Why I am Fat
I’m fat because of weekends.
I have a serious "grazing" instinct — if I’m in the house, I often find myself near the fridge or pantry without ever conciously intending to go there. I’ll fix myself a snack, even though I’m not hungry. And if there’s nothing I want to eat immediately obvious, I treat it as a Grazer’s Challenge. This has resulted, in recent memory, in the following:
- Peanut butter and mozzerrella cheeze on a tortilla, heated in microwave for 25 seconds. Actually, very tasty.
- Cool whip and chocolate milk mix (powdered), blended together and used as a dip with graham crackers. Again, very tasty.
- Saltine crackers with Chipotle-flavored Tabasco sauce (my new favorite hot sauce, by the way). Once again, very tasty, but probably would have been better if I had mixed the Tabasco with sour cream.
- A milkshake created using vanilla ice cream, milk, a handful of M&Ms, and a large piece of chocolate cake. This was possibly the best thing I have ever tasted, and could be the basis of a successful milkshake chain: "Cake Shakes!"
This ability to always find something to eat — and then eat it, natch — is pretty easy to suppress for short periods of time — a couple of hours, for instance. When I’m at home for 60 hours at a stretch, though, eventually my willpower breaks down.
Which explains why my weight has gone from 181.4 on Sunday to 184.4 today. Around 7PM last night, I just started eating, and eating, and eating. Handfuls of Cap’n Crunch, improvisational burritos (everything’s better with a tortilla around it), a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats (I could happily eat nothing but cold cereal and Mexican food for the rest of my days), and part of an ice cream cone one of my twins didn’t finish.
I was, in short, a train wreck.
Originally, I intended to spend some time today detailing the weirdness I’ve been through in the past year, and try to link it to my current weight problem. I think this is the more honest answer, though: I’m fat because I run out of willpower before I run out of weekend.
Mark my words, you’ll see a variation of that on a fridge magnet someday.
Comment by Eufemiano Fuentes | 02.3.2008 | 8:06 am
every accredited university of this great land should have a 1 credit course called improvisational burrito making.
Comment by brokemba | 02.3.2008 | 8:38 am
No doubt. I am in the worst way grazing. I grazed all day yesterday and have started again this morning because:
1. My wife left me home with 3 kids and I couldn’t ride.
2. She is still gone, and it’s Superbowl Sunday, and golf is on from 8:30am until the Superbowl coverage starts
3. Pancakes are good…very very good…at any hour of the day…
4. The kids like to eat a lot too.
Love to Susan and the crew.
Fatty-wannabe
Comment by brokemba | 02.3.2008 | 8:41 am
Oh yeah, April is too flippin’ long to wait for the new Jersey!!! And just a thought is that you should make the next batch with full zipps for those of us that ride in the sticky hot south…
Comment by Ant | 02.3.2008 | 12:55 pm
The irony is that the more I ride, the hungrier I get, the more rubbish I eat. My food-related crimes for the weekend were as follows:
Fri 30km singletrack ride = Chicken Schnitzel the size of a surfboard and 4 beers
Sat 80km road ride = “Big Breakfast” at local cafe, bacon, eggs, sausage and all other sorts of good things. AND THEN leftover roast dinner from earlier in the week. AND THEN leftover Indian from earlier in the week. AND THEN a 44 gallon drum full of pasta and cream sauce.
Sun 30km climbing = more pasta with the wickedest cream sauce you have ever seen in your life (I was pretty proud of that one) and about 1/2 litre of cookies ‘n cream icecream. And about 4 beers.
I just keep telling myself – ‘I ride so I can eat whatever I want’. Repeatedly.
Comment by Miles Archer | 02.3.2008 | 1:08 pm
Mild electric shocks on the door to the fridge and pantry. That ought to do it.
Comment by Don (cyclingphun.blogspot.com) | 02.3.2008 | 1:20 pm
Fatty: I have to ask, after seeing it a few times now, this “natch” you keep talking about is a bit Greek to me. Mind you, I realize its an “English” word (term used loosely). Furthermore, I can’t wait to see how your race turned out yesterday, and who were the lucky recipients of the bikes!
Love and Prayers to the whole fat crew!
Comment by Born 4Lycra 43 11 N 2 32 W | 02.3.2008 | 1:42 pm
A great big fat fridge magnet completel with wobbly bulge in the middle.
Can I echo all the contents of Don’s email and also ask what the term sans means as well. I think I have it worked out as in or with but every know and again it is used somewhere that my definition does not seem to fit. I could of course be completely totally wrong. In fact I did think I was wrong once before but it turned out I was incorrect.
Comment by Mike Roadie | 02.3.2008 | 2:19 pm
FC: you hit the nail on the head “I run out of willpower before I run out of weekend” I can go all week at a maintenance pace of food, drink and thus, weight. But put me at home, and I’m an eating machine….I can’t help it. Riding only makes it worse as it makes me more hungry, and gives me excuses as in “justification”.
DON: “Natch” is slang for naturally….but kind of went out in the 50’s.
B4L: “sans” is French for without…..anything French is valid for use as slang!
WHAT’S UP WITH THE FROZEN HOG?????
Comment by fatty | 02.3.2008 | 4:27 pm
everyone – i’m writing up my frozen hog story this afternoon and will post it tonight.
Comment by Laura | 02.3.2008 | 4:38 pm
It’s like you are preaching to the choir… weekends especially in winter are boring and munchie. I enjoyed some rather tasty mini Easter chocolate eggs earlier today. Interestingly, it’s only February and I easily found mini Easter chocolate eggs (3 kinds in the 150 gram bag, solid milk, egg creme, and caramel). I won’t mention what I had for lunch. It should make my trip this week to the gym verrrrry interesting. I think I’m gonna dial up a hella tough resistance on the stationary bike all this week. Then I am going to find a hobby to get me out of the house every weekend until March.
Comment by toto | 07.10.2008 | 10:26 am
I don’t bike ride but i think grazers of the world should unite……..I laughed at this as I stood in the kitchen last night washing down chips ahoy cookies with a bit of Cote du Rhone white….and yes, it was pretty damn tasty.
Comment by kirsten | 02.19.2009 | 9:12 am
im only 10 and im over 12 stone i need help my mum loves me i dont eat alot
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!