January 5, 2005

I’ve mentioned one or one hundred times over the past couple of weeks that I am trying to eat healthy again and get back on the whole exercise, fit and trim bandwagon. I don’t really know why I’m obsessing over this, and I am obsessing, but I think it’s because I know there’s a pair of jeans in the back of my closet that is one size smaller than what I am currently wearing. Never mind that there are also jeans in my closet that are two sizes bigger than what I am currently wearing, and forget the fact that I could probably get those smaller jeans on if I lept across the room with Earl holding my jeans open so I could squeeze into them.

So I’ve gone from the cheeseburger and fries for appetizer, prime rib for supper set to the typical salad saga. I’m carefully measuring out one cup of Cheerios for breakfast, lest one extra Cheerio invade my cereal bowl and throw off my calorie count. I’m faithfully eating salad, salad and more salad with fat free dressing for lunch and supper. I’m balancing my protein intake with a “smart-pak” of crackers with peanut butter. For supper it’s, what else, more salad and a sandwich with some baked, low fat, low taste tortilla chips on the side.

God damn it I want a Big Mac. Or a big juicy Double Whopper with cheese and bacon.

I think my brain is my biggest enemy. Because I’m not really eating what I want to eat, but rather what I think I should eat, I’m constantly thinking about how good an afternoon at Chick-Fil-A would be. I want to park one of those mall tables with attached chairs right in front of the restaurant counter, leaving room for someone to join me in the other molded chair and I want the counter person to just bring on the food. It doesn’t even have to be a Chick-Fil-A. I’d settle for any diner, anywhere in the world right now. Then I start thinking about how selfish I am. Memories of “there’s starving children in Africa” from my childhood rear they’re ugly head when I used to yell “But Ma, I’m starving!!” I think about all those hundreds of thousands of people suffering in the aftermath of the tsunamis. They’d probably like to graze through an A&W with me too.

This constant counting of calories in my brain has got to stop. “If I eat this tic tac, I’ve added 10 calories, that means an extra 35 seconds on the exercise bike tonight.” I think my caloric intake has fallen from around 2500 calories a day to just shy of 1000. I think my body is mad at me. It’s yelling various things, like “You stopped feeding me.” “Why are you doing this?” “You’re exercising twice as much with half the amount of food.” “You’re an ass.”

I think tonight I’m going to splurge and cook something rather than just slap some fake-turkey and fake-cheese with a smattering of mustard between two airy pieces of bread.

If you want to IM me afterwards, I’ll be on the exercise bike.

Today I had to go to a dermotologist. At my last doctor’s appointment, he noticed a mole on my back and said that I should have it looked at, so off we went to the specialist today. I can’t imagine a more exciting way to spend a lunch hour.

The dermotologist looked at my back, told me how horribly sun damaged my skin is and that there is no need to worry about the mole on my back. However, she did look at my arms and noticed a bump that might lead to something down the road so we should just freeze the little thing right off. She scowled at a couple of other marks on my arms, and one newly exposed (from shaving my beard off) mark on my chin, which she said was probably an ingrown hair, and told me to grow my beard back to protect my face. She did all this in around 55 seconds, leaving with a curt “Get dressed”. I guess my sun damaged body was suffering more damage from the flourescent lights. Either that or my clean shaven face repulsed her.

A few minutes later the freezer queen, for lack of a better title, came in to the examining room. She was carrying a styrofoam coffee cup of liquid nitrogen. It was emitting a dry-ice type mist and making various hissing noises. The coffee cup was marked “do not discard this cup!” Apparently the coffee cup budget is very low for 2005 as this cup was rather beat up looking. I found her humorous looking as she had black hair that zinged all over the place. She looked a little crazy. I guess I would look crazy too if I was walking around with liquid nitrogen hissing in a styrofoam coffee cup. Most people mark their cups with their name. “Betty” “Vera” Not her though, her’s just said “Do not discard this cup.” Crazy.

So she read a prescription for the liquid cold stuff, “apply no more than 8 seconds”, which she promptly did. I hardly noticed. The little mark on my arm didn’t stand a chance, it promptly turned white (a la Mr Freeze) and then blistered up. I’m not suppose to do anything to it for 48 hours. I don’t really find that last directive fair, as the dermotologist circled the spot with a heavy black ball point pen. Sort of like “X” marks the spot. “You are here”.

I managed to wash the black ink off without touching the spot on my arm that is now twice the size it used to be. I’m told it will fall off soon.

I hope I don’t look like a crazy person with skin falling off my arm.