Next month, I will be turning 39-years-old. I was hoping that my body wouldn’t fall apart until the age of 40, but it doesn’t look like that will be the case. It all started with some weird “finger tremors”. Occasionally, one of my fingers will just start twitching. Whenever they do this, they hurt like I’ve popped my knuckles too hard. After searching Google I was pretty sure I had Parkinson’s or something. The last time I saw a doctor, I mentioned it to him and he said, “sounds like carpel tunnel to me.” Then I told him it couldn’t… (read more)

I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is beardie. A bit scraggly in this photo, I have been growing beardie for essentially this entire NBA season, from around Christmas time until, well, today. Here are some of the nice things my wife has said about beardie: “It’s itchy.” “You look like you’re homeless.” “You make too much money to look like that.” “There’s milk in your beard and it smells funny.” (That last one was from this morning.) With the NBA season now over I had run out of excuses, and this morning I did… (read more)

Over the past week I’ve had two different friends ask me details about my Lapband surgery — how the surgery went, how things are going, and would I recommend it. When I mentioned this coincidence to Susan, she pointed out that I haven’t blogged much about my surgery at all (which is unlike me). So, for my friends, and for you, here is my “three-month Lapband update.” I had Lapband surgery on December 3rd, 2007. It’s an easy date to remember; it was nine years (to the day) that I got hit by a truck. December 3rd has become my… (read more)

I wonder how many times that old pun has been used? Oh well. Here are three quickies. * Yesterday was day four of our nine-day meatless detox period, although I have to admit we’ve snuck tiny amounts of meat into two meals now. To give you an idea of our mindset, the other night Susan fixed some “vegetarian fajitas” (for lack of a better word) and in with the mix she diced up half a chicken breast and threw it in — and afterward, we felt guilty for eating it. That’s wrong. Last night I had a salad from Sonic… (read more)

This weekend, Susan picked up Dr. Ian’s (host of VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club new diet book. I haven’t read it, which, by the way, does not appear to be a prime requesite for being held to its rules — one must merely be married to someone who has read the book, which is my fate. The diet begins with a detox period lasting 9 days, during which one can only eat fruits and vegetables, beans, eggs … I think that’s it. Oh, and oatmeal. So, breakfast consisted of a bowl of oatmeal, and lunch consisted of two plates of salad… (read more)

The funny thing about diets is that although they start at a specific point in time, they never end at a specific time. When you start a diet, a line is drawn in the sand. “By God I’m never eating a cookie again — starting tomorrow!!” But they never end that way, do they? I can’t ever remember saying, “starting next Tuesday I’m going to start eating crap!! It’s chocolate cake for me at every meal, baby!” It’s always easy to know when a diet starts, but it’s harder to tell when exactly you fell off the horse. For a… (read more)

I’ve decided that when it comes to dieting, it’s an “all or none” situation for me. Reason being, if you only do it half the time, you end up not losing any weight and you’re still miserable half the time. If you do it all the time you’re still miserable but at least you lose weight.

For lunch yesterday I had the all you can eat Soup, Salad and Breadsticks special at Olive Garden ($5.99). It wasn’t bad — I ate a lot more salad than I did soup or breadsticks. The service was actually pretty good this time. Last time we tried it, apparently Olive Garden had decided that one round of soup, salad and breaksticks was “all we could eat.” For dinner, I had chicken chow mein and white rice. White rice is kind of like fried rice, except tasteless. The chicken chow mein was good; it had enough chicken to keep the chow… (read more)