Confessions of a Junk Food Addict

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I had been doing pretty well with my diet; two weeks of eating clean and with controlled portions combined with a vigorous weight lifting regiment was slowly producing results. While I can't actually see any results as of yet, the scale says I've lost a few pounds. But that's to be expected; it's a marathon, not a sprint, as the old saying goes. With patience, diligence, and a little willpower, I will in the span of a few months be thinner, healthier version of myself.

And then I passed by Five Guys.

That infernal burger place has some awesome burgers. Horribly expensive, mind you; their "little" cheeseburger by itself costs over $5. And don't get me started on the fries...needless to say, it's a bad place, run by bad people whose sole purpose is to tempt well-meaning individuals like myself into eating their delicious, evil crack-burgers.

Sad to say, I succumbed it it's seductive siren call. I failed my Will Saving Throw and couldn't pass by the stupid place. I entered and ordered the Little Bacon Cheeseburger with a small order of fries. And I ate it all. I nommed the hell out of it. 

Now I live in shame of my weakness; the long term goal of being in shape and having abs sort of got muddled in the aroma of cooking ground beef. It's dreadful that it happened; the amount of calories in that one meal probably killed whatever progress I'd made during the week. According to the nutritional information posted on their website, the little bacon cheeseburger is 630 calories, while the little fries are 526 per serving. If you've ever eaten at Five Guys, you know that they throw SO MANY fries in the bag with your food; they fill up a cup, which I assume is one regular serving, and then shovel in a mountain full of extra fries, just in case you're worried that you'll avoid the heart attack from the burger and first serving of fries.

So we're looking at a BASE of 1156 calories of filthy fat inducing sludge being pumped into my gullet; that doesn't include the additional calories from the condiments and that other landfill serving of fries. On the plus side, there was no need for additional seasoning; the salt content of my tears provided plenty of extra flavor to my Fat Guy meal.

I look pretty good here, don't you think?

Weight Loss is fairly simple. You burn more calories than you consume everyday, and boom! But of course, the simplest things are often the most complex; if simple was the same as easy, every one would be living in Abs City. As it stands, most of us are not residents of that most glorified metropolis; the housing market must be starved for business.

But I have learned a lesson or two from my relapse into my addiction to crap "food," and I'd like to share it, since I've already shared the humiliating parts. Will power is a finite thing. It's a muscle, and like any muscle, it can become fatigued when used too much. And once it's been reduced to a quivering mass of fail, you end up caving in faster than Charlie Sheen at a Free Drug Giveaway. 

Having discovered that the hard way, I've now resolved to give myself a little treat every other day or so. Nothing truly decadent; something small like a dark chocolate Hershey bar or a single serving of ice cream. Basically, I'm going to reserve 200 calories or so of my dietary budget to be used for junk. I health guru I know once said, "As long as you are good 85% of the time, you'll make progress." 

Let's hope that she's correct.

More Kitten Madness

It's been a few months since Khaleesi, the furry whirlwind of destruction, entered our home. Since that time, she has doubled in size and discovered her niche as an agent of chaos and anarchy; all that she surveys is reduced to its component parts in a matter of seconds.

In other words, she's a typical kitten.

Don't be fooled by her cute; she's a monster.

In the time she's been with us, we've spent much of our time trying to curb her destructive habits with a combination of patience, a firm yet gentle punting, and liberal doses of water from the numerous spray bottles strategically places around the battleground...err, house.

As expected, we've only had limited success.

It is with a great effort of will that I haven't kicked her against a wall or tossed her in the garbage disposal or something equally horrendous; cute though she be, her hobby of tearing apart my possessions has quickly gone stale. Even worse, she has picked my room as her favorite hang out, and loves nothing more than to try and climb in my closet or play with my window blinds.

To date, she has: 

~Slipped like a shadow into my closet and climbed everything. My clothes are her personal jungle gym, and the boxes filled with books her obstacle course. I've had to toss three shirts because her tiny hell claws have punctured them beyond repair. 

Needless to say, my closet is on 24/7 lock down; if the door is open for even an instant, she darts in. It doesn't matter where she is in the house. If that door opens even a crack, there she is. She can teleport like Nightcrawler.

~ Spent many a late night playing games with a plastic bag while I try to sleep. When I take it away from her, she creeps out of my room and returns not five minutes later with another bag. WHERE DOES SHE GET THEM? I once spent 20 minutes collecting every loose piece of plastic I could find and locking it in a closet. She somehow found another one and went right back to playing. I have no idea where she finds them; I'm convinced she can access the Demiplane of Plastic Bags using her infernal kitten powers.

~ Ruined two loaves of bread. I foolishly left a loaf of bread on the kitchen counter, naively believing that she would have no reason to destroy it; what kind of monster attacks bread?! Well, I now know the answer to that question. Oh, you don't believe me? Well, take a look at this:

After the first incident, I decided it would be wise to keep my new, unshredded loaf secured in the bread box (yes we have one of those) on top of the fridge. I then went about my business, a smug smile on my face; human ingenuity combined with weird old-timey devices would defeat the fuzzy ball of entropy. I would be able to enjoy a turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle after all.

I was a fool.

I came home a few hours later to find my bread demolished. The little hell-spawn had somehow managed to reach the top of the fridge by climbing up one of the bar stools, running across the kitchen counter, making a running leap into the pantry adjacent to the fridge, scaling to the top shelf, and then hopping over to the not-so-secure bread box that was all that stood in the way of Khaleesi and my future turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle.

Apparently, kitten voodoo includes a spell capable of opening slots in bread boxes. Or maybe somebody else had just left it open. Either way, my dreams of a turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle where reduced to shredded wheat and plastic wrap.

~ Chosen my cat Kira as her BFF. That doesn't seem like a bad thing in and of itself, but it is. Kira is like my second shadow; everywhere I go around the house, Kira is sure to follow. It's sweet and incredibly cute. But now Kira herself has an additional shadow. Which gives me three shadows in all.

Best Friends.

While it is nice to see Kira and the kitten darting around the house playing together and being adorable, the fact that they both orbit around me means that where ever I go in the house, destruction is close behind.

~ Mastered the ninja art of Sneak Attack. One must move carefully around the house, for every shadow, every nook and cranny, every tiny space could contain a nightmare ready to pounce on your soft, unprotected feet and legs. One minute you are minding your own business, the next you have a kitten latched onto your appendage.

I'm sure she will grow out it; all cats start out as kittens, and all kittens were put on this earth to shred furniture, bread, house plants, and human skin. She'll eventually get older and mellow out. Right? Right?!

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

I know what you're going to say; "Really Darren? Stealing Stephen King titles for your silly little blog?"

Yup. And?

Last night an old friend of mine decided to drop by. Now this guy is one of those assholes that has no understanding of timing; he drops by whenever he feels like it, not when you're free to entertain. In this case, his visitation coincided right as I was heading to bed.

But being the gracious host I am, I humored him as he inflicted a night of near sleeplessness on me. His incessant ramblings prevented me from achieving a good night's rest. It was until a little past 3 am that my good buddy packed up and left. Never mind that I had to be up at 5:30 am to begin my day. So I think I managed maybe 2 hours of sleep; really, I had a nap rather than a night's sleep.

Thanks for dropping by, Insomnia. It's always a pleasure.

As you can imagine, that wasn't really an awesome way to start (continue) my day; all the speed metal on the interweb couldn't give me enough pump to lift a glass of water, let alone drag my sorry cadaver out of bed. But being the incredible individual I am, I managed to carry on and shamble off to work.

"So what does this have to do with the compelling (and stolen) title of this blog post, Darren?"

I'm getting to that.

Anywho, I was again for all intents and purposes sleepwalking at work, and it showed. My clumsy attempts to do such intrinsic activities like walking, and sometimes, breathing, both amused and frustrated my fellow processing drones; conversation limited to slurred half-sentences, the slow, blunderous efforts at un-boxing the useless junk we sale, and reflexes so graceless that an obese elephant would mock them all made for a fantastic day on the job. I guess. I don't know, I wasn't really awake for any of it.

When it was finally over, I happily (sleepily) skipped (stumbled) my way back home for a day of productive job hunting and writing (staring blankly at a monitor with drool leaking down my chin as I tried and failed to remember which button was the "a" key).

Then I decided to take a nap.

Oh, I know what I wrote in my last blog post. But you see, the guy who wrote that was Past Darren. And Past Darren is an asshole. He has no idea what I have been through today; I stood staring at a tree for ten minutes because it looked pixelated. For a minute there I thought I had sleepwalked my way into someones Minecraft session. So yeah, next stop: Nap Station Central. It was Nap o'clock. The main course was sleep with a side order of nap.

So life-like.

And so it was that our hero did indeed nap. And it was glorious.

Except for the Nightmare.

Oh, what? You thought I was done rambling on like an insane person? Well to use the familiar vernacular of our times, "Lol, rofl, and lmao!" Noooooo, I've just begun to ramble. For you see, I managed about 40 minutes of sleep before I woke in a pool of my own sweat (and possibly urine) because my insane brain decided to visit Freakish Visions of Horror and Madness upon me.

"Oh, so that's why you choose (pinched) that title from the esteemed Stephen King! And that explains why you've been spewing gibberish at us like Daffy Duck mid-rant with his mouth full!"

I thought that was plainly obvious at this point in the game. Come on, Castle, keep up.

In this Freakish Vision of Horror and Madness, I was with some people I don't now recognize, but in true dream fashion, it made perfect sense for me to be BFF's with them. There was some kind of party we were planning on throwing for another phantom friend that I don't really know. We went for supplies (booze, alcohol, and liquor. And Pop-Tarts) and when we got back to the dream house, we found all of the other party goers dead. Horribly dead. Dead like Amanda Bynes' reputation.

If that wasn't enough, one of my phantom dream friends had the brilliant idea to use a magic spell to reanimate the party-goers so that the fun could continue. And, I guess, help clean the mess up when it was all done. I don't know; dream logic is shaky at best.

We all proceeded to drag the bodies into a big pile, for reasons that I'm glad I didn't conjure in my fevered absurdity. A second phantom dream friend produced from a backpack a thick, leather bound book. Opening it with a dramatic gesture, he began to read (babble) words from an arcane language (Happy Potter pseudo-latin). The sky opened up and a hellish beam of green light smashed down into the pile of bodies. One by one, they moaned and arise to stand before us, their empty eye sockets aglow with the same green light.

And then the phantom dream friend spoke more gibberish, and I began to sweat wasps.

You read that correctly. I was sweating wasps. And they begin to sting me. And my phantom dream "friends" laughed at me as I screamed in terror and flailed about like someone covered in wasps. Hell, even the zombies let out a dusty chuckle here and there.

And then I woke up, all thoughts of ever sleeping again eradicated.

The Day that Nothing Happened

Or more accurately, the day Darren accomplished NOTHING.

Sadly, I won't be presenting a harrowing tale where I overcome unusual events. Nor will there be funny anecdotes involving things that happened at the gym; I didn't even hit the gym today.

Nope. Today was pretty much a waste. And I call do over.

Sometimes you have those days where you wake up, take one look at the world that exists outside of your bed, and say, "Hell with that." You then roll over, facing away from that horrible world, and return to a state of Bliss called sleep. Today was kind of like that, except I had to actually crawl out of my safe haven and enter the nightmare that is the waking world.

Once I had climbed to my feet, the first thing I noticed was my complete lack of energy and motivation to do *anything.* I tried to shrug it off; it being Monday, those feelings are expected. But apparently my "Don't give a fuck" hormone was kicked into overdrive, because the aforementioned lack of energy didn't go away.

I shuffled off to work in full on zombie mode, and stayed that way the whole time. All conversation was limited to a single monosyllabic grunt; I think I made an impression, because after the first half hour, my fellow drones left me alone. Good.

After work, I was supposed to go to the gym. But fuck that. I know, I know, I probably would have gotten a nice boost from hitting the weights, but for some odd reason I couldn't convince my legs of that and they ended up walking away from the gym and towards home. Stupid legs.

Once home, I was supposed to do some writing; my lazy ass muse finally did her job and gave me a little bit of inspiration for a short story. I'm four pages in thus far, and if you know anything about my creativity, you'll realize just how impressive that is.

Alas, instead of being productive, of working on my writing and moving ever closer to my goal of getting *paid* to write, my defective brain decided that spending several hours browsing the net would be a better use of my precious time. So there goes three hours of my day. On the plus side, I've confirmed that the internet not only still exists, but the troll population is in no danger of being an endangered species.

"We are Forever."

Then came the nap. It's almost never a good  idea for me to nap, because I rarely get any real rest from them. Rather, all I accomplish is throwing off my sleep schedule. I'm nocturnal by nature; some of my best friends are vampires (actually vampires, not sparkly fruit-cakes). My body naturally wants any excuse to stay up all night, even when I *know* it's not good for me.

It happened pretty much as I expected. I slept lightly for a couple of hours, woke up feeling just as tired as I was when I went down, and now my body thinks that it has the right to party all night.

But I have it fooled. I took one of those wondrous sleep aids about half an hour ago, and so I will be in a drug-induced state of fatigue. So what if I'll wake up in a zombie-like state of groggy that will persist for half the day. And who cares if I'll more than likely give into temptation and take another nap tomorrow, and thus prolong this cycle of no energy/no productivity? Who needs to accomplish goals? Fuck goals, I'm sleepy.

Another Tale of Horror from the Locker Room

I thought experiencing the gaggle of naked old men converging in the locker room was bad. But what I witnessed today tops that by a magnitude of over 9000.

"What, 9000?!"

I had just finished up my work out. It was chest day, so I was feeling extra manly. There were just a few people in the locker room when I entered; the benefits of hitting the gym at 11 in the morning is that there are relatively few people. Most gym goers arrive early in the morning or around 6 in the afternoon ( because they actually have stable, decent 9-5 jobs, I'd wager), so during that period of the day there are no crowds. No rushing to and fro, frantically seeking a bench. No standing in queue around the squat rack, watching some jackass do barbell curls (seriously, those guys SUCK). Just open spaces and and lots of free oxygen. It was beautiful.

I was in the process of getting changed when a guy walked in the locker room. This was a BIG man; he had to be close to 300 pounds, and not much of it was muscle. He was soaking wet, covered head to toe in sweat. His pudgy skin was beet red, and his face was puffed out like a puffer fish.

DISCLAIMER: Now, before I go on, I want to say that I'm not making fun of him or mocking him for his weight; I *will* be insulting him, but not for those reasons. I can respect someone trying to change they're lives for the better. He clearly needs to shed excess mass, and I admire his efforts in the gym.

So, the morbidly obese gentleman lumbered into the locker room, soaked in sweat. He arduously began to peel off his shoes and socks at a painfully slow pace; exhaustion may have had something to do with it, or the fact that he was wearing wet socks. Off came his shirt, and then his shorts. Then his underwear.

There he was, standing naked in the locker room; I can only thank God for small blessings. And large blessing, as the case may be, because his belly distended down past his junk, obscuring any brain-stabbing imagery. Or so I thought.

This man proceeded to take his saturated underwear and WRING OUT THE SWEAT ONTO THE LOCKER ROOM FLOOR. And then he put them back on.

I, along with the few others unfortunate enough to witness this atrocity, could only stare in absolute horror and disgust as he did this. The man then proceeded to open his locker, squeeze into his dry clothes (over his nasty, still moist blubber, mind you) and then exit the locker room with as much grace as he entered. He didn't even bother to dry himself off.

Oh, and the puddle of man-blob sweat was left on the floor.

My Grand Return to the Gym

As I was walking past the bathroom this past Saturday, I happened to glance at the mirror and caught a glimpse of myself. Not one of those careful examinations where I could use a cleverly crafted combination of denial and angles to convince myself that I *hadn't* picked up weight; you know, telling yourself  "Wow, it's this shirt that's making me look like I swallowed a beached orca."

No, I mean a quick, passing glance. The kind of view point a stranger would have of you if he or she were strolling past you on the street. In that split second, I caught a look at how I must appear  to other people; how I must look to myself before my ego rushes out of hiding with amazing alacrity to pull the wool over my eyes with sweet, reassuring lies.

I've picked up weight. Fuck.

I'm not fat, or morbidly obese. But I have picked up more weight than I'm comfortable with. Once I caught that brief glance, my eyes opened. My face is a little pudgier than before. When I turn, I can see my belly swelling into view; it has clearly become complacent and decided to stop being subtle about it's residence over my abs. Before, it was like the curvature of the Earth; it was there, but it had the decency to HIDE ITS FUCKING PRESENCE. But now it seems the bastard has said, "fuck subtlety, I'm here, bitches."

Today is July 9th. According to my exercise journal, the last time I visited the gym before today was May 14th. That's almost two whole months of me sitting around, being a lump of inert meat. Thinking back, I'm certain I had my reasons for this; there was the stress of working a part time minimum wage job, of being 30 years of age and stuck living with family rather than on my own, and school.

Surprisingly, school is the worse offender.

If I recall, the strain of frantically studying a jumble of math equations had something to do with my hiatus from the gym. I was so worried about passing that class; when I wasn't at working or commuting to class, I was studying. I guess it would be easy for anyone to slack off a bit here and there; that hour I planned on  repetitiously lifting heavy objects was sacrificed so that I could bleed from my eyes staring at math formula.

And of course, even after the quarter ended and I had all of this free time, I still sat around like a lump. And I paid for it; now here it is two months later, and I've gained 10 pounds.

Time to kick my complacency in the balls. I dragged my lazy self to the gym right after work, a mixture of shame and disgust stealing the spring from my steps. Now begins the long, slow climb back to getting in shape. 

BUT, having turned over a new leaf, I'm not going to be cynical about it. I'm not going to go through that mind state of loathing my body, of comparing it to everyone else, and of wishing it would all just magically get better. Nope, I've decided to embrace a positive state of mind. 

Instead, I'll look at my body as a work of art in progress. Being the awesome individual that I am, I deserve to have an awesome body as well. 

Now to make it so.

The Futility of Cynicism or Think Happy Thoughts!

You may want to take a seat, because I'm about to reveal a deep, dark, shocking secret. Are you ready? Here goes:

I'm a cynic. I'm probably one of the most cynical bastards you'll ever meet.

"But wait," some of you are probably muttering, "That makes no sense! How could Darren, who is one of the most handsome, intelligent, and humble human beings I know be a cynic?!! It's impossible!!"

"Madness!!"

I know it must come as a shock, but I'm afraid it's true. It's an affliction I've been dealing with for more years than I can remember. Sometimes, it wins the battle for my peace of mind, and I transform into a moody, cantankerous shell of a man; dementors would drop by for a snack, and then leave in a huff when they discovered that I was one of them. This state of being could last for days or weeks at a time, and then I gradually beat the zombie horde of negative thoughts back for a time, and I return to my lovable self.

For a long time, I actually took pride in my cynicism; I was being "realistic," looking at the world square in the face and saying "I see through all the bullshit, world. You suck!"
The world, for whatever reason, never responded to my criticisms.
And so, being the realistic person I was, I would go about my day, scoffing at the people who dared be optimistic about life, who had the nerve, the gall, to be happy! How dare they?!

For a long time, I hated those people.

It took a while, but I've finally moved past that kind of thinking. Oh, I'm still cynical; a lifetime of being ill-tempered can't be shaken off that easily. But I have made a startling transition in my thought process. It was something I just noticed today, in fact. I discovered that I'm no longer proud of my hard-earned cynicism. In fact, I hate it.

I know, right? It only took me thirty years to grow up a little.

I also realized that all those happy-crappy optimists that I loathed for such a long time weren't a source of ire. They were a source of envy. I envied them their happiness, they're smiles, and their light-hearted laughter. 

I've become cognizant of the fact that cynicism is ultimately futile. It's a lot like candy; it feels hella good to be nomming down on some sweetly bitter thoughts, but all you get in the end is cavities of the soul, as well as a fat ass and a sugar gut. It's a drain on your energy, your health, and your personal happiness. It restricts who you can become and what you can do with your day. In fact, it pretty much limits you in every aspect of life. Someone (I don't know who) once told me that the only difference between the successful and everyone else is cynicism; those who are truly successful in what they do, be it careers, relationships, or hobbies all have that one thing in common with each other: they aren't cynics.

There are no successful cynics.

Now, since I don't want to spend the rest of my days as an unhappy sack of crap, I've decided to turn over a new leaf, and think happy thoughts.

I'll just let the magnitude of that statement sink in.

Happy Independence Day, ya'll!!