Weblargh - Overcoming Obstacles - Part 1 of 2

When Columbus first landed at Plymouth Rock on July 4th 1492 and drew up the Constitution beneath the “rockets’ red glare,” he made it clear that we the people were about to form a more kick-ass union. Little did he know of the perils that were to come, but he probably wouldn’t have given half a crap anyway. He and his loyal band of Indians were now Americans, and as Americans it was their manifest destiny to get to California to keep the Queen of England from stealing all of the oil.

We have overcome adversity since our founding fathers set foot on the very first amber wave of grain. No obstacle is insurmountable, whether mountain, river, snake, jaguar, booby trap, or native peoples. Americans don’t adapt to their surroundings very well, instead they adapt their surroundings to them. Consequently, the same is true for the overweight who have evolved to adapt their surroundings to them.

Nature is not built for human largesse and vice versa. Museums have shown us that cavemen, Spartans, and Jesus were totally ripped. Subsequently, fatties were the minority upper crust of society. The size of their guts mirrored the extent of their wealth, while the vast, poor majority had wicked awesome triceps. In modern times, it was only a few short years ago when a large man, out of breath from grocery shopping or theme park going, may have considered dropping a few pounds or leaving such activities to the more able-bodied. But once that American ingenuity kicks in, you better look the fuck out.

Now, personal mobility devices line the entrance of every Safeway, Winn Dixie, and Six Flags theme park in this great land, allowing the heftier of us to angrily beep our way through crowds of tight, fit bodies. It’s a way of saying, “Hey, just because I’m fat doesn’t mean that I can’t do the things that fat people can’t do!” Rascals and Hoverounds are just the tip of the big fat iceberg.

Check back soon for part two...

HTNBF, PETA To Join Forces?

Fatties can communicate with one another up to 500 miles apart in water

A PETA campaign we could almost get behind . . . if we didn't know so many fat vegetarians (shoutouts to John, Beth-zilla, and Big Lou).

Also, fat people (already large) on billboards is an outrage. For chrissake people, children can see them!

Against the Grain

My plan was to grab some carbs, cram them down my cramhole and wash down with some milk at 1:19 this morning. In classic two-birds-one-stone style, I headed for the cereal cupboard and spied the following where my Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp, et al should have been:

Organic Hemp Plus is waaay better than the orignal Organic Hemp

I quickly realized that my wife must be trying to tell me she's a lesbian, and not the good kind either.

I wouldn't be able to ask her until she got back from her camping trip, but the lesson was not lost on me.

After locating the Marshmallow Mateys, I reluctantly put them back in hopes that my wife could look past the fat --at least temporarily-- and not leave me for her girlfriend, Chuck.

Turns out breakfast cereals are mostly created for children who don't have the time to eat candy on the run in the morning, not for rotund adults who cry into them at 1am.

I'll leave you with this stunning fact from the Bureau of Fake Statistics:

4 out 5 marriages fail due to becoming a great big fat person.

The Fat Bastard Challenge

In my quest to find a quick fix solution to being a gigantic fatass, I took to google for the answers. Turns out that if you're looking for easy answers, a visit to the Mayo Clinic website is the worst possible idea you can have. An uncomfortable trip to Mayo reveals the following complete and total nonsense:

"There's no magic bullet for losing weight. The most effective way to lose weight and keep it off is through lifestyle changes: Eat healthy, low-calorie foods, watch portion sizes, and engage in regular physical activity." - Mayo Clinic

We believe this crap exactly as much as we don't WANT to believe this crap. So, in light of this, we are about to start the greatest, fattest, blog experiment ever conceived by portly bloggers. Until I think of a better name, I'm calling this: The Fat Bastard Challenge.

It's not even really a challenge, I guess, but the name sounded cool, so it stays. This is how it works. Readers (all 3 of you) will submit - via blog comment or email - one reasonably priced fitness and/or weight loss product that you would like us to try for you. This will give you a chance to test, on us, the incredible benefits (or pleasant side effects) before subjecting yourself to anything not FDA approved.

Once the three of you have made your suggestions, Bill and I will buy, use, and evaluate the product for one month. Examples of such products include, but are not limited to: Exercise gadgets, Diet pills/foods, non Tony Horton fitness programs and/or hallucinogenic fitness toads.

So, get crackin' America. Give us your fitness ideas. We'll pick the most awesome one and achieve 100% total successes with it, guaranteed.

PS: John Basedow (the guy in the six pack abs pic above) is a douche. That is all.

Goodnight Sweet Footprints

After nine years, I had to have Sheila, my bathroom scale, put down. Her innards had started to go and you could just tell the ol' girl just didn't have any more fight left in her.

If measuring devices go to heaven, and I know in my heart that they do, then perhaps someday I'll get to see you again along with my old pal, Compassy.

RIP
Sheila
2000-2009

Weblargh! - Me vs. My Brain

I kicked off week 5 of P90X last Monday. I would say that I am definitely in the best shape of my fat life so far, and there's no place left to go, but UP!

But that would be total bullshit.

One thing I've noticed about my brain is that every single time I achieve even nominal success at something, it kicks into self destruction mode and becomes a relentless pain in the ass. A sample (my brain is in green):

Scott vs Scott's Brain (round 1)

I could stop, eat like an asshole, and sink back into butterburger bliss. Of course, this is exactly what my brain is telling me to do right now. Working out is hard. Eating the right food is a pain. I keep thinking that I'll reach the point where all of this working out and eating right becomes second nature. At that point I'm hoping that my brain's immensely powerful self destructive side will kindly shut the fuck up for a while.

Listening to my inner dialogue has become almost comical at this point. Whenever it's time to work out, some of the best excuses ever created come flooding out. There seems to be this line of absurdity with procrastination and failure that you simply must cross before you can actually get anything done.

For example, this is what I went through right up until the point where I actually DID work out yesterday.

Scott vs Scott's Brain (round 2)

TWO HOURS LATER

ONE HOUR LATER

This is where we've reached procrastination absurdity threshold. This is where your brain runs out of reasonable options and proposes doing something so ridiculous (watching Real Housewives of the OC) that you finally snap out of procrastination mode and say:

SERIOUSLY, WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU, BRAIN!?

The point here is that your brain is a dick and will try to destroy you most of the time. Try to set your absurdity threshold low, so when your brain tells you to eat cupcakes, you instinctively call him an asshole and you go do pull-ups instead. Good luck fatties, we're in this together. (and by together, I mean: until I'm skinny and fit, then I'm totally abandoning you)

Legitimately Fat

Fat people, by default, seem to be less legitimate than non fat people. Our brains simply look at being fat as a self-inflicted disability, which, of course, it is. Some people even try to frame it as a disease, which, of course, it isn't. Imagine if someone said, "Oh crap, I've got cancer. Better stop eating so much mayonnaise so I can, you know, cure this cancer." If being fat is a disease, it is the most infinitely curable disease ever.

Delegitimizing fat people happens on such a deep subconscious level that most of us don't even realize what's happening. When people look at someone fat, even if they themselves are fat, they immediately mentally categorize them into the "that fat-ass doesn't give a shit" section of their brains. Aside from eating a pound of bacon, nothing makes a fat person feel better than seeing someone else who's even fatter than they are.

Imagine that you're interviewing people for a job. The fat dude on the left should help you visualize the situation...

Now, imagine that this fat guy walks in and sits down. You both wait anxiously while his chair creaks and groans under his girth, but holds. You sigh, examine his resume, and discover that he's totally qualified for the job. Now, unfortunately for him, there will be a part of you that screams, "If this guy doesn't give a shit about those 100 extra pounds on his chin, is he really going to give a shit about this job?" (This applies doubly if the job is "Donut Security Guard.")

The answer, of course, is no.

HTNBF on Twitter

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Scale Models

If you're not one of those people who is too large and greasy to weigh in on a conventional scale, we suggest Fun Weigh
It's basically the electrical gadget version of this blog. Fun quips like "I think you just broke me!" and "Eh...eh...I can't breathe!" will quickly help you forget about your type II diabetes.

Here are a few Fun Weigh quips the scale forgot:

• Does your insurance cover gastric bypass?
• Oh God please no.
  
• Seriously?
• Why do I even bother?
  

1000 Words

A friend summed it up best:

"Abject horror..."

If you need me today, I'll be busy practicing making this face.

This is Why I'm a Fatty Boombalatty

I am fat because I eat too much food and I don't exercise.

(note: This is also why you are fat)

The food-porno site ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com inspires fatties and vice versa. Oh sure, you've never looked at that site and gotten chubs. We believe you, sicko. Nevertheless, here is why I --specifically-- am a fat. Read along and try to keep your bacon donut crumbs off the computer or WebTV.

I find that if I can power through the first two weeks of diet and exercise, it magically gets easier to maintain a half-assed healthy lifestyle. Through use of science, I can assume that is pretty much the case for everyone in America. I can also assume that all you fatties fall off the wagon even after you've got a good run going.

Falling off the wagon manifests itself in several forms, including:

• Vacation
  
• Cocktail party
• Your gay friend's wedding
• Solstices
• "Lost" is on

or the popular

• Your doctor told you not to exercise for a couple weeks.

Like what happened to me. I had a good run going after a carb-fueled week of doing nothing. Back in the saddle for a week, a pullup-induced pulled muscle set me back a couple days. I decided to lay low for the weekend with some painkillers and muscle relaxers I got from the clinic, only to feel worse a couple days later.

(It's important to note that clinics are places sick people go when they're too lazy to find a doctor to call their own. Not surprisingly the waiting rooms of clinics remind me of the waiting room in Beetle Juice. I was surrounded by lost, semi-insured, lazy, sick people . . . and a couple fatties too, just for the record)

In hindsight, I now know that trying to work out was a bad idea. It was even kind of spectacularly bad. It's like prescribing "lots of sex" to treat HIV. My new doctor, we'll call him Dr. Thinks-I'm-A-Vicodin-Addict confirmed what a hot foreign nurse once told me, "There isn't really anything you can do for a sore muscle, except get some painkillers and muscle relaxers and wait it out.

He prescribed two weeks of relaxation, or as I heard it, two weeks no exercise and a steady diet of McSurf 'n Turfs.