DIET AND EXERCISE, DAMN!

Diet and exercise, they say, are the key to maintaining a slender, healthy body.  The problem is they aren't around to clamp a hand over your mouth when the pizza comes your way or there to jerk you out of the chair when your butt has achieved reclined nirvana.  They are noticeably absent when the choice is a "Lord of the Rings" marathon or a long walk or when someone says, "Let's do Mexican" and your mind flashes CHIMICHANGA in neon caps.  They, the bastards, leave the choices up to us.

"A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest" they repeat ad infinitum, which is a Latin phrase that means "annoyingly," and to which I say, what's your point?  You want to see a man in MOTION just put a lasagna in front of me and behold the blur of activity!  I won't REST until it's gone! 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, discipline, self discipline, the only kind of discipline that's worth a damn or, at least, that's what I've always said, must be part of the equation.  Discipline/diet/exercise = slender/healthy being the equation I just alluded to and, uh, actually, just made up...sort of.  But now, alas, - I love the word alas. It signals something of great finality is about to follow - I must a confession make: I've never really adhered to that equation.  I've always, in the past, eaten whatever I've felt like and if the pounds began to gather about my gluttonous self, I merely exercised MORE.  Hey, no problem! Another set of push-ups, another jog around the park.  They can say what they want, it worked for me.

But alas, (I told you I loved it) my plan no longer has merit; hasn't, in fact, for several years.  Oh, I still exercise, most of the time, but not enough to compensate for my atrocious diet which includes the two main food groups, (1) foods that taste good and (2) foods that don't, but are within arm's reach, and I am left with the hard choice of changing my habits of a lifetime if I want to remain looking only slightly pregnant and not five or six months gone. I need to lose ten pounds right away and maybe another five for good measure; a good measure being defined as I can latch the top button of my 32 inch waist jeans, a thing that hasn't happened in cough cough years. 

And, Oh Damn!, wouldn't you know it?  Here come the holidays!

Wish me luck. Really, lots of luck. And discipline. Wish me that too.