Good morning, campers! The summer heat is upon us and the heat is most certainly on Big Skeezy! After weeks of consistent weight loss he seems to have plateaued, wrestling with the same 10-12 pounds for the better part of the last eight weeks. Last week we saw Skeeze climb back into the 290’s, the recent bane of his existence. How would he fare this week? Could he get back out or was he doomed to spend another week in his own personal weight prison? Let’s break it down:
It’s still July, which means my dance card is pretty damned packed with activities, most of them revolving around revelry, food, drink and a good amount of lost shuteye. The lost shuteye is nearly as bad as everything else I tend to get into, as it’s during solid REM sleep that the body actually repairs itself and, in my case, eats away at fat while it builds the muscle I’ve been trying to sculpt in the gym all this time. Losing that certainly doesn’t help much but, most nights during the week I’m in bed at a decent hour. The problem, as most of you in the United States know, is that it’s been so blasted hot lately that sometimes staying cool enough to sleep through the night without rousing is difficult. Unfortunately, I don’t have an air conditioner and have to rely on my stand fan.
In any case, the week did what it always did. It started and I went about my business. I ate fairly well, though I did try a small experiment this week. Instead of eating the same oatmeal and grilled chicken and salad I have eaten every day for weeks and weeks I decided to take a small pseudo-break from it. One day I had a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch from Arby’s. Another day I had some McNuggets (sauceless). I still hit the gym and all of that stuff but I figured at this point a small shake-up might help. Come dinnertime it was back to the chicken and such, if anything at all. Water, of course, was consumed by the gallon.
Friday was the night of our annual company event. This year it was held at the Turf Club at Hollywood Park. Those of you who have been following my journey know how much I like Friday nights at the track. The problem these days is that while Fridays are still $1 beer nights I can’t have any. The event arrived and it was a lot of fun. The dinner was buffet style and I ate some grilled chicken, some salmon, some steamed veggies and, in all honesty, a dinner roll. I had a couple of vodka and sodas and that was pretty much that. I was very proud of the fact that I got out of there having ingested a healthy and normal amount of food and drink.
After the track we made out way to a bar for a friend’s birthday. I’ll leave those details out (way too much to tell) but, again, I was pretty well behaved. I had a few more cocktails and then it was back to a friend’s house for the after party. They were all drinking beer so I had a couple small glasses of wine and called it a night. Sure, I called it a night around 5AM, but I still called it a night.
Saturday was spent poolside, enjoying summery beverages. We had some Chinese food towards the end of the afternoon and that was basically all I ate that day, aside from the free lunch I had hours earlier. I was home by about 8PM and in bed by midnight.
Sunday was Skeezy’s day. Laundry, gym, errands…it was very nice, aside from the stupid World Cup. Late that night I was engaged in an email conversation with a couple of friends of mine. They had decided to start a cleanse, namely the lemonade diet, and do it all this week. Basically, for five days all you eat is this:
Because it’s difficult to see, what you have there is water, a lemon, pure maple syrup and cayenne pepper. For five days you drink no fewer than six of these concoctions, which is the juice of a lemon, two tablespoons of syrup, 1/10 teaspoon cayenne pepper and 8-10 ounces of water. Regular water you are allowed (and encouraged) to drink all the time. On top of that, you are supposed to do a salt water flush (1 liter of water mixed with sea salt) or take a laxative at night in order to clear your bowels and make it a solid cleanse. As it was put to me in that very email chain, “The average man has 5 pounds of undigested red meat in his bowels. Think about that, Skeeze. You need this cleanse.”
I thought about it and thought about it. You guys read this enough to know that a good five day cleanse would probably do me well, and I’ve always wondered if I could pull it off and not murder anyone. I looked up some testimonials and these in particular stood out:
“WHERE IS ALL THIS ENERGY COMING FROM!?!?!? THIS CLEANSE HAS RENEWED ME.”
“I feel like I did yoga 7 times today! So relaxed, so happy, so much energy!”
“If you put a scrumptious, bloody, 48-ounce porterhouse in front of me right now, i would send it back. I have freed myself from the horrible grasp of human appetite. I exist in the world, just like the trees and the dirt.”
Interesting, to say the least. I went to bed Sunday night undecided and, when I awoke Monday morning, had decided to give it a whirl. I didn’t have the ingredients so I limited myself to water only yesterday, having my first lemonade last night after getting supplies from the store. It actually doesn’t taste too bad. I took my laxative and was asleep by 9:30-ish. I slept like a baby.
And so this morning came and I did my morning flush, if you know what I mean. I stepped onto the scale ad discovered that…
…I’d lost two pounds! That brings me back down to 289 and puts my total weight loss at 82 pounds again.
I’m obviously pretty excited to see what happens after this week’s experiment. Hopefully this will finally be the kick start I need to get the hell on with this because, frankly, I’m getting annoyed with it. I’m not going to quit, but I’m getting annoyed.
Hustle harder. See you next week!
