Farewell To Old Friends

After a weekend of gorging myself on fried seafood, cheesecake and Hardee's breakfast (in my defense, my folks were in town), I have decided to tighten up the diet again and start hitting the beach for some running starting tomorrow morning. Monday mornings suck but they offer up a tabula rasa of sorts. But since it isn't Monday yet, I used the excuse of "cleaning out my fridge" to indulge in the ultimate gastronomic pleasure.

Hellooooo, old friend!

If you have never had English sticky toffee pudding, search the dessert menu of your local English or Irish pub. It is a must have. Over Memorial Day, Bad Wolf, Momma Bad Wolf and I almost fought over who got to lick the plate after we shared a plate of it at an Irish pub in Louisville. No pub nearby? This Haagen-Dazs version is an awesome substitute (Thanks for the heads-up, Bad Wolf!)

Well, I am off to go "clean my fridge" some more. Wish me luck!

Dirtbag Alert: Dante Moore

Dante Moore, a computer engineer who was fed up with being a nerd who got no play from the ladies, has taken it upon himself to write a "help" book for single women. The advice found in "The Re-education of the Female" (ugh... just typing that title made me break out in to hives): Learn how to cook man-friendly meals, do as you're told, stay pleasant and non-confrontational and, above all else, DON'T GET FAT!

Here is a little sample from his manifesto:

"The fatter you get, the more you decrease your potential single-man pool. Let me give you an example. When you go to the grocery store to shop, do you pick out the nastiest-looking, most rotten, smelliest fruit or meat you can find? Oh, you don't? Why not? . . . It's the same with men when they see baby elephant-sized, out-of-shape women."

Even better is:

"Here's a little secret, ladies: men never really ask for anything. They command. . . . And believe me, what you won't do, ten broads around the corner will."

Thank you, Mr. Dante Moore. Reading your vile excuse for advice made me vomit. Looks like I found a new diet plan. Maybe I should pick up a copy of your book, so every time I get the urge to eat, I can just read a passage and completely lose my appetite. Maybe I will lose the will to express my own opinions since I will be so weak from calorie deprivation. Then I can be really skinny and submissive and get a domineering, arrogant douchebag like you for a boyfriend.

The Diet Diaries

I have been on almost every diet imaginable. Most are giant wastes of time. I hate the entire concept of dieting. This girl likes her groceries. Once upon a time, I could eat all that I wanted to without really worrying about buying bigger pants. Not anymore. It's like my metabolism saw my impending 30th birthday and decided to give me a nice "Fuck you!" as a present.

Slim Fast sucks because I truly believe that meals should be chewed, tasted and eaten... not drank. Atkins was great in its hey-day but the market for it dried up. When low-carb was all the rage, you could "cheat" safely. There were low-carb versions of pizza, pancakes, chocolate and chips. Now all you can find in the grocery store is the low-carb ice cream and the sorry excuse for bread. I tried to do low-carb again earlier this year but had to quit after I almost killed a co-worker at lunch for his french fries.

Faced with a trip to the Bahamas last year, I broke down and ordered the Nutri-System plan to shed some pounds pre-vacation. Yuck... I had better tasting food out of MREs during my army days. In addition to tasting like something that came out of an E-Z-Bake Oven, the stuff was expensive before you added all the supplemental groceries they don't tell you about in the commercials.

After cycling through diet after diet, I decided a few months ago that I would just try to eat healthy and watch my portions. No prescribed meal plans, no off-limits food, just healthy choices with portion control. Still working out a few times a week. Hell... I even started to incorporate some light jogging (Anyone who knows me well remembers that I swore I would never run again post-Army unless being chased). Great plan, right?

I got on the scale this weekend and saw a number I hadn't seen in a long, long time... and it wasn't a good one. This is serious now. No real plan of attack just yet but I haven't consumed over 1000 calories a day since Friday night. My blood is a toxicology nightmare with all the Hydroxycut I have popped. Sensible? Not at all. But desperate times call for desperate measures.