The Fat Piece of Shitting Continues. Although, I’m not sure that I have anything too enlightening to say. I’m headed for either another Pilates class this afternoon, or a “Body Attack” class. I feel like the classes have been the most interesting and helpful arrangements for me; and the days when I went in and just tramped up and down on that elliptical have more been testaments to my willpower, which is to say, my willingness to get inside the gym, and prioritize my mental and physical health, on days where I probably would have preferred to stay inside or in bed, writing or perhaps just moaning and groaning and milking my depression for all it is worth.

Overall I have noticed a nice little progression in my mood and vitality and little to no progression in my body. Maybe I have lost a pound; since I refuse to weigh myself on a daily basis, I’ll never know. Could I do this for a year - go to the gym every day? I feel like I could, but my biggest fear is that it could inspire some sort of total vapidity in me, an emphasis on my physical well-being and appearance over my intellectual development and contribution to society at large. I don’t know; perhaps if I was being paid to excercise, then I could justify it. I simply don’t know. My dentist told me today that I looked much younger than 33. Then she hastily said, “I’m not a cougar! I can’t date you.” She is 52, for the record. And very pleasant.

The short moments of joy that seem to come with the workouts seem to be the most important and memorable facets of the “regular workout” experience. I think if this project were expanded, as in, I was sent to Miami Beach, got a trainer, took a few steroids, got my teeth bleached, received hair implants although I don’t need them, and went to tanning booths and tried to pump Latina figure models in clubs, then I might have an interesting project. I’d actually have to be older, and a fatter piece of shit, in order to make this very interesting. So, tell you what - let’s shelve it until 2017, when I’m forty. I’ll get a public vasectomy, a tummy-tuck, start mainlining fish oil, call up Mickey Rourke and get the name of his plastic surgeon, and visit Jose Canseco at his summer estate to start sucking the juice out of his blumped-up steroid triceps. A Year of Bodily Debauchery.

. . .

Speaking of steroids, this is almost so disgusting I can’t watch it.

A li’l home surgery on the steroid-pus-filled bicep, by Greg Valentino.

It’s official: I’m happier and more energetic now that I’m going into the gym for a workout every day. I swear to God. I don’t think I’ve lost a single pound, probably because I eat way, way more now that I feel like I “deserve it,” but I’m high as an elephant on ‘dorphins, and I intend to stay this way.

Maybe I should become a trainer or something equally moronic! I wonder: have I unwittingly made myself into a depressed schlub for most of my adult life because I’ve been endlessly wringing my rather ordinary little brain, like a greasy towel, attempting (mostly unsuccessfully) to coax some sort of writing or art out of it? What if I had thrown myself, as I am throwing myself now, into a simple little gymnasium and just concentrated on making the veins in my neck and biceps stand out in bas-relief?

It’s a thought, but then, that’s all it is: a thought, and I can’t spend too much time thinking these days, because that’s not my focus; being a JOCK is my focus. And a disciplined jock. No less.

For those of you out there who are interested, I thought you might like to hear about the daily diet of an official fat piece.

Breakfast:

Coffee is important

About three glasses of water

Some juice: Papaya, Mixed Berry, Orange, or Tomato. I drink it mostly for taste, not nutrition.

Vitamin C? Maybe so. Vitamin B, if I have an open sore inside of my mouth. Vitamin B cures that.

Peace Cereal with frozen blueberries and half a banana and some yogurt. Some brown sugar is also an option. Or, if I can’t find the appropriate cereal, then I might toast two pieces of whole grain bread, schmear some cream cheese up on that bastard, cut up part of a red onion, find some capers, then take out a pickled red pepper or an honest-to-god homemade pickle, maybe a spoonful or two of cottage cheese, and we’re good. Breakfast is my healthiest meal of the day.

Actually, lunch is healthy too. When I’m working, I take my lunch on the road, and it is:  a bag of baby carrots, a bag of red grapes, some walnuts with some espresso chocolate (dark), half a homemade pickle (I pickle stuff, and make my own kimchi! The Fat Piece of Shit loves his Kim Chi so don’t even start with me), a turkey sandwich with light mayonnaise and Grey Poupon mustard and lettuce and maybe a piece of ham, about a knuckles’s worth of salami (I slice it at home, because my first two teeth are false - I can’t rip meats or breads without worrying - I would do badly in the wild or in the movie The Road - my real teeth are shaven down to accomodate the crowns, and look like they belong to hamsters). Then I always pack a Cliff Bar, and I also keep a pear and two clementines in the bottom of my bag. Sometimes they get eaten and sometimes they don’t. Yesterday was slow at work so I went out and got a green tea from Starbucks (Zen green, from Tazo) and also went to Brueggers, to have a salt bagel with cream cheese.

Dinner is where I really start to fuck up; that, and my nosh that I need to have before I go to bed (noshing before bed helps me sleep uninterruptedly, is my theory; I crave uninterrupted sleep more than I crave anything else in my life even young willing female flesh, because without uninterrupted sleep I am a terrible walking horrid zombie, and without young willing flesh I am merely a miserable horndog. Which I can live with.)

Dinner is whatever’s available: maybe some cold green beans and a cold breast of chicken with some couscous and a dollop of Grey Poupon mustard, and three glasses of water. Maybe some cold crab cakes and a cold scoop of brown rice, and some homemade kimchi (also, of course, cold). If I’m lucky then we throw some soup into the mix (green pea; toss some white vinegar and parmesan cheese into that mix, or maybe just throw a slice of mozarella in there and let it melt and affix partially to the spoon). Lately I’ve been having odd, weird dinners, like eggs with salami, or grass-fed beef that hits the barbeque for way less time than necessary, coming out red and purple and making it almost impossible for me to eat with my weird false teeth. Everything’s been coming out cold. Dessert is often a diced green apple with Trader Joe’s European yogurts and pine nuts, topped with brown sugar or honey; or, substitute an organic grapefruit for the apple, and cottage cheese for the yogurt; keep the brown sugar (Domino.)

Then it’s off to watch TV, or catch up on my Twittering, maybe walking outside in the January thaw to think about things, but mostly not, mostly staying inside; and then, like I say, I have to have a little nosh before I go to bed. This may be the only time in the day when food really tastes GOOD: it always tastes great right before bed! I favor Carr’s Table Water Crackers, schmeared with cream cheese (I’d put butter on there too, but right now the butter’s in the refridgerator, not my choice, rendering it unspreadable). Cutting up a few cloves of garlic is a great choice, and delicious; a capful of Extra-virgin olive oil and maybe a few leaves of smoked salmon, plus some halved plum tomatoes makes this “snack” go on for days. At this point we have to put the water away and go for something a lot tastier (the tomato juice is a good choice for this moment, especially if there is a lemon around to squeeze in for zest). A dash of tabasco sauce in the tomato juice is often delicious; and a few twists of ground pepper over the Carr’s crackers works like a charm. If there’s some random deliciousness lurking in the back of the refridgerator, now is the time to work a bit harder and discover them: last night, for instance, I found some barbequed pork and ate delicious niblets of it straight from the white plastic tub. Since it’s late, it’s important to use as little cutlery and dishes as possible; a swig of milk, then a swig of orange juice, straight from the carton, can provide the right counterpoint the foods you’ve been porking out on.

Finally it’ll be time for me to put the foods away, and go brush my teeth. Sleep is coming. And so is the breaking day.

I took a shower this morning, looked in the mirror, and thought to myself, “Damn, boy: You look good.”

I wasn’t looking like my 22-year-old self, exactly, but my pudge seemed somehow melted down. My trapezius less rumpled. My complexion, perhaps, even a bit clearer: I felt like a vital organism. A knight, you might say, in the modern world.

The sensation lasted for the whole length of the shower. And then when I got out and looked at myself again, I had somehow ballooned out to normal size, and my normal walking state of mild depression swiftly restored itself.

That was a glorious five minutes, though.

Is that what we’re working for? Glories that last five minutes? If so, this whole taking-care-of-myself thing hardly seems worth it.

Actually, even if I can’t see any physical changes, I’m beginning to like this experiment. It feels empowering to me. I hit the gym last night after work and basically just paced up and down on the elliptical like a crazy person for about an hour. Did a little bit of lifting, but it didn’t amount to much: no, I was just one of those crazy people on the elliptical, swinging my arms about in the air, watching local news and then basketball (Kansas was defeated by Tennessee! I was in ecstasies. Sherron Collins is a tough little fucker, but he even he couldn’t derail Tennesee as they had the hot hand, momentum, and HCA on their side), breaking a sweat and then finding my endorphins.

Excercise is a great thing, mostly because it gets you high/makes you happy. It is a cure for depression, I really believe that. If you focus too much on the fat piece of shit side of things, no, excercise isn’t going to make you happy (unless you are a really driven son of a gun, like the Japanese trainer Koriko who I keep on seeing at the gym, who actually works hard enough to make change. She is a curious case, at least 40 and there’s no piece of meat on her brisket that’s not totally leaned out. She’s a weird looking troll of a woman, with blunt-cut black bangs and strong, ham-hock like legs . . . her face is purposeful and driven, and her clothes 100 percent spandex, all the time . . . Koriko has issues, but then, Koriko doens’t care, because she’s high as fuck on endorphins.)

And that’s what I’m talking about: I think I’m realizing that the goal of working out everyday is to be high as fuck on endorphins. Having to get into the gym gives you a purpose in life (you can’t just laze around and wack off all day - because you need to get into the gym before work - so that puts a pep in your step); and once you get in the gym, the blood gets going and the muscles receive stimulus and the brain gets a little bit of extra synapses popping - and all of a sudden you feel great. That’s what I’m about. Feeling good. I might appear a simpleton to others - giving smiles where it is inappropriate - but I’ll sacrifice my integrity, and happily, for a bit of pure, untrammeled, idiotic, senile happiness.

The hardest thing about this challenge so far has been actually making it to the gym. I do hold down a respectable job and also need to sleep eight hours a night minimum. I’m also addicted to watching college basketball and have a small problem trolling the internet. Add in trying to get a date with the girl who works the front desk where I am employed and you have a busy little man, wrapped up in his own pointless existence! How do workout fiends manage, anyway?

One of my hopes in doing this little excercise is that I actually GAIN energy and manic ability, via the working-out process. My whole life I have had the constitution of someone who is driven, yet lethargic. I’m not someone who smiles before 1:00 P.M. It has never happened once in my adult life. Nor am I the person whose to-do list is full-to-bursting with volunteer opportunities, laundry sessions, a quick drink with the girls, get my balls waxed, and so on. No. During many of the days in this last four years, my to-do list has read: “Write.” Even having a dinner appointment for 7:30 PM has proven so much of an irksome wrinkle that I’ve been forced to throw in the towel and chalk the day up to a total waste.

But getting into the gym these past two days has turned out to be an eye-opening experience, indeed! I can see myself slowly metamorphosing into one of these energetic southern belles, bright-eyed and moronic to the extreme!, with whom I grew up. Soon I will be leading the aerobic classes myself; but then, I am getting ahead of myself.

Day 2 was spent in a Pilates class. This baby was actually harder than the Les Mills Body Pump class that I took on Day 1 at my local gym, Frog Fitness. I felt like a true Fat Piece of Shit lying there on the cold mat in a very Cold room (it is cold outside, and, at Frog Fitness, it is cold inside). It did not help my cause that, all around me, there were persons in superior condition for whom this class was a breeze. I creaked my way through the postures - Pilates is challenging!

But I soon realized that I was in the right place. For it is my singular goal to improve and reduce my swelling-Ethiopan-baby-boy belly during this seven-day regimen in workout hell. I am not interested in bigger arms nor tighter ass-cheeks. My ass-cheeks are already outrageously tight and in all likelihood have earned me the jealousy of all the gay men at Frog. No; it’s this fat-ass Ma Belle that I’m lugging around like it’s a child, which I will birth through my poo-hole.

Okay then.

I got through the class; and appreciated what it did for me. It was far too early to be working out (11:00 AM!) but I had to get to work soon afterwards so I was forced to make this daybreak appointment. Had a terrific headache and actually had to get up with ten minutes remaining in the class, tip-toe my way through a haphazard mess of aging but core-fit bodies, trudge defeatedly to my locker, and dry-swallow a handful of Advil. I made it back for the warm-down (the godless Pilates version of Shavasana).

. . .

Came back to the house that evening and decided that I may have a mild form of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. After all, I am considering a “Mommy Makeover” to get rid of my spare tire, am I not? I decided to find some of my fellow soldiers, so I joined a “pro-ana” site called Prettythin.com. Very depressing! I am not pro-anorexia, I decided, after checking into Prettythin.

It is a sad sort of site, where the members name themselves things like “Too Thin to CaRe” and “Striving_for_Perfection” and “WannaBThin.” I sort of have made my living for the past very long time making fun of sacred cows, but even I cant’ get much enjoyment out of ridiculing teenage girls whose self-concepts are so twisted up in the getting skinny process. Member submissions consist largely of self-portraits and “thinspiration,” pictures of women in the media who meet their body ideal.

This picture of Nicole Richie garnered the comment “I want to be her soo bad she is perfect” from Em_Will_Be_Thin and “She is perfect” from Chubby.

Dyingtobethin called this picture “Beautiful.”

Besides “thinspiration”, there is also something called “Scenespotation”, which is for girls who follow the emo/indie/alt scene. An interesting subset of the pro-ana lifestyle.

Then there is Bitchspiration

which I would assume is intended to empower, but I’m not it did with this girl, because her next picture is

Comment:

I REALLY like this one but its kinda creepy that she has no mouth. lol. It kinda speaks to you though. With us being ana we may as well NOT have mouths in the eating since, and We (the colective “us” of the site) are always thinking to ourselves ” Your Fat, You dont need that” and things simular. I know the Ana voice in my head is like a mother scolding her fat child, “Thats bad for you, STOP!!! No you cant have that, Maybe if you were good then you could have this.” Maybe if I were good I could fit into the clothes I used to. Lol, srry for the mini rant but I REALLY like this pic and It speaks to me poetically. thanks

It’s weird, but I actually like the whole premise of these sites, to be honest — they create a community for people who feel marginalized and lost. The whole question of anorexia and eating disorders is such a complex one. I mean, you wish that you could tell teenage girls, “Don’t spend your time on these sites, you’re beautiful how you are,” but then they receive rewards and recognition from becoming thinner, so the words do ring hollow. Besides, have you ever met a teenager who would listen to advice that you gave them? People have a mind of their own, and I would say those who tend towards the kind of personality that might have an eating disorder might be more stubborn than most.

And as a whole, the whole premise of the site is so perverse - it’s mostly predicated on sharing pain, being public with your agony. I love things like that: a bit socially unacceptable, has an aura of secrecy and agony about it. With the web becoming more and more a part of the daily fabric of our lives, I think we need to cling stubbornly to the few remaining nests of sites that have any sort of late-night, share-heavy, refuge-from-reality sense to them at all - the way that,  say, diaryland used to feel back in 2001 or so.

Thinandtall: All my life, i have struggled with my weight, but now that i am going to college in boston, i want people to see me in a new way! Being thin and gorgeous and thin will help me gain confidence and make me feel soooo much better about myself!

Pana: Hey girls for all of you fasting go to my blog–www.pana34.blogspot.com, then message me for the password good luck!!

PorcelainPrincess: I am looking for princesses just like me so we can motivate each other to reach our goals!!! Ana has been part of my life for 12 years, and I just can’t live without her. I Recently got out of the hospital for the third time in a row so they just fattened me up!! I’m desperate! Plz anyone who wants to join forces and be diet buddies add me!!!

blue.lips: i’m meghan, i had bulimia. i thought i was better, i deleted my account. i’m have over whelming feelings im not sure if i miss this or i need something to support me. but i’m back. i havent purged yet.  but i know i need to be on this site, i need you.

. . .

Yeesh! That got pretty serious, pretty fast. I don’t know.

Maybe I’m touching on this stuff to remind myself of how fortunate I actually am, to be able to just joke about my self-concept and how “fat” I actually feel. These are the people I truly feel compassion for (and I don’t feel compassion for hardly anyone) - I honestly wish them best luck on their journey (though that and fifty-five cents will buy them a bus ticket . . .)

(And as a side note, I’m realizing how badly the fact that one, I used to be a pornographer, and two, I have all these foul cartoons up on my site, is undermining my one minute of compassion for teenage girls with eating disorders. But I do feel it . . and it is real.)

On most opening days, we see our hero struggling in a pool of sweat, wishing he could die, feeling more of a fat piece of shit than ever before, and nearly giving up. My own first day was significantly less dramatic. I hit up the Body Pump class at my local gym, Frog Fitness. My teacher was a new mom (she’d given birth to twins only seven weeks previous) and was about 37 years of age. She was good-looking enough. Pale-skinned. Nice teeth. Straight-cut bangs. Moles on her white skin, non-cancerous, of course!

Around me were two gentlemen, one about 50 years of age and looking pretty healthy, and one a bearded muskrat who was about my age, but fatter.  (Yes!) We represented the only testicles in the class. It was 5:30 PM and cold as Alex Rodriguez’s bald nuts in a cup of frozen Lipton. I hate January and I hate winter.

Several sexy young women dotted the class. Out of strict moral principle, I tried not to look at them in the mirrors the whole time. I have a bad habit of being a mirror-stalker, and I could tell these girls didn’t want to be stared at. For most young women, sadly, classes are simply about excercise, not a long-yearned for chance to show off their killer gams. In fact, one thing I’ve noticed about young girls is that they don’t even really understand how hot they are. I didn’t understand how hot they were, when I was their age; but being older, I now have a good perspective on how perfect a 20 year old’s skin is, and how bouncy her perfect tits are and how much fun we would have in a naked sauna environment, were I ever able to convince her to jump in one with me. This being my first time in a Body Pump class, I kept my mouth shut, eyes ratched forward, and just tried to do the things my enthusiastic, pale-skinned 37-year-old instructor told me to.

None of it was too hellish. I couldn’t do some of the “squats”, but really, I don’t care. I am not looking for all-over balance. I am just not INTERESTED in my legs, butt, arms, or anything else being toned. None of that stuff. All I’m interested in is getting rid of my belly. I have focused on it like a laser. I have joined a pro-ana website. (Kidding) And I am glad to report that I think we burned some fat off its lumpen-proletariat structure, but I cannot be sure. Will look at it for a long time before I shower tonight. (And then will subscribe to pro-ana website.)

By the way, one of the worst things about being a fatboy is looking at yourself in the morning. I don’t know about you, but I always feel slightly disgusting and queasy in the mornings, and the last thing I need to stare at is a gross version of myself. And yet I turn the water on, wait for it to get hot - and there it is. Reflected back at me: Fatboy, pale and haggard. That’s really not what I need to see in the early AM. (I hate to sound like Cathy Guisewhite here. That is not what I am intending. God help me.)

Can we rig up a “smart mirror?” We have “smart televisions” - I wouldn’t mind looking a lot better in a “smart mirror” (tanner, for instance; or even just kind of blurrier) than I do in real life. You could deceive me, present a basically pixellated verison of myself, and I’d be way happier for it. This is an idea.

Tomorrow I have work, so I have to get up at the ungodly hour of 9:00 AM to make my Pilates class at Frog Fitness. My teachers is going to be the same new-mom as taught today. She was certainly cheery; I think there is something wrong with her.

. . .

Maybe I will get a good idea out of this thing - as in, something to write about in the “experiential journalism” vein. One week is good for an article; but one year is good for a book. I wonder, would anyone pay for me to go to an adult fat farm? Do they even exist?

Here’s my thought: Wouldn’t a tummy tuck be easier than freakin’ workin’ out? Wouldn’t it ultimately last longer?

Because here’s the thing: even if I lose like eight pounds by going to a Les Mills Body Pump class for seven days straight and then vomiting straight-up lactic acid into the toilet at Frog Fitness (that’s my gym!), won’t I just gain that weight back? And even more important, yes, I might lose some weight, but isn’t my real problem that my stomach has fallen?

Let’s revisit a picture of a typical rectus abdominis:

Now that’s freakin’ beautiful. (All of these “freakin’s” are coming because I’ve just finished watching an episode of “Jersey Shore,” my second most favorite show on television; my favorite? Oh, just Bad Girls Club. Just the best show ever created.)

Now we’ll see a freakin’ picture of Fatboy:

And then we’ll talk about a Tummy Tuck.

I think it’s simple to see that this is the way to go. This is also known as the “Mommy Makeover.” Do you think that name would scare me off? Hell no it wouldn’t. I’m a vain little man. However, the problem here is that an Abdominoplasty apparently costs like $4,000 - $20,000, and in this type of economy, not even Dick “Tits” Cheney can come up with that kind of money on such short notice. Still, a boy can dream, can’t he.

I wonder if there are any other short cuts that I could take, that would avoid my obvious coming failure in the gym. I mean, it’s not that I hate to go to the gym - in fact, I really love it  in there (can’t wait to write about my gym, Frog Fitness! It’s a true piece of shit); it’s more that I know I am going to fail on this vision quest, partially because I am still holding fast to my refusal to change my diet in any way (I love bread!), and partially just because I’m old. 99% of us guys who are coming into our middle thirties have this Hefty Cinch Sak tied our midsections. Why should I be any different?

I have forged an alliance with a man named Mr. DoBad, the managaing editor at SexIs magazine. Today we had a brainstorming session. Amidst the storm, he informed me that he was seeking articles on The Body.

I said, “The male human body?”

He nodded, over the phone, where I could not see him. Then he repeated, “Yes, the Body.”

I have always maintained a strong interest in The Body, and more specifically, in my the Body. I am interested in how I look. I always have been.

I used to have a rigid and stiff Body; now, I am an aging Fat Piece of Shit; and the walls of my rectus abdominus have fallen. Let’s compare a picture of me (because I am a narcissist) when I was 26 years old to a picture of me in the present, when I am 33 years old. Try not to vomit, here.

26 years old - in Santa Clarita, CA

Fat Piece of Shit Mode, 33 years of age

As you can see, we have a Pork Belly problem going on. I could have chosen more unflattering pictures, even, but my own vanity will not permit me to showcase the more graphic, and disturbing, images my own sloth and abiding love of bread/bread products has granted me.

My own fatness has caused me some internal pain and ego hemorrhaging over the last couple of years. It’s an undeniable reminder that I am getting older. It’s a gross memento of my entrance into my mid-thirties. It’s extra pounds, and it’s a warm ring around my belly that makes my clothes look considerably less areodynamic. I do not like my Pork.

So Mr. DoBad had this idea: “Why don’t we send you on a kind of experiential-journalism take on your own Body? Why don’t you do something weird, like go on a diet, lose some weight, or at least try to, and write about the process?”

I said no, no no. I do not “diet.”

For as much as I dislike my belly, and the adjoining fatness that may roll around the rest of my body, like my fat-ass bloated face, I truly hate to watch what I eat. I would rather die than go on a diet. Seriously, I would rather feel like a pink squealing piglet than agonize over pieces of lettuce and count calories. It’s just not me.

However, I have nothing against the idea of a challenge. So, we hit upon a compromise: I would go to the gym every day for a week.

And then I would write about THAT.

Pretty fucking wild, huh?

Well, that’s me - I live close to the edge. In everything I do.

I am going to go to the gym - starting tomorrow - and I will make it there every single day for the next seven days. I will report upon my experiences. I am going to a Les Mills Body Pump class tomorrow at 5:30 PM. I will pull this belly back. I will lose some weight. I will acknowledge my vanity, and greet it like a gentleman, and in doing so, I will become the 33 year old man I’ve always wanted to be.

This will be great fun.