10 Things I've Learned About Being Fat

1   I can exercise until my balls fall off, but I won't lose weight unless I keep a close eye on what I eat.

2   If I carry a 16 oz. bottle of cold water with me in the car, when I get home the bottle will be empty. 

3   If I buy a half-dozen or so different fruits and vegetables when I go grocery shopping and have some of one or both with each meal, then it's not a very big deal to consume 800 grams of fruits and vegetables per day . . . which, according to various respected sources, can have a massive salubrious effect upon your body's state of health.

4   If I sit down to eat with the expectation that I will stop when I am full, I will overeat.

5.   Programs which are designed to help you to choose healthy eating / get to a healthy body weight can be extremely annoying and can actually cause you to not be successful in reaching your goals. (And a big shout out to Lou Ryan's *livinglean program, which irritated the living fuck out of me. I would never have continued with this bullshit program if not for the points I earned from GO365, which will allow me to get a free Fitbit Zip Wireless Activity Tracker a lot sooner than just doing my daily "steps" upload would. And Lou, if you're out there, let me just say that you are a condescending, arrogant, supercilious rat bastard, and if I ever hear someone use the term "main munch" in my presence, I will punch them in the fucking nose. You are a true asshole, Lou. I hope I never hear your voice again.)

6.   Once you get used to eating chicken, pork, and fish regularly, you really don't miss the other, shittier meats. I can't even tell you the last time I ate a hamburger.

7.   Blackberries. It's all about the blackberries, man. 

8.   You've got to write it down. As much of it as you can, but at the very least what you eat. Writing it down makes it real. Making it public is even real-er, because even if no one sees it, there's always the chance that someone will see it. I worked my way up to the details, and am now keeping track of what I eat, calories, dietary fiber, grams of fruit and vegetables, amount of water, exercise and calories burned. It's not really a very big deal, and it really helps to keep me on track.

9.   Don't tell anybody that you're dieting. Don't tell anybody that you're losing weight. (Unless you're writing  about it on a blog, of course.) Wait for someone to notice. It will take longer than you think it should take, but eventually someone will make a fuss over you, and it will feel much better than if you coerced them into saying something.

10.  When you get off of tobacco or booze or drugs or whatever, once you're clean, you have to stay clean. You can't just casually have a smoke or a drink or a hit every once in a while. And it's pretty much the same way with overeating. So welcome to your new life. Assuming you like the results. If you didn't like the results, well, what the fuck. Some fat people live really long lives. I guess.