6 Interviews And 8 Lbs. Later ...

I still don't have a full time job but my clothes fit very well.

Random Thoughts Saturday

- Miss Martha is Guilty!
Even though I said as much in this here very blog, it's still pretty surprising to me when rich people are found guilty of anything. Apparently, when you factor woman and bitch into the legal equation you get a very different result. I'm really sad to hear she's just been cancelled here in New York City. I would curl up on the couch at 2 am with all the lights out and tune in her show. That Stepford voice she used to narrate things would frequently lull me to sleep.

- My First Time
I just ate my first grapefruit. I have had various forms of grapefuit juice in my life, (with and without vodka) but it struck me as I was eating it this morning that I had never done this before. How do I know? Because I did it wrong. A couple of notes: It's not enough to cut the grapefruit in half you also have to cut the fruit away from the skin, otherwise you end up with a big pulpy sticky mess in the dish. Also, it needs Sweet & Low.

- I'm Disappearing!
I accidently lost two pounds in the last couple of weeks. I say accidently because I'm eating three squares a day and pretty large portions too. I think my body is just settling into it's new weight so I can expect a pound or two fluctuation for a while.

- I Have an Itch
That can usually only be satisfied by the purchase of a big ticket item. The question is, what? My laptop is fine but I admit I was distracted by the shiny new sub- $800 Dell that just came out. My PC is turbo now and I've fallen deeply in love with the girl. Maybe a simple external drive might be cute as I have no use for my firewire port right now. But that's not big ticket enough. Maybe I'll forget tech and see if I can figure a way to juggle the books and come up with enough scratch to buy a new mattress set. My bed takes a queen (ha!) but I've only got a full size mattress without a box spring on it.

- What I'm Reading Now:
Life Outside - Michelangelo Signorile - The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles and the Passages of Life

Psychic Vampires - Joe H. Slate, Ph.D. - Protection From Energy Predators and Parasites

HTML in easy steps - Mike McGrath

Ah well, It's beauteous out and the rain has stopped. I'm off to tha Kmart and to ogle NYU boys!

Living Proof

I'll try not to mention this subject again unless asked, but I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the results from my diet. First, it worked. I lost the 10 lbs I wanted to lose (plus a couple more) and more important, I've totally changed my eating habits. I have breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. I occasionally snack if hungry. I'm eating a lot of protein and a lot less carbohydrates although I have no interest in going carb - free. That's not healthy. I cook with extra virgin olive oil. Since I started my diet until now, I have not had a potato in any form. And that includes chips and my beloved Doritos. I go off at least once a week and have a quilty pleasure. This week it was pepperoni pizza. Last week it was egg rolls with hot chinese mustard. I haven't had any pasta. I'm trying whole wheat pasta this week. The only bread I've eaten is whole wheat pita. (Which I love, by the way. I'd heard from a lot of people that whole wheat breads were "too chewy". I believe that was an exuse to hang on to that loaf of Wonder White.) I get hungry now like clockwork. The revulsion I used to feel at the thought of a morning meal is now totally gone. I cook a lot of foods ahead of time like 4 chicken breasts at once or 6 hard boiled eggs. Anything that will keep for a week or so I make in bulk. That way you're not constantly cooking huge meals. Red pepper, green pepper onion, mushrooms of every kind, cucumber, tomato, almonds, pine nuts, kidney beans and lentel are all my new friends.

Originally, I had planned to post simple before and after pictures. But my idea sort of looked like a weight loss ad in the back of the Enquirer. You know, for the Fatbuster 24JX tab? I took some pictures the night before I started my diet. I took some more about two weeks ago. The results are pretty dramatic.

First, (and to show that I seem to have no sense of shame) the before pictures. They have been "shopped" to black and white because they are so hideous they deserve no color. Notice the Blimpie sandwich attempting to escape from the fat roll bulging out my back.





Now, I will show you one after picture right away. Not perfect. But I wasn't shooting for perfect. Just better. This is better.



Now for the good stuff. I was feeling inspired after trying to decide which diet pics to show you. I didn't think any of them would be good enough for this blog or for any of my loyal readers. (hi Ryan, yo Geek) So I hauled out my digi and set up some lighting to get some shots I thought might be more interesting and illustrate the results of my diet as well. Y'all will have to let me know how I did. *snicker*

Notice the absence of love handles here:

baby got back view.jpg

I've gone from having a belly to a tummy:

peeping, Tom.jpg

Of course, I ended up taking lots more pictures:

Image019 copy.jpg

I have no idea what, (beyond that) I plan to do with them. Now you know what I do on my day off.

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So I bet you're dying of curiosity as to how I'm doing on my diet. Fuck you, somebody might care. Well, the truth is it's going great. I haven't cheated, not once. Not a Pringle, Dorito or bit of rigatoni passed these lips. I had no potato in any of it's insidious forms. Not baked, french fried nor mashed. Not a single grain of rice. As we speak I'm enjoying my "lunch" of ground sirloin burger with tomato slices and asparagus in vinagrette. Not that I was feeling poorly before but I can tell you I am noticeably more energetic. A single cup of coffee and I feel awake and alert in the morning. I did falter as to the shear volume of food towards the end of the week. I was on the closing shift at the bar and, in effect swapped sleep time for a meal. This week, I increased the amounts of food I eat and cut out some of the snacks, as it fits in better with my lifesyle. Almost naturally moving into a more natural "Phase 2" breakfast/lunch/dinner plan. Still sticking with the Phase 1 food though. Considering my diet consisted of Blimpie sammiches/chips/turkey burgers and fries, I'm finding quite a bit of variety to choose from. Have I lost any weight? I don't know, we don't own a scale. It's only been a week and a half but I think "the baby" is starting to shrink. I'm heading for the gym in a few minutes and I'll hop on their scale. It doesn't give the correct weight but I remember what it said the last time. If you want to see everything I ate (but not everyone, and that's a whole 'nother subject) this week it's in the link below:

One Week Diet Log.htm

addendum: I couldn't resist going to the drugstore and picking up a new digital scale. I've lost 8 pounds. I'm petit.

Delivery Day

I’m not going to bore everyone with another listing of what I fuckin ate all day. I am keeping a separate diet journal on my laptop that does list everything. I’ll see about putting the page online and then those that want to track it can. Suffice it to say that I successfully completed day two of my diet despite a close call when I was in my room jerkin ….err….werkin and glanced up at a lonely half-eaten bag of Frito’s (Scoops!). I believe it called me. I could have sworn I heard a tiny voice say “Eat me, who’ll know?” (A phrase you really can’t hear too often, if ya ask me.) But I will make these observations. At least at first, when you go on a diet of this type while you do eventually get filled (and who doesn’t appreciate that, I ask you) you do, in fact get ravenously hungry halfway through the day. Also, I haven’t hit the gym yet on this fuel. That’s scheduled for tomorrow. I’m interested to see how my energy level holds up.

From the land of recipes that I’ve discovered: Today I made a Edamame salad with radishes and wine vinegar that was a piece of cake and is loaded with healthy eating goody goodness. Tonight for dinner I made a London Broil with a tarragon mustard glaze that made my dirty man parts tingle. If you want either recipe or both e-mail me I’d be happy to send them. (Man uses food recipe in desperate bid for e-mail: Film at 11)

I spent the afternoon waiting for the UPS guy and chatting on the phone. The Ex finally broke down and threw in the towel on his crappy Mac and ordered himself a fully loaded Dell. Now before you MacCrackheads get all hissy when I say he had a crappy Mac I mean that literally. This thing looked to be about 7yrs old at least. This was from before the multi-colored clamshells arrived {ick). In short, truly a crappy Mac. Besides, I only know about PC’s. Whenever the squirrel on a wheel powering his Mac went down I didn’t know nuthin’ about helping him fix it. We’re talking about setting up a home network to save a little money. Problem there is I only have a rudimentary amount of knowledge about how to set up a wireless network. As in: I know such a thing is commonly done, I’m just not sure how to accomplish it. Or what equipment to buy. Time to ring up my little friends over at TechTV methinks.

The Dell finally arrived, (sans dude) right as Charmed started on TNT, which is right on time for this neighborhood. I love that. We’re on the late delivery route for UPS so we usually get our packages around 6pm or later. I try and get everything sent here by UPS because the FedEx people always wake my ass at 10am. As an added bonus, the T-Shirt I ordered a few days ago finally arrived. This purchase is a nod to my rather twisted sense of humor (I think it’s hilarious) but also further proof that I reject the notion that my illness is something that needs to be covered up. Exhibitionists don’t stop being exhibitionists just because we contract a potentially deadly virus. We just slap it on a T-Shirt and wear it to the gym.



After we put the new PC unopened into the guest room The Ex and I headed out to Circuit City as we needed to replace the TV in the living room that had up and died over the weekend. It was very “Love Story” One minute the old set was fine the next it gave out a little muffled cough and died. As I fell to my knees screaming “WHY?” I suddenly remembered that we practically have a TV hooked up to cable in every fucking room of this apartment as both The Ex and I seem to use the noise of it for company. I frequently have it on in one room while I’m working in another. Like now. If I ever become Richie Rich (or even Richie not so damn po’) I’ll get one of those wall mounted bathtub TV’s I covet and scorn all at once. I’m so short on disposable cash right now I had to let The Ex front my share of the new TV as I couldn’t even afford my half of the $300 it cost. That heroin, it will eat up your savings account, lemme tell ya.

Tomorrow I have a “date” with The Hellcat. (Friend date, not a maybe I’ll touch his willy date) he’s been having some trouble getting motivated during the day when he’s not working. I can relate, I sat in a director’s chair in my living room and smoked cigarettes for one whole year. So we made tentative plans to “do something” on the weekend and firmed em up over the phone today. It’s lunch around 2 and then 3:30 movie. We decided on that new Tim Burton movie Big Fish or Go Fish or I’m With Fish, who can remember? (Oh god, I’m my father) Problem is that shortly after we made these plans I finally made that service call to Verizon about my phone. I ended up talking to this really nice woman who nonetheless was incredulous that I could have been having phone trouble since December but I’m just getting around to it now. To which I replied what’s the rush? I e-mail. They are scheduled to come out (and possibly in to my apartment, if necessary) to fix it between 12-4. Let’s hope they come in squarely at 12. Otherwise, M--- is joining me in whatever dietary culinary masterpiece I can whip together unexpectedly. Good thing I’m gay.

If you were bread I would eat you

Day one of my modified Atkins/South Beach diet is complete. I have to say, I did get stoopid hungry about half way through but by the time I got through dinner I finally did feel full. I'm trying to decide how I actually "feel" but I think it's too soon to tell. I feel aware that something's "different", but I don't feel bad.....

Here's what I ate today... (and when)

Up at 12pm
6oz tomato juice at 2pm
vegetariam omelete w/bacon at 2:30
mozzarella string and diet Jello at 5:15

(This is when I got hungry and I'm sure my body was sending a WTF? signal)

Deli salad w/ Italian dressing at 7:30
2oz soy cheese at 9:15

grilled cicken breast
steamed cauliflower and salad with oil and vinegar dressing at 10pm

Lime ricotta creme at 11:45 (Blech)

This is way more food than I usually eat but what the hell, let's see what happens.....

How approprite - as I watch the last 20 minutes of The Blob

It's 4am. The bar is closed and I'm headed for bed shortly. When I wake up tomorrow I will begin a brand new diet/ way of eating. It's based (more or less) on the South Beach Diet which is based (more or less) on the Atkins Diet. The details are as follows: No bread No rice No pasta No fruit No rice No juice No carrots No potato (skins, french fries, chips, baked). Also no cookies cake candy and ice cream but that's no problem I don't eat stuff like that anyway. The only modifications I've made in advance are I'm ignoring the no alcohol proviso - what am I, a savage? But in a nod to the diet I've given up the cranberry mixer, which in the case of my bar is actually a cranberry flavored sugar laden non- nutritional syrup. Club soda with lime instead. This alone may make a huge difference. And I'm not giving up coffee. I switched from 2% skim to fat-free milk. I already don't use sugar.

All of this because I decided two things. 15 years of working in bars and restaurants and my diet is for shit. I frequently wake up at noon (like today) and end up puttering around the house, blogging (hello) and running errands before work. I get to the bar by 4:30 and unpack my first meal around 5pm (!). My body is already in starvation mode by then. I usually manage another meal by around 10pm and that's it. A far cry from the three meals and two snacks my current diet recommends. Pasta, bread and white rice are also de rigeur in my diet. The upshot .......BACKFAT. And a little SIDEFAT. And a little PUDGE up front. Now mind you, I go to the gym on a regular basis so I've seen some guys 10 yrs. younger than me who are seriously fat. I'm not running around saying I'm fat. I have some fat. And I have a crappy diet. I'm hoping if I stick to this for a couple weeks I will accomplish two things: I will shave off the middle age middle of the body quit smoking five pound paunch I've developed. And I'll jump start my appetite/diet to a way more healthy three sqaures a day with a couple of healthy snacks. Eventually, I'll put back the pasta, fruit and (non-fat) yogurt. Now I took a set of before pictures today with my li'l belly all relaxed and poochy. Also a side and back picture. And just for the record, the pictures make me feel a tad better. I'm much more critical live. In the pictures what I'm trying to fix is still there just not as bad. But assuming this is a success in a few weeks I will take some new pix and publish the before and after shots. I'll try and blog my daily meals for at least the next two weeks to clock my progress. Stay tuned, chitlens.