It is December 8, 2023 as I write this. Go live for Another Damn Food Blog is January 8, one month away. Terribly grave events, “go live” dates. I know. I used to be a corporate douche and by God if the Go Live date came and went, there would be hell to pay. Firings, cubicle violation, Nuclear (“nukular”) War! That’s how they always painted it. Everything was the end of the world. So much hyperbole.

I’m 53 at the time of this writing and I’ve lived through so many apocalypses now, office and media driven, I don’t even notice any more. The animosity the Millennials and Zoomers hold against the Boomers is misplaced. It was my generation – GenX’s job to explain to the subsequent generations that the hyperbole they were force fed their entire lives was bullshit created to sell them products and terrify them into conforming. Sorry, kids. We figured it out on our own and assumed you would, too. It never occurred to us that the same people beating their panic driven drum would also be the people teaching you how to rebel. Monstrous. Cynicism must be earned, not indoctrinated.

Sorry for the digression into social commentary. It happens.

As stated, I’m planning on having enough content sandbagged by January 8, that I can declare this thing open and start doing all the promotion stuff necessary to drive traffic. I’m still a little uncomfortable about that. I’d rather be found organically than dangle myself out there for people to find. I mean, truth be told, I’m honestly not even sure why I’m doing this, other than I need an outlet. Cooking relaxes me. And if I can use this medium to do that and perhaps defray the cost of ingredients then OK. Build first, monetize later. Maybe one day this will be enough to support me until I wind up in God's waiting room. I'm hopeful, but I'm still buying lottery tickets.

It's worth noting that I recognize how counterintuitive it is to start another damn food blog with a diet. Maybe it’s a lifestyle blog in hiding, I dunno, but I can tell you there will be food involved. Maybe that’s why I’m doing this. My experience has been whenever I engage in a “weight loss journey” as the marketing douchenozzles have named it, I become obsessed with food. It’s how it works for me.

What I do is I re-focus my self-indulgence (I am a Hedonist, afterall.) into something else that gives me pleasure which is data collection, monitoring, tracking, and adjusting. Yeah. I know. How fucking dull does that sound? I promise you, it’s duller than that, but God help me, I tickles me so. I guarandamntee (the Southern Sign of Assurance) you, it’s not the weirdest thing that lights my candle, but 53-year-old fat dudes are not successful OnlyFans content creators.

I also get to indulge the challenge of creating low calorie meals that are tasty, satisfying, or at least, don’t suck. I wind up settling for “doesn't suck” a lot. My dear friend, Kory (aka, “Captain Keto”) mocks me for my obsessive calorie counting when I could be just worried about Keto macros. In his defense, Kory has had amazing results and has kept the weight off for a decade now. Truth be told, I’ve seriously considered the message of “Keto Jesus”, but it just feels too much like eating for pleasure and I have a hard time walking away from pleasure. I have to do what works for me.

So yeah, I’m starting a food blog with a diet. But there is a fair amount of cooking knowledge that can be transmitted using that medium. Technique is vital for low calorie cooking. Ingredient knowledge is also key. Scratch cooking to ensure accurate numbers is a must. Food preservation is covered. Learning how to eat out comes into play. Trying out alternative ingredients is huge. So there really is a lot to cover. Besides, there are worse ideas. Like that time my dad got out of rehab and bought a bar. (True story.)

Now I figure I should talk about what my diet looks like. Essentially, I’ll be counting calories. No, it’s not for everyone. It’s brutal. It’s also not the healthiest idea in the world, which works totally out because I will lose the will to live the first time I stall and giving up on life is a large part of what makes this work. Yes, I know that sounds messed up, but again, it’s what works for me. The diet will commence on January 8, 2024 and with a couple exceptions, I’ll be consuming a mere 1300 calories per day until June 17, 2024. Then there will be 4 weeks of maintaining whatever weight I wind up at. The caloric requirement for maintenance will be dependent on what my final weight and base metabolic rate are. I’m assuming, based on my current weight gain, about 10 lbs a month (Hedonist), I should start the diet around 285lbs and finish, 24 weeks later around 200. Yes, that means I should average 3.54 pounds per week. In order to meet that aggressive goal, I’ll need to exercise as well as diet. That will look like me walking 4 miles per day, which will be rough to fit in, but I’ll manage. Again, I know how it sounds, but I have done this before. And no, neither my wife nor my doctor approves.

I track everything with a spreadsheet I developed the first time I did this (347lbs to 213lbs in 10 months) and it’s worked fairly well so far. It’s based on the notion that for every 3500 calories per week above or below my base metabolic requirement (the amount of calories required to maintain my existing body weight – which lowers over the course of the diet) I will either gain or lose 1 pound for each unit of 3500 calories taken in. Right now, at 275lbs, my BMR is 2,793 per day or 19,551 calories per day. In real, horrifying terms, I’m currently gaining about 2.5lbs per week which means I am 4,043 calories per day and yeah, that sounds about right. If you reverse that, the same holds true.

If I cut back to 1300 calories per day and walk for 4 miles a day, burning around 700 calories, that makes my net calories consumed per day roughly 600. Multiply that by 7 that means my net intake for a week is 4,200 calories, which is 15,351 calories less than what is required to maintain my existing weight and I would lose roughly 4.4lbs the first week if I started today.

Now, is this a starvation diet? Yeah. Kinda. And at some point my body will start going after my muscle mass instead of my fat. That’s called the stall. I’ll try to stave that off as long as I can with protein beverages and vitamins, but energy is energy and to convince my body I’m not starving and make it relax, I’ll get to eat whatever I want for a day or two and then get draconian again. That usually happens at the six-week mark.

Again, what I’m about to do is what works for me. It’s not overly healthy and I know the risks. I do not advocate this for anyone else. This is extreme and should be regarded as such. In fact, you know what? Don’t do this. Use my techniques and recipes, but be sensible for fuck’s sake.

So there. The diet has been introduced. I think the only thing left to do is explain why I’m doing it and I think I’ve been avoiding it. The most obvious reason is I’ve had a really good time since this year’s annual trip to New Orleans in August (I was 235lbs then) and just really didn’t feel stopping. 2023 has been a weird one for me and, after 10 years of doing the diet/maintenance thing, I really needed to cut loose for a season. Rebellion may be like the sin of witchcraft, but it’s also really good for my soul. Even when I’m rebelling against myself. But, nothing in the Universe is free and I am out of balance, so dietary hostilities must ensue.

Another major reason I’m doing this is I need larger clothes and I'm broke. I work from home and get paid a lot less than I used to as a corporate douche, so there isn’t as much in the budget for extra clothes. Luckily, that’s balanced by the fact that I seldom need to go out and can get away with "my life in sweatpants". Still, I do need to go out at least once a week and clothes that fit would be nice. Don’t really need to support that “fat slob” stereotype which brings me to a really odious reason.

I hate to be a bummer, I'm honestly quite delightful for the most part and this may just be perception on my part. I always allow for errors of perception when empirical data is not available, but when I went from 347 to 213, I perceived a substantial difference in the way I was treated by the family, coworkers, the gen-pop, and service providers in general. Suddenly, I existed and was listened to by healthcare professionals, noticed by salesclerks (double edged sword - I hate dealing with sales people), and the stoner kid at the Jiffy Lube. Family suddenly felt comfortable confiding in how gross they thought I was or how embarrassed they were to be seen with me. I got promoted at work, several times. It's like I joined some kind of secret club, never minding I'm a Freemason.

Since the weight has come back, I have perceived a palpable difference in the way people interact with me or, more to the point, refuse to interact with me and as shallow as it seems, I miss being a person. Lifelong thin people won’t understand but if you’re portly by nature, you’ll get it.

That's enough of that. I don't really like to think that poorly of people; it harshes my mellow.

The last reason for losing the weight again is so I can move better. I really took for granted how much easier it was for me to navigate crowds and tight markets when I was smaller. Which is stupid because I took such great pleasure in it when I first dropped the weight. There's also a likelihood that when I'm older, I'll be placed in a retirement home and I'm going to be that guy the orderlies have to chase and contain. We all have goals. I'll need to mobile enough to escape and evade them when necessary or fight them off, should they catch me. I feel it'll be my duty to lead them a good chase. That's only sporting.

Oh, very minor reason. I miss the excess skin. My, God that was fun to play with.

The why is now covered. Time for the wrap up. Diet and Web Site go live on January 8. GenX let the youth down. OCD is my friend. Spreadsheets rule! Math hurts brain and boring to read. Really dumb extreme weight loss plan. Lots of food prep involved. Need balance again. Can’t afford clothes. Be human. Evade orderlies. Extra skin. That pretty much covers it.

See ya'll soon.