The Football Fan’s Diet

By Matt De Reno
On The FFD

PITTSBURGH – I am showing some signs of success. I am mimicking quite closely the patterns that I developed last year when I went on that famed 16-day winning streak, yet to be repeated (even close for that matter). I know I am doing this because I have all this data from last year and I can see that I am quite clearly following in my fat tracks from last yer. Why I am doing it now versus some other time since, I am still trying to solve.

Because I am a complete moron and know very little about what makes me tick – is probably the reason.

Towards those ends, I am looking toward my end. No not my fat rear end, but my end as in “I am the end all and be all” of my health and the beginning for that matter. I think why I had success for such a prolonged period of time last year was because I simply got sick of not winning and willed myself on to a good 16 day winning streak of healthy living. But, I didn’t solve the problem of why I was fat to begin with.

With all apologies to The Great Bard: by the prickling of my fast food thumb, something greasy this way comes – and lots of it: burgers, hot dogs, donuts. The train goes on.

I still have not solved the crux of my unhealthy habits but I believe it is a deep inward journey that must be taken to deal with behavioral issues, which cause one to associate food with comfort. But, I can see why that prolonged, dare I say, daily sustainability of a healthy lifestyle rooted on bad mental linkages is nearly impossible to keep up.

I need to solve those personal issues at the heart of my health problem before I can live day in and day out as one sky is blue healthy and happy as any nut in the nut house football fan.

My focus has been on exactly that lately. I have been reading and surfing the net and generally finding comfort in the daily interactions of my family and work. I have even mediated. In doing so, I have to wonder if somehow I am affecting some sort of healing process for deep rooted wounds of which I am not fully aware?

Maybe I was abducted by aliens as a kid and they pencil-necked aliens took all my cotton freaking candy? Maybe some bully stepped on my corn dog? I do recall once my brother farting on my cereal bowl while feigning to bend over and change the TV channel. That couldn’t have perverted my relationship with food – could it?

I am not looking for something more. I am not filling a void with food and beer. It almost makes one think about all overweight people. Are all overweight people secretly unhappy people?

I won’t go on to make any judgments about anyone’s football franchise but my own. It is enough that I must manage my own healthy team. I have to get me ready to play the game of life in a healthy manner. I have to win that Super Bowl of Life.

So in the wake of my silly musings the past few posts, I leave this one at that: a more reflective pause as I continue to work hard during Week 5 of Preseason of The Football Fan’s Diet. Week 5 – already. Wow.

One change of significance I have made this week is go Au Naturel. No, I am not talking about running around the office buck naked. Hell, I surely don’t want the global divorce rate to go up any higher. What I am talking about is getting rid of a certain caloric level that says I must be under X to be healthy. I mean getting beyond I must not eat X or I am not healthy. I must not have more than X amount of beers. I must do X and then X and only then X. You get the point.

I am toying with the notion of the Au Naturel Daily Game Day objective. This is you say to yourself at the end of the day “Yes, I deserved a Touch Down for how I lived today.” Period. End of story. Okay, I still dole out field goals for exercising and beer. However, in the end, I truly will know when I was healthy.

Yesterday for instance. I didn’t need to measure anything. I just ate healthy, went to the gym, walked the dog and walked some more. I clearly knew at the end of the day that the day had been well spent. I deserved a touch down for it. I gave myself the touch down and when I stepped on that scale in the morning what do you freaking know? That scale went down baby. In fact, I have done this Au Naturel method for a several days know and it is working. My X is not happy about that. But, to hell with my X.