It’s about 6:45 AM on Monday, January 8 and my first thoughts are just how unsatisfying 2 fluid ounces (1/4 cup) of 2% milk in my coffee is. Didn’t really realize how much I relied on the milk to bring the coffee down to a drinkable temperature. May have to go back to ice when the weather warms up. I put ice in my coffee as my goal is to drink coffee, not possess it.

I’m a little grumpy this morning, not because of the diet, per se, but because of how much I ate yesterday. That boudin, which was the first really good boudin I’ve had in a long damn time. Still hard to believe it came from a grocery store. I’ll be utilizing the shit out of that come July.

You know, it occurs to me, I have no idea what the nutritional value of Zummo’s boudin is. I may be able to eat it while on the diet. But because of the rice and pork liver, I’m going to guess it’s probably close to 250 calories per 2 ounce portion. I’m going to look it up now.

Cool. You can buy it online at Zummo.com. Holy crap! It’s only 140 calories per 2.5 ounces! That means an entire 340g package is only 680 calories. I’ll be remembering that for the future. Well done, Zummo. Another reason to love you. Oh, how funny. Zummo is based out of Beaumont, which is my favorite town to joke about. For the record, I’ve never dated a girl from Beaumont, but I’ve spent a great deal of time there. It’s actually not a bad town, really. It was the last place my ex-wife and I went on a min-break before my son was born. I’ve also worked there a couple of times.

I feel like I should also say something about “Cajun style” boudin. In my enthusiasm to make nutria jokes, I forgot my education. There is also two varieties of French boudin I’m aware of, boudin blanc (snooty French banger) and boudin noir (snooty French blood sausage). As I understand it, boudin in French is the generic term for blood sausage, so “noir” probably wasn’t used as a descriptor until someone decided they could fancy the shit out of English bread sausage and invented “blanc”.

So my apologies to Zummo for the “Cajun style” jokes, though it might be more descriptive to use the term, “boudin coonass”.

So, like I said, it begins.

I just did my official weigh in and despite everything I ate yesterday, including the boudin, a six pack of shitty diet beer, a Tarnation tall boy, three hot dogs and two pints of really over the top ice cream, I came in at 281.4. That is officially my starting weight.

Let’s talk about weigh-ins. It’s really tempting to weigh yourself daily and if you are able to be circumspect about it, go for it. I’m not. When the scale doesn’t move for days or even ticks up because you’ve consumed too much water or haven’t pooped, it’s hard to keep the wind in your sails. It is for me, anyhow. Granted, it won’t stop me, I’m still going to look. I always look, but I keep in mind that the daily number doesn’t matter. My Monday weigh-in is the data point I need for consistency.

Why Monday? Because Monday traditionally sucks anyhow and it is usually my heaviest day of the week. Friday is my lightest. If you’re doing this, too, you’ll find your heaviest and lightest day. I choose Monday to keep realistic. I weigh more in the mornings. The only slack I cut me is waiting until after I poop. I need to feel like I’m achieving something.

Just once, I’d like to not monitor the weight at all, but I’ve never been able to manage it. Again, curiosity gets the best of me and I have to look. Also, it’s important to make sure I’m not stalling. Two weeks in a row of the same weight and my body is hanging on to everything because it assumes I’m starving and I have to consume mass quantities of the “wrong” foods to convince it otherwise. You’d think I’d look forward to the “cheat days” but I really don’t. They feel contrary to my goal. Again, I use that impression to not take too much pleasure in what I’m eating as pleasure is the worst thing for me when I’m dieting. I won’t stop. Being fat, like I am anyhow, is a bit of a mind fuck.

My weight gain this go around has been a total act of rebellion. A very personal “fuck you” to convention and my previous life. Long story short, when I went from 347 to 206 it was at the same time I decided to try to be a “normal” person. I went back to school, got my business degree, and I figured being regular sized would be necessary to market myself as management. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Suffices to say, I felt owned, controlled and soul-less, so I went a different direction. This blog is one of those directions. But, to everything there is a season and my season of “Radical Fuck You” is now over and if I want to sustain the “Fuck you mindset”, I need to do this. Not for superficial “blend in” personal marketing purposes, I seriously doubt I will ever have a regular job again, but so I may extend it. This is essentially my retirement period and I want to have a good time for as long as I am able.

This is not so much about my appearance. I’m 53. I’m at that age where I’m starting to vanish in public, so I really no longer care about my appearance. What I do care about is mobility. I got really used to being able to move quickly and easily thorough crowds, clipping my toenails effortlessly, and of, course sexy time.

In the race between the pleasure of the table and the pleasure of the bedroom, sex and food are always in a photo finish. I use sexual metaphors to describe food and food metaphors to describe sex. I think the only thing I enjoy more is laughing. It always wins.

Tonight’s dinner will be roasted pork tenderloin and sautéed baby Normandy blend – broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. It was going to include mashed potatoes and gravy (both instant – it’s a diet – I only eat what I can quantify) but the wife informs me she’s low carb, low fat, so potatoes and gravy are off the menu. Awesome. Gives me more snack space. Dinner should come in at 387 calories.

The nice thing about pork tenderloin is that it is extremely lean (the porcine equivalent of filet mignon and chateaubriand), tender, and inexpensive. It also cooks up fairly quickly and is relatively flavorful, readily accepting all manner of herb rubs, marinades, or just salt and pepper. Tonight I’m just going with smoked paprika, garlic, salt, pepper and generic Italian seasoning, the latter also being used for the veg. I like to tie things together.

I did go walking during what would be my lunch hour. Holy crap that was brutal. I used to walk 3 to 4 miles a day and at my standard gait, it only took me about an hour. That was before my body betrayed me with a bone spur irritating my right Achilles tendon. So today was the first time I’ve walked any distance since August. Probably contributed to the weight gain. Certainly contributed to how fucking hard that walk was today. I’ve only had coffee (30 calories), a protein bevie (170 calories) today, and around 90 fluid ounces of water so I’m in good shape for this evening’s dinner and subsequent TV grazing until I go to bed.