263??? I’m totally calling bullshit. It’s not physically possible. Yes, while I did go hog wild over the weekend, I stayed at 1300 calories per day for the rest of the week. That means on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I would have needed to consume roughly 12,100 calories per day to offset what I did on the first 4 days of the week and have enough excess energy to store as 6 pounds of fat. So yeah, bullshit. Six pounds of bullshit. Even with the weekend binge, I still should have lost .9 pounds.

So what happens now? Well, I return to 1300 calories per day. At least until Saturday when my Offspring and I go hit a local German festival for sausage and beer. I mean shit. German festivals don’t happen around here every day. They, in fact, occur twice a year and I suppose I could wait, but life is short and I’m not overly fond of meaningless rigidity in the face of impending mortality these days.

That’s my favorite part of aging, by the way: impending death. It’s incredibly freeing. You’d be surprised how very little of those “oh, so important” issues mean these days. No, I’m not depressed. I just woke up and realized what actually matters to me and, more importantly, what does not.

What does this mean for “another damn diet”? I don’t know. I also don’t care at the moment. I mean I do care, but at the same time, the rigidity, the missed opportunities for joy, are just weighing (no pun intended) on me heavily.

Honestly, it was that fucking “Potroast of Defiance” I made on Saturday. I had no plan. I had no idea I was going to be making it. The wife picked out the roast on Friday based entirely on the price and I assumed I’d sandbag it for the future. But I just got to thinking about it and by the time I woke up on Saturday morning, some part of me decided roast would be happening. The only thing I needed to purchase was carrots for the mire poix and red wine for the sauce, but other than that, I was set.

While at the store, I scrapped the wine. The wife isn’t overly fond of wine and I knew I’d wind up consuming whatever was left in the bottle that didn’t wind up in the roast. MrsDamnCook does like whiskey, though and beef loves whiskey. We also have some George Dickel leftover from the fruitcakes she makes for the Winter Holidays. Amazing fucking fruitcakes, by the way. If she’ll give me permission, the recipe will be posted here when the time comes.

I also chose to go with the whiskey as there was one lone 6 pack of Saint Arnold’s Tarnation in the beer case and well, that had to come home with me. I was originally going to give it to the neighbor for taking care of that downed limb for me, but…

Yeah. I got nothing. Judge me all you want. Not my problem.

The point is, making that stupid roast gave me so much joy. Cooking without consequences. Just me and my food and my technique and, the reason I cook, the results.

Freeform cooking, armed with only my knowledge and experience is so freeing because it of the certainty it brings me. Eating it’s fine. The results were good, great even, but they were as expected. That’s not ego talking. That the Deist in me. That’s the part of me who lives by Natural Law. It’s as close as I come to a “walk with God”. I added X + Y and got Z. Again. For the umpteenth time. Certainty. The Creator is wherever It spends It’s existence and the Universe keeps on doing what it does. And for a brief moment in the history of the Universe, I get to just be.

And then there’s this fucking diet. There’s all the renunciation and forsaking of joy now for a future that may never come. It’s a quandary, that’s for damned sure.

I’ll stay at 1300 per day until I make a decision. Waste not, after all, but the German Festival is coming. And then Easter. I know I’m cooking for Easter. I don’t celebrate it, but MrsDamnCook says we’re doing something, so I’m planning on grilling some lamb chops and fresh asparagus, doing some rissole potatoes and serving up that duck confit I’ve been reserving since the Winter break. And then I’ll probably go back to 1300 again. At least until the next moment of joy announces it’s self.

I think what I’m saying is, Another Damn Diet is done. At least the rigid, formal one, anyhow. I wanna cook real food. I may or may not eat it, but I want the option. The purpose of this site, the videos, the food, is to entertain me and make me happy. The “AnotherDamnDiet” project runs counter to that. So, as they say in the corporate world, “I’ve decided to go a different direction and you, AnotherDamnDiet, are not a part of it.”