Welcome to week 5 of weight loss

It’s easy, but at the same time, it’s pretty fucking hard.

I haven’t fallen off the wagon yet. I always eat more calories on the weekends, but I like to hold on to the personal theory that  “cheating” once a week will prevent my metabolism from slowing down. In fact, I’ve made a science of it. I do it for that reason. Plus, I don’t want to deprive my wife of restaurant dining for the rest of her life. 

The eating part of my new plan is easy. Hell, I eat all day now. I start with some kind of Weight Watchers frozen breakfast and some yogurt, then a couple hours later I have fruit, then a Weight Watchers lunch, then fruit again, then oatmeal, then it’s dinner time (another low-cal meal). After that, I usually have a bowl of 94% fat free popcorn or a meal bar. All of that still only adds up to 1500 calories.

And then there’s the hard part. Am I eating enough calories? Some say no, because of this little thing called “Starvation Mode,” while I read other stories that document obese people who lost over 100 pounds with similar caloric intake.

Starvation mode is basically the process of your body adjusting to the low calorie intake and conserving most of the energy you put in rather than burning it off as usual.

…..

UPDATE: I had over a thousand words typed up. I talked about my weaknesses, my addiction to food, my pessimistic views on weight loss, and my new outlook on eating. When I clicked publish, wordpress had logged me out. All that beautiful text is gone.

So, a little word of advice: write your shit in a word processor and save it.

Since the post was mostly rambling and learning about myself along the way, I’ll treat this as an opportunity to rewrite my thoughts coherently post-epiphany.

Most dieters seem to have trouble giving up the small edible pleasures, like soda, chocolate, and other sweets; additionally, these same people might hate vegetables, whole grains, and fish. Those who successfully overcome their cravings (or at least learn to moderate them) tend to lose a significant amount of weight. But I don’t crave chocolate very often, I always take my coffee black, and I stopped drinking soda years ago. I love most foods and have no problem eating vegetables, fish, and whole grains. In fact, I dislike the following everyday foods in their unaccompanied form: Milk, cream cheese, and… I think that’s it. Restaurants would love me as a food critic. I only judge the food harshly if the service sucked.

Does this mean that I’m well on my way to success since my brain doesn’t have to battle any insane withdrawal symptoms? Or does it mean my body is accustomed to going without these things, making weight loss even more difficult since I don’t have as many sacrifices to work with?

Just because I can drink water and eat vegetables and grains all day long, however, doesn’t mean I am without weaknesses. Fats and carbs are my little demons. I’d eat a baked potato with butter, sour cream, cheese, and bacon bits at every meal if I could. French fries are amazing – the thicker the better. I am known to eat a bowl of plain white rice or pasta, seasoned with some butter, garlic, and salt. I can eat fried shrimp like popcorn. I’ve finished an 8-piece from Popeye’s many times.  I invented fourth meal. I loved going home from the bar at 1 a.m. with a bag full of Taco Bell to munch on in front of late-night infomercials.

Food made me happy. I have a loving wife, a good job (how many people can say they’re in the job they’ve wanted since grade school?), a house, two dogs, wonderful friends and parents, and talent in music and writing. But food made me happy. What?

I looked forward to date night with my wife for the restaurant food, movie popcorn, the late night ice cream, etc. I left work excited about the large pizza I planned to order that night and eat by myself while the wife was at work. I’d choose a buffet over a regular restaurant any day. Sometimes, I’d drive aimlessly around town at dinner time, trying to decide on what I wanted to get. I had been to all the drive-throughs so many times that I just couldn’t figure out what I was craving anymore. The result of this trip was usually various items from 2-3 different places. I wondered what those cashiers thought of me when they saw the other food bags sitting in the passenger seat with no passenger. But I didn’t care either way.

Does that sicken you? It finally sickens me, too.

I’ve given that up. I’m in my fifth week, going strong. I suppose these confessions are better saved for when/if I actually succeed at losing all this weight, but maybe by getting it all out right now, I’m showing myself what I would be going back to if I gave up.

Today, after work, I could skip the gym and the one-mile brisk walk around the block and instead order a large supreme pizza to keep me busy while I watch TV until I fall asleep. This is the first time in my life that such a thought sounds terrible to me rather than comforting.

I had to convince myself to hate that style of eating. Otherwise, nothing would’ve stopped me from going back. I’ve always been an independent person who hates to be told anything. I tried various diets, lasting a week on average. They were all crash diets, and all equally as pointless. Instead of cutting portions, I was eliminating most foods. Ever heard of the cabbage soup diet? Did it. Atkins? Sugar Busters? Hollywood diet? Metabolife pills and shakes? Did ‘em. And let’s not forget the Slim Fast diet, the Special K diet, and probably a few more whose details lie among the brain cells I lost during all these deprivation attempts.

I won’t say these diets don’t work, because most of them didn’t enjoy my presence long enough to produce results. On every single diet, the misery and cravings always brought me to the same conclusion: Why am I trying to lose weight? Who says I have to? I don’t think I need to, so fuck this. I’m gonna make my way in life using brains, not looks. The rationalization of an addict.

Back to Taco Bell I went.

Given my independent, spiteful nature, I knew the only way to succeed this time was to give myself a reason to fight back against the temptation of eating for pleasure. So I gave myself a mental scrub down, admitted all my poor eating habits, looked at myself as a judgmental spectator, and dealt with my fear of death. If I don’t stop eating like a disgusting pig, I’m going to die. My ego can’t handle that. There are too many things I want to accomplish before I die, and I need as much time as I can get. My list of desired accomplishments does not include falling asleep with an empty chicken bucket in my lap. Who the fuck wants that?

What the hell is the point of obsessing over food, the fuel that allows us to enjoy the rest of what life has to offer? Just get it and go. I’ve spent my life standing at the gas pump while everyone else is out enjoying the drive.

Gustav exposes that sagging government tit

Reimbursements are on their way — for hotels due to evacuation, food loss, lost wages due to outages at work, maybe even gas, generators, chainsaws, etc. etc. etc. etc………

Will I be reaping any of these undeserved benefits? Of course not. As a productive member of society, I work too hard and make too much money to get free money. It’s my job to contribute to the “less fortunate” so they can dangle from the nipple of our socialist government for the rest of their useless lives.

So, how Republican do you think I am? I estimate that I am about 60% Republican.

60% of me is disgusted at the idea of universal healthcare, wants more oil, wants to cut back severely on immigration, supports the death penalty and private social security, and then the rest of me supports gay marriage, stem cell research, and ending the war in Iraq (I realize this conflicts with my desire for more oil).

While it would be very difficult financially for me to leave the state at this time, I acknowledge that I live here by choice. I must face the consequences of natural disasters and do what I need to do to prepare for them. I just don’t understand why people feel so entitled to government bail-outs for something we’ve technically chosen to endure. I am not taking money for my spoiled milk, eggs, mayo, and meat. I will not demand reimbursement for my fence unless offered by my insurance company, for which I pay the premium out of my own pocket.

I’m bored with ranting about this. The bottom line is, a progressive nation is one that does not rely on its government to feed them.

God I hate this state.

Hurricane Gustav is on his way to rape, kill, and loot us all

As I write this, Hurricane Gustav is a Cat. 4 hurricane and passing through the northwest part of Cuba, where it will subsequently enter the gulf and strengthen again.

And that means, for the imbeciles in my town, it’s time for:

Destroy your city and self-respect before it's too late.

Check out WeatherUnderground.com’s computer models:

Now, I won’t tell you what city I live in, but I do live in that state, and I am not in the direct path of any of the models you see (I’m sure it’s not hard to figure out where I live).

Granted, this is probably going to be a bad storm. We will likely lose electricity for a day or two if the hurricane continues on its projected path. However, this town is treating the storm — once again — like the apocalypse. I went to Wal-Mart for dog food and some fruit today. Big mistake. It’s the most ridiculous, pathetic thing you’ll ever see. If I happen to need gas, bottled water, batteries, or canned vegetables this weekend for any legitimate reason, I am shit out of luck because the fear-loving hicks have taken it all.

At first, it was just Wal-Mart that was insufferable to be in. Trashy southerners don’t realize that other stores sell things. But then, word got out in AOL e-mail FWDs that hardware stores have batteries and flashlights and even drinking water. People who have no business owning generators are now spending $900 to save $50 worth of food in their freezers. All of a sudden, everyone needs gasoline.

Sure, it’s never a bad idea to overprepare, but people are getting greedy. I witnessed one person singlehandedly wipe out the stock of C batteries at Wal-Mart earlier this week. All of the typical sliced bread is gone, but the “premium” breads like Pepperidge Farm and Sara Lee are completely in stock. No one dare spends an extra dollar on bread. As far as these inbred fucks are concerned, there’s no more bread.

People are going apeshit about this hurricane, and from my experience with hurricane Katrina, we should only worry about the following things:

1. Refugees — New Orleans scum who couldn’t afford to travel any farther north and will contribute to our already-terrible traffic for months to come.
2. Yard debris — picking up limbs and shit. Sucks.
3. Power outage — If you are in a rural area, the electric company will probably forget that you even had power in the first place.
4. Assholes — People who make it impossible for you to go about your normal life because they are panicking about the hurricane.
5. Rumors — Gang shootings, stores being blown up, sharks swimming around the flooded streets. Those who perpetuate and believe these rumors should be euthanized.

When I can afford to live in a place with higher cost of living, I am leaving Louisiana. I am leaving the south. There is too much truth to the generalizations about people from the south.

I hate married college students

My wife is a married college student, but I consider her an exception to my rule of hatred because she’s married to me. Being married to me automatically places her on a level higher than the rest of the attention whores who love to be college wives.

What is married life like? Well, if you have even a shred of a brain cell, it’s not much different from your previous situation with the fiance (except the planning part is finally over). You aren’t a different person. You haven’t reached some unprecedented level of maturity just because you wore a dress for a day and changed your last name. In short, just because you’re married doesn’t mean you’re worth marrying.

You should tone down the eyeliner for your next wedding.

Over the past four years, I’ve seen the weirdest pairings of tools from my hometown. Baptists and Baptists took a leap of faith and said “I do” at the ripe age of 19. It was a race to the finish to see who — from the class of 2003 — could become a grownup first. These same people went through high school without so much as a kiss, while the other extreme dated someone else every couple of months. But suddenly, these groups of sluts and prudes have one thing in common: they all found husbands immediately after turning 18. Holy shit.

Cue the wedding pictures on Facebook and long-lived posts about being Mrs. Attention Whore Smith who loves her HUSBAND so much! Then we get to read about how she’s “away right now because i’m grocery shopping with my husband” or “picking out curtains with the hubby…hehehe.” A few days after that, I start seeing wall posts about how old they feel — “I’m just an old married fart now.” The expression is simply “old fart,” but the married part MUST be thrown in by the newlywed. Just in case the 32490243 tagged photos of you in an ironically white wedding dress weren’t enough, you feel compelled to refer to yourself as a wife in all conversations.

I just don’t think many of these folks are ready for marriage. Seems to me that most of my high-school classmates started dating their adequately compatible intra-religion partners shortly after graduation and married them soon after. A lot of them even get knocked up somewhere in between. They laugh about being part of a boring married couple and talk about curtains and diapers and lawnmowers as if these things were the most amazing milestones in the history of love.

I’m not impressed, honestly. I don’t care if you’ve amped up your biological clock in time for an early divorce. I offer no congratulations to you and your friends and your sister for all finding “the one” within months of each other. And I’ll spare you the awes and oohs for synchronizing your pregnancies and naming your children “Ayden Gabriel” and “Emma Elizabeth-Rose-Brianna.”

What sickens me is that I had to get married beneath this cloud of evaporated horse shit. The remaining class of 2003 graduated and got their “big-kid” jobs making a whopping $24,000 a year and made a mad dash to get married like the rest of the class did 3 years ago. And so did I, unfortunately. I graduated, got a big-kid job, and got married, too. But here’s why I am superior to the rest of them:

My wife and I were together for more than half a decade before getting married. We were high-school sweethearts, yes, but we didn’t make the mistake of getting married so soon after high school. We know people change. We had to make sure we would change for the better and not grow apart. We lucked out.

We LIVED together beforehand. I realize, in the eyes of the Baptist fuckwits and the ridiculous Catholics in my town, that this is a huge no-no. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to go into a marriage having not witnessed my future wife’s nasty habits firsthand. Everyone has disgusting habits. If you waited until marriage before living together, I have no sympathy for you when you are “disillusioned” a year later. Honestly, all you newlywed, religious pieces of shit really make me sick for overshadowing everything I’ve worked to accomplish just because you made slightly more noise about your imminent failure of a marriage.

Also, I make more than $24,000 a year.

You want the reality of marriage? You want to know whether you’re really ready for marriage? Ask me. I’ll give you an honest answer without gushing about how great you two are together. Honestly, do you even know what his dirty underwear looks like?

UPDATE: I just realized something this morning. After going through a lot of the young, married chicks on my Facebook friends list, I see that 95% of them are Christian and have “very conservative” political views. Which leads me to believe that they got married so that it would be OK to fuck.

Try changing your views instead.

Why this blog exists

I’m glad you’ve decided to read this blog. Welcome. You will know me as “smacksfrog,” or “Dig’em Frog.” Honey Smacks is my favorite cereal, and I eat them dry because I hate milk. My name is not important.

I’ve always written under my own name. Why not? I get paid for it, and I get the exposure I need to one day — you know — REALLY get paid for it.

But this time I’m trying something different. I won’t tell you my name, where I work, or where I live. I’m not going to hide that information, but I won’t say it outright. By that, I mean my future blog posts will inevitably provide massive hints as to my identity, but no real names or specific locations will be used. Google is not my friend.

You might wonder why it even matters. After all, I’m not famous (a few thousand people in my hometown know of me and my writing, but that’s it). I’m not a big, successful novelist or journalist. I’m not even rich. And to top it off, I live in America, where we are free to say what we want.

I’m doing this because my speech is not free, nor is yours. Everything we do or say comes with consequences, and the ones I’ve had a taste of are not worth it — at least not right now. Columns I’ve written for a local publication have put my other job (the one that pays more) in jeopardy.

I wrote a constructive article criticizing a Church-run pre-marital counseling retreat, and it made its way back to the man who performed our ceremony. He never mentioned it; I just happened to see the printed article as he thumbed through our file to find the marriage license. Why was it there? Who sent it to him? What did he plan to do? For some reason, I felt violated.

Posts I’ve made on public forums on the Internet have wound up printed out and sitting on my desk at work — a job I had recently started. Who put them there? I still don’t know, and I guess I never will.

An old boss kept a file on me. It contained articles and posts I had made on the Internet that he did not agree with. I found this file without his knowledge, and it was never used against me. I guess he was keeping it in case he ever needed to get rid of me. The company was failing anyway.

Readers send my writings to my closest friends, family members, and employers in hopes of showing them something I didn’t want them to see because I, in some way, threatened these readers’ opinions by asserting my own. In reality, all I’ve done is put into words what others might feel in hopes that someone is entertained by it — not enlightened, even. Entertained.

Some say I should be flattered by the effort people have made to hurt me and my environment. Perhaps it means that I am making an impact, my writing is effective, and I should go even further. To me, though, I don’t feel like it’s worth it yet.

I’m not paid big bucks to write these little op-ed pieces. It’s not my primary source of income, and worse, it has shown massive potential to affect my actual primary source of income, my life, everything I have to provide a stable environment for myself and my wife. I refused to get fired because someone was miserable enough to find out where I work and fling every piece of negative evidence in that direction.

It’s my own fault. I say things (not necessarily offensive things) that other people disagree with, and I am easily accessible. I have Facebook, very obvious online usernames, and a few ex-friends who wouldn’t hesitate to make every effort to destroy my life. I get my words out, and I suffer the consequences for them. I’m not interested in doing that anymore, at least not until my primary means of sustaining life is via imparting my words on others. I want to be paid to write about my beliefs so that I never have to lose my job as a result of them.

I started this blog because even though it’s in my best interest to keep my opinions disconnected from my name, I can’t not write them. I will always write them. This may not ever make me money, but one day, when that “damned novel” is finished and several contracts are signed, I’ll be comfortable enough to tell the world I’m the one behind this nationally popular blog. Yes, I have grandiose, unrealistic dreams. I hope you do, too.

I want you to read these posts and be entertained (maybe enlightened, but not necessarily) by them. I’d like you to comment on my posts and give me your own input as well. I want to know what other people think about things when they aren’t under the scrutiny of miserable individuals who can’t stand to be challenged.

I want you to leave no-holds-barred comments on my blog with everything you think about my posts. I look forward to writing words that have no bearing on those who sign my paychecks. And I look forward to getting feedback from people who can’t do a thing to hurt me anymore.

Welcome to my blog. Get the words out.