I Give Up ! I Can’t Take Any More.

IT SEEMS TO ME that I have been on a diet all my life. I suspect that I was watching my intake even pre-natal.

If there is a diet out there to try, I have tried it. Some were better than others. Some were easier than others. Some made more sense than others. You can say the same thing about people too, I guess.

And some people are just plain fattening.

Even as a kid I was supposed to be ‘eating healthy’ and leaving the sweets and starches alone. That didn’t work very well. I knew where every little store that carried Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups was located.

As an adult my weight fluctuated between ‘overweight’ and ‘Sweet Jesus, I need a bigger belt.’ It wasn’t like I was trying to put on weight – it just sort of followed me around and jumped me when I wasn’t looking.

The reason I bring this up now is that I am still trying to lose weight and at this point it is a serious health issue.

I’ve managed to lose about 55 pounds and I have started wearing clothes that haven’t seen the light of day in years. I was determined that our trip to Salt Lake City wasn’t going to be my downfall.

When my wife, the lovely and food knowledgeable, Dawn and I went to the supermarket, we avoided the ‘unhealthy’ and binge-triggering foods. In other words, we didn’t fill up the cart with Marie Callender’s Banana Cream Pie and Pringles.

Enter the first catered meal of the Annual Meeting: Lunch on the first day.

There was a small salad at the start with diet friendly dressing, but hiding behind my water glass was a slice of graham cracker crust cheesecake adorned with a strawberry and whipped cream. And then – The Entree.

A breaded and baked chicken breast the size of Connecticut was served over pasta. Tucked away over in the corner was a small pile of chopped vegetables that had all the flavor of my cell phone holster.

The problem with the breaded chicken pool cover was that it was really quite tasty. It took me three tries to succeed in hiding my fork from myself. Then I ate half of the cheesecake before I cried out, “Valgame, Dios!” (That’s Mexican slang for “Get me back to Terre Haute!”)

After this ‘Light luncheon’ I felt like Shamu’s wild cousins feel after swimming through a school of wounded Groupers. My tummy was so full I was tempted to go punch out the chef just out of spite.

If I was going to get through this trip without putting on weight I was going to have to put on my Big Boy Tidy Whities and start stealing the salads from the folks sharing our table.

I made it through. I have survived and I don’t think my nutritionist will stroke out when next we meet. Of course, there is still our trip to Texas in late July and that is always a culinary challenge for me.

Dieting is not easy. If it was easy there would never be any slacks above a 36 inch waist, or any XXL shirts. The world would be populated by Ballroom Dancers and Chinese Gymnasts.

I am determined to slim down, for health reasons if nothing else, but for cryin’ out loud – When it comes to lunch give me a tuna sandwich and an orange! Think Brown Bag Lunch!

Don’t put a cheesecake in front of me and expect that there will be any survivors!

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