The making of an action hero pt20

Entry #19 Success! I averaged 298.12 pounds this week with today’s weight at 297.8 pounds. So, 8 pounds to go to hit my goal for August. Daddy gets a new pair of sunglasses! In reality I weighed less than this at least once the week before, but didn’t stabilize that low. That’s probably why I’ve been so hungry this week. You can starve yourself down to a point, but that isn’t healthy. I was climbing the stairs to our lair yesterday and it hit me without warning. Cheeseburger sub…mmm…mmm… I haven’t had one of those in several months. Heck, I haven’t had red meat in over a month. I have no idea what our neighbors were cooking. Whatever it was it smelled exactly like the loaded cheeseburger subs I used to order from Bubba’s. I wanted to break down in tears it smelled so good. The smell of meat grilling, the thought of a trip to five guys, the memory of a few fingers of good bourbon in a glass over ice, these things have certainly moved me to covetousness since I started making better choices. But this was a whole different magnitude of craving. Must—have—meat!! I wanted to give voice to a barbaric yop and conquer that smell. It was visceral. I hope this isn’t a taste of what’s to come. I controlled the urge to break into my neighbor’s home with cookie monster-esk single mindedness. Maybe adding a little red meat back into the diet is in order. Speaking of cravings, I have to give the brunette credit. She’s cut out soda from the house, entirely, cold turkey. That is about as hard core as you can get. Soda was a thing for her—she was pretty close to main lining it a few times. I like soda. I’ll drink one every once in a while. When it was around I’d pound It.; but it wasn’t ever something I had to absolutely have. I do love my blue due, but I kicked the energy drink/soda habit a while ago. It takes force of will to just stop drinking it every day and make it a clean break. She has stopped buying junk even for herself. I can eat the same thing over and over again, but she’s a bit pickier. So to just cut a big part of her diet like that is impressive. Soda isn’t the only thing we’ve stopped stocking regularly. We’ve stopped buying lots of things including alcohol, soda, chips, heavier pasta sauces, ice cream, Italian sausage, and seasoned snacks. That doesn’t include the food we don’t order any more, which is basically everything. I’m not fooling myself into believing that I’ll never order another meal again. There are going to be days when a bag of jellybeans is coming home with me. I enjoy specialty and one-off snacks. If someone sees something really interesting or really good I’m going to try it—I’m going to keep living life. The thing is that I don’t miss them as much as I thought I would. Some of that is probably due to the fact that we’ve substituted a variety of menu options to take their place. Another is that our closest friends are doing something similar—so there’s support for our choices outside our home. The couple that we get together with once a week voluntarily started bringing snack mixes rather than chips to our gatherings. Our best friends often share our meals and cook equivalent dishes when we visit. I really appreciate that kind of unspoken no-fuss support. That and the stabilization of my work schedule are the two biggest reasons we’ve been able to make this work. Today I’m headed out to a dinner with friends. WMTrainguy’s lovely wife is making fantastic food. I’ll play a game or two with my early war French recon and tank companies, perhaps enjoy an adult beverage, and eat some food that doesn’t precisely count as healthy. I’ve had the last of the Brunette’s leftover Mac-and-cheese because I’m hungry, eating now means I won’t gorge later, and because I’d rather eat a little now and a little later than three times the combined amount. It’s been a good day with more to come. As a final note, lots of people show up in these essays. More will likely make their way in here over time. I need two things, what you’d prefer to be called and what you think my action hero name should be. Agent MX and others have taken to calling me beast, but I’m not sure that will last. I could keep calling Squish’s wife “the Jew” but I’m not sure that’s how she wants to be remembered (even though most of our friends circle humorously refers to her that way from time to time.)