The diet’s been going great. The first couple of days is all about starving. You (or at least I) spend all day thinking about the next meal. After a couple of days that constant longing for food goes away. It doesn’t take quite so much food to make you full, and you don’t spend so much time thinking about it. Eventually you get so bored with it all that a grilled chicken sandwich sounds as good as a chicken fried steak sandwich. It’s not, in reality, it’s just your mind getting back into that mode of “food for survival” instead of “for enjoyment” mode.

After six or seven days straight of walking a mile each night, my back has completely given out on me. I mean, completely. The past two days have become a semi-steady stream of back pills, aspirin, and heat patches. My lower back hurts like when I got hit by the truck. It hurts severely to even walk around the house, and the longer I sit the more it hurts when I walk. About every ten steps my back spasms, my knees buckle and I wonder whether or not my back is going to completely collapse. Transversing the living room obstacle course has become a slow, cautious series of shuffles.

Even though the diet’s going well, it’s going to be difficult to win the weight loss contest without being able to exercise.