How to Not Be Fat

This is not a diet blog. We are not experts. We are The Dudes, Bill Lloyd and Scott Finch. You may remember us from such selling books as The Dudes' Guide to Pregnancy: Dealing with Your Expecting Wife, Coming Baby, and the End of Life as You Knew It and, uh . . . well, possibly from high school. We, like many of the formerly lean, have put on a few (read, fifty to seventy) pounds over the past few years. We’ve then lost a few of said pounds and then put them back on plus a some extra just to punish ourselves for trying to get skinny.

Along the road to becoming less huge, we learned one basic and fundamental truth about life:

It turns out that a promise to yourself is quite possibly the easiest promise in the whole world to break, ever.

That's where this blog comes in. We're going to be making some ridiculous public promises that some of you will hold us to. Promises like visible abs, and the ability to do a pull-up. We're hoping that the humiliation of not following through will be enough to keep us from ordering the Family Sized bacon pizza from Luigi's, instead of whatever size they call pizzas smaller than that.

That header picture was taken at the breakfast buffet at Luxor in Las Vegas. At the time I weighed 253 horrific pounds. Bill was hovering around 267lbs. Yes, we do - in fact - have three glasses of Pepsi/MtDew in front of our bacon laden plates. Bill got a head start on me with that far glass.

Over the past year we've read many of the diet books (e.g., Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, Body For Life), browsed the weight loss websites (www.cabbage-soup-diet.com, www.ilovechocolatediet.com, et al), and checked out some of the most ridiculous girth-reducing schemes (colonics, anything Asian) in history.

While we have made great big fat strides in reducing some of the girth visible in that shot, much more work still needs to be done. What follows is the true story of the fat reducing journey of two guys who’ve known each other since grade school. It’s a commentary on diets and exercise from a couple dudes who are dieting and exercising. That’s all. If you accidentally learn something, that’s your problem.

How you take the stories, anecdotes, and tidbits in this blog is up to you. Science has proven that sense of humor is inversely proportional to mass (ever heard of Einstein’s Theory of Fat and Misery?). We would suggest taking our direct tone with a grain of salt, but, if you're like us, you’ve probably already got high blood pressure and we don’t need any liability issues. Some of the narrative may come off as crass, insulting, even downright mean. But we’re only doing it because we love you, you fat fuck. So consult your doctor before starting any weight loss program and hang on for the sebaceous, greasy ride. Feel free to laugh and, like us, try to keep the crying on the inside.