have to pay attention to WHEN you eat as well as how much. Because our bodies are slower than they used to be we have to eat our big meal earlier in the day. Sorry about that. I know we all like to sit around and watch night TV with our dinner, but that is when you should be having a VERY SMALL dinner or nothing at all. What you take in late is NOT going to get processed and you're going to end up with it in places you don't want it. Personally, I like to have popcorn without STUFF (that wonderful artery clogging butter!!) and my evening cocktail. Hey, get over it. There are some things I’m willing to give up and some things I plan to keep, even if I DO have to walk a few extra miles every day!!! I’ll give up the food, but the cocktail is NECESSARY to get through the kids and grandkids!!! I'm sure you could find a doctor or two who will tell me that will kill me, but when I was at the bar with my doctor the other night we BOTH had to agree alcohol is a necessary evil. She said there's always going to be SOMETHING that is going to kill us, but if you ask most of the 'centurians' how they lived so long the majority agree they had a shot or two to 'take the edge off' the day. Well, I'll probably from '8 Line' bus poisoning when I can't get out of its way fast enough, but I plan to go out happy. And that means I'm keeping the alcohol and the occassional cigar. Get over it.

Desserts

There I was having lunch with a friend and – after choking down a lunch salad and wondering why I passed on the burger and fries – the server came over and asked us if we wanted dessert. As with all desserts they looked delicious. Well, we KNEW better than to order one. He might as well as bring them over with a roll of duct tape so we can apply the dessert directly to bellies or hips rather than go through the whole torture of ‘guilting’ ourselves and have them end up there in the first place. Come on, dessert? Of course we WANT dessert, but we’ve spent the better part of our lives NOT eating desserts because we know what it’s going to do to our waistlines. ARGH!!!
Servers seem to know they’re torturing us when they come offering desserts. It’s in the glint in their eyes. They get their own little special revenge on us for having to bring us our food by tempting us with desserts they KNOW have a million calories in them. There must be a special ‘evil’ in servers that drives them to insanity. They seem to enjoy tempting us that way. They come to the table and offer us something they KNOW we want and then watch us squirm trying to wrestle with whether or not we can order one. Maybe if we split it…
It was on the way home I asked the question I should have asked at the table. Why NOT have the dessert? I exercise regularly, I get my physicals like I’m supposed to, I’m not in immanent danger of dying (that I know of) and a dessert once in awhile is a good idea. I think I can fight down the calories!! Just because I’m getting older doesn’t mean I can’t fight down the calories of a dessert as well as a youngster!!!
And then there was the REAL personal revelation. What am I saving myself for? Age has taken care of that 34-inch waistline. Years of work and the inability to get out there and work out have taken away the pecs, abs and biceps of steel. No matter what I eat I’m not going to get more hair on my head. No, I’m not advocating losing my mind and eating everything that comes across the lunch counter and gaining 200 pounds, but a dessert once in awhile is something we need to savor. For all I know I could be wrong about immanent death and look what I would miss. And for what?? It’s not like I’m going to be dancing in the strip clubs anytime soon. No one puts dollar bills in the thong of a man my age – trust me. Life is too short to give up the treats. We’ve all live too long and hard not to reward ourselves a little. If it doesn’t threaten my life, it’s time to go for it…