Stressed out?

• Drink a big cup of chamomile whiskey.

• Refrain from spending time in a cramped closet staring at a strobe light while listening to recordings of a baby crying.

• When you’re stuck in gridlocked traffic, use that time to practice yelling obscenities at other motorists.

• Fishing is a great way to reduce stress, unless you’re a fish.

• Say a little prayer. Here… I’ll get you started: “Now I lay me down to sleep, a bottle of vodka at my feet, if I shall die before I wake tell my friends I drank it straight.”

• Sex is a great stress reducer, but be careful that you don’t make a baby, which a great stress increaser.

• Marriage can add a lot of stress to your life, so you should probably limit yourself to one spouse at a time.

• A simple way to relieve stress is to take a long walk along a beautiful Caribbean beach.

• Laughter releases endorphins that improve mood and decrease levels of stress-causing hormones, so when you’re feeling stressed just take a good look at my last performance review.

Are You Gooder or Badder?

Gooder: Taking a walk after dinner.

Badder: Taking a walk to Baskin Robbins after dinner.

Gooder: Brown-bagging your lunch.

Badder: Discovering that you packed three boxes of Fiddle Faddle in it.

Gooder: Doing 20 push-ups.

Badder: Eating 20 Push-Ups.

Gooder: Having a consultation with a nutritionist.

Badder: Taking cooking lessons from Paula Deen.

Gooder:  Experimenting with new healthy foods.

Badder: Philly Cheesecake sandwich!

Gooder: Scheduling an annual check-up.

Badder: Scheduling a daily banana split.

Gooder: Flossing your teeth.

Badder: Flossing your teeth with Twizzlers.

Gooder: Staying informed on latest health news and trends.

Badder: Reading Jack Sh*t, Gettin’ Fit.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Shutting Down This Blog

I was getting ready to pull the plug.

I really was.

I’ve been so busy with my job and my life that this site’s been getting precious little attention. I mean well, but I just haven’t had the time or inclination to put more effort into it.

And it shows.

I didn’t want to go out like that. I always promised myself that if I go out, I’ll go like I do everything I do: slinking away quietly while owing everyone money.

But I started reading over older posts. Over the years, I’ve written about weight loss and healthy living everywhichway you can and in some ways that you can’t (or at least shouldn’t).

It wasn’t my words that really got me rethinking shutting it down; it was everyone else’s.

There were comments from old friends and folks just passing by. There were kind words and compliments from like-minded weight-loss warriors all over the globe. And there were words of encouragement from people who are no longer around, and I mean that literally. This blog has seen casualties in its wake.

It’s been eight years since I stumbled into blogging. I’ve lost hundred of pounds, gained too many of them back, but I’m still keeping my eyes on that healthy living prize.

I can’t promise you that I’m going to start generating any spellbinding content anytime soon, but this was really supposed to more about helping myself than helping anybody else. If others found inspiration or something that could help them along their path, well, that was just low-fat gravy.

But I’m still here.

I hope you are, too.

Ground Control to Major Jack

Weight Control to Major Jack. 

Weight Control to Major Jack. 

Take your protein pills and put that donut down. 

(Ten) Weight Control (Nine) to Major Jack (Eight) 

(Seven, six) Commencing countdown (Five), welcome back (Four) 

(Three, two) Check your appetite (One) and may the scale (Blastoff) be kind to you...

This is Weight Control to Major Jack, 
You really have been slack.

And your viewers want to know what size shirt you wear.

Now it’s time to lose some more weight if you dare… 

This is Major Jack to Weight Control, 
I’m exercising more,

But I just endured a most peculiar weigh…

I gained one and three-quarters of a pound today. 


Here…
Am I sitting at a plateau,
Far above goal weight.
Everything tastes great and there’s nothing I ain’t ate.



Though I still have so many pounds to go, 

I’m feeling a nice glow.
And I think my spaceship’s finally going down.

Tell my wife I love her, and that I lost a pound. 

Weight Control to Major Jack, 
You’re in a groove, you’re back on track.

You can do it, Major Jack. 
You can do it, Major Jack.
You can do it, Major Jack.
You can… 
 

Here am I standing on the damn scale.
Far above goal weight.
Fat is not my fate, and today I’m feeling great.

Let me tell you a story...

There’s an old story about The Ant & The Grasshopper, but this is not like that at all. 

At all.

It’s totally different.

There are no similarities, other than the name sounds a little similar.

And there’s an Ant in both of the stories.

Anyway, once there was this industrious ant. Personally, I don’t know why ants are always so industrious. Did you know that the lifespan of an average ant is 45 to 60 days? If I were an ant, I’d work for a few weeks, but then I’d want some time off to start enjoying myself a little, cuz y’know… life is short.

Anyway, this nameless Ant (another interesting ant fact: most ants don’t have names) did a workout every day. He would lift 60 milligrams, which equals out to… lemme see… 0.00212 ounces. Well, that’s not very impressive, is it? I could lift that with one hand. The pink barbells at the gym weigh 2 and a half pounds, and sometimes I use one ineach hand. That’s lame, Ant!

What? How much does the Ant weigh? Well, it’s hard to get a good Ant weigh-in because some scales won’t even register a number when an ant steps on it. Google it? Google doesn’t know everything, you know!

Okay, it looks like (according to... um... an internet resource) that an ant weighs 3 milligrams, so yes, the Ant is lifting… um… 20 times his weight. Hmmmmm, 20 times my weight would be…uh… 4,222 pounds. Well, I’ll try it, but I’m gonna need somebody to spot me.

But what about the Half-Ass Hopper? When does he come into this story? Well, right about now, as it turns out. The Half-Ass Hopper hopped around all through the week, doing half-ass workouts that looked like real workouts and actually caused him to break a little bit of a sweat, but didn’t really get much accomplished when you really got down to it.

The Ant worked hard and prospered; the Half-Ass Hopper just flitted around the gym and didn’t really see any meaningful achievements. When Winter arrived, the Ant had stored a lot of food, and the Half-Ass Hopper had just squandered a lot of time.

See? That wasn’t anything like that other story…

“It is not enough to be industrious;
so are the ants. What are you industrious about?” 
–Henry David Thoreau

Seven Pounds Down

Once I was seven pounds up,

My momma told me

Damn, Jack, those pants used to be a lil’ baggy.
Once I was seven pounds up…

I was a big, big boy,

And I was gettin’ bigger.
Pushing shirt seams to their limits, middle gettin’ thicker.
By eleven eating chips and dip right before dinner.
Never stopped so I found myself with a much fuller figure.

Once I was 80 pounds up, my daddy told me,
Get yo ass a lil’ less wide or you’ll be lonely.
Once I was 80 pounds up.

I finally decided that being a fatty didn’t thrill me .
So I started eatin’ better, I started gettin’ stronger

If you see me eating a bag of chips, just go ahead and kill me.
Cause I feel better when I’m eatin’ right, not eatin’ wronger.

Soon I was 20 pounds down, my story not no depressin’
Before I would start to cry when I was dressin’.
But then I was 20 pound down

I only see my goals, I don't believe in failure

Cause I know that doin’ it now is better than doin’ it later.
I got this blog with me, y’know it’s been a real life-saver.
So glad my waistline’s not as big as the equator.

Once I was 20 pounds down, my story got fun
I was dieting, not eating everything I saw before me
Once I was 20 pounds down
Soon we'll be 30 years old, our songs have been sold
We've traveled around the world and we're still roaming
Soon I’ll be 30 pounds down…