First Day of the New Diet

The First Day of a New Diet

         Dan opened one eye and then the other, focusing on the bathroom scales. Between his toes, which served as parenthesis folding around the reading on the scale, he read 349 pounds. He stepped off the scale and then stepped back on – “Hmmm, 348-½ pounds.”

         He wondered, “If I continued to step on and off the scale, would it eventually reduce to 300 pounds -- no, of course not.”

         The weight never really bothered Dan before. In fact he had always been hefty. Being 6’-3” in height meant he could carry a little more weight than nearly everyone else he knew. When he was a kid, and even afterward, the weight didn’t seem to bother him at all. But in recent years subtle little things began to hint that he had a problem. Little things like not being able to buy clothes off the rack at Dillard’s. No, for the last three years he bought his clothes at a shop called “The Big Guys”. It was little consolation his clothes off the rack at “The Big Guys” were at the lower end of the sizes sold there. Unfortunately those sizes began at a waist size of 48-inches. Dan was stubbornly fitting his mass into a very tight size 56. It was both discouraging and embarrassing to admit he was indeed the size he had grown to be.

The clincher had been something which happened on the business trip from which he just returned. As he boarded the plane and walked down the narrow center aisle, he silently read the number of the seats.

         “10B…11B…12B, there it is 13B. Please, Lord, let the adjacent seat be empty.” Unfortunately, that was not to be. A middle aged lady of reasonable size was staring just as intently at Dan.

         He did not know she was thinking, “He’s looking at 10B…11B…12B. Please, Lord, don’t let him stop at 13B!”

         As Dan wedged himself into the seat designed for a third grader, he smiled at his neighbor in 13A and said congenially, “They don’t make these things to fit some of us more mature fellas.” He thought that was a relatively safe ice-breaker.

         “Obviously not,” was her reply.

         Dan extended the buckle to it's limit and streched it across the expanse of his waist, which forced another prayer. “Please, Lord, I need a miracle here. Make these ends meet. Let me hear that buckle click.”

         There was no divine intervention that day. There remained a good four inches of gap between the buckle and its latch. He looked up in desperation. Standing next to him was the flight attendant holding a belt extension in her hand. She had followed Dan down the aisle, knowing the limits of the seat belts.

         Dan smiled and responed meekly, “I don’t think they made this one long enough.”

         “Obviously not,” was her reply.

         At 15,000 feet Dan made a mental decision, “From now on, I’m gonna’ drive my own car on all future business trips. Something has got to change. And, I suppose what has to change is my size."

         This was not going to be easy, for Dan hated diets. In fact, the only thing he hated more than diets was exercise.

         The very same day that he tipped the scale at 349 pounds, Dan visited his local Border’s Book Store. He wandered the aisles, at first avoiding the diet books. Then, when he had the aisle to himself, he loaded his arms with a number of titles promising both flexibility and variety in his descent from the portly 349 pounds. Among his purchases were: Lose Weight Without Exercise, Eat and Lose Weight, The Real Man’s Diet, Weight Loss While You Sleep, and his favorite Great Sex While Losing Weight. He walked to the counter and placed his new diet library before the clerk.

         ”I wasn’t sure which one to get.” He felt he had to explain.

         ”Obviously not.”

         The clerk smiled at him with a subtle snicker as she read the titles out loud for the benefit of the rest of the customers waiting in line behind him. And, of course, he did not miss the raised eyebrow when she read the title Great Sex While Losing Weight.

         Upon arriving home, he deposited the reading material on the nightstand beside the bed, shed his work clothes in favor of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and proceeded then to the kitchen. He put a frozen pizza in the oven, after accessorizing it with extra cheese and pepperoni. He set the timer and then watched the news on television while the pizza was being prepared.

         ”Now, I know,” Dan said outloud to himself, “Beer, pretzels, and pizza are not diet foods in anybody’s diet.”

         That may be; but Dan reasoned that those things did not count against the diet until after he had read the books. After all, the mere fact that he had purchased diet books must have some sort of reducing effect. And if you are searching for the rationale in this, then you are not acquainted with the rational mind of the portly.

         After scarfing down the pizza, with a beer to wash it down, Dan headed for the bedroom, with another beer and a bag of pretzels in hand. Once he was situated in bed, with beer in reaching distance and an opened bag of pretzels next to him, he turned his attention to the books. He chose Lose Weight Without Exercise. That seemed an appropriate choice, since he was now laying in bed with a full stomach and no intention of exerting any more effort than it took to turn the pages…and drink his beer…and eat a few pretzels, of course.

         Fifteen minutes of scanning the book gave Dan a basic understanding of the direction it was taking him. True to its title, there were no sweat producing, muscle wrenching exercises required. It did strongly suggest more activity and less sitting. It recommended he take the stairs instead of the elevator. It also suggested for Dan to park his car in a remote parking space and walk further to his destination. However, the really disgusting revelation was the mere 1,500 calories per day he was allowed the first week of the diet. The book found its way to the bedroom floor. He finished his beer and ate another pretzel.

         He turned to the remaining stack of books. He picked up The Real Man’s Diet. It seemed appropriate. After all, he was lying in bed drinking beer and eating pretzels. It didn’t take long for him to glean the basics from his scan. He found that real men did not diet; they just ate different stuff, like lots of red meat. And you could have a beer after you climbed a mountain; hefted a barge; or tackled some other feat producing grunts and groans. Dan put the book aside. Its content began to challenge his manhood. He was not inclined to go hunting for Grizzly Bear with his Swiss Army Knife at this time. He was reasonably confident he was still a man; and he was still determined to drop the offending weight. He ate another pretzel and fetched another beer.

         He picked up “Great Sex While Losing Weight”. Considering he was alone at the moment, any immediate application seemed distant to him. He leafed through the pages and found that it contained illustrations.

         “Novel way to burn calories,” he thought to himself, while turning the book sideways to get a landscape view of an illustration.

         The chapter on “Picking a Partner” appeared to be interesting. Eventually though, he decided to come back to that book once he had dropped some weight and had someone to share it with. He finished off the beer and placed his bag of pretzels on the floor.

         The combination of reading in bed and the three beers made him sleepy. And as appropriate as it seemed at the moment, he just could not bring himself to begin his review of Lose Weight While You Sleep. He determined to tackle half of the title and just “sleep”. However, before he called it a night, he decided to try the scales again. Maybe, he had been mistaken this morning -- denial. He walked to the bathroom scales and stepped on. The dial twirled. It stopped at 353 pounds.

         “Geez!” groaned Dan.

         He stepped off the scale and stepped back on; the scale stubbornly persisted to read 353 pounds. He stripped off his clothes and remounted the scale a third time. It read 350 pounds -- even. Disappointed, he retrieved his discarded garments and walked back to the bed. There laying in full view, as a testament to his desires as well as his downfall, where the newly purchased diet books and two beer cans. Laying next to the bag of pretzels on the floor was Lose Weight Without Exercise. The message was clear. Eat or lose weight--he could do one or the other; but he could not do both. The line of Scarlet O’Hara from Gone With The Wind came to mind, “Tomorrow is another day.” He purposed in his mind, with new determination and resolve, it would be so. Tomorrow would be another day.

         "Tomorrow I will decide either one or the other--but not tonight….tomorrow."