By Matt’s Inner Coach
On The FFD

PITTSBURGH – I have to hand it to this fat tub of guts. He put in an exceptional week to finish the preseason, the likes of which he has not done before. He essentially put up 70 points and goose-egged his Inner Fat slob with zeros across the board (or days). Just when I thought this guy was going to wimp out, he surprised the heck out of me.

Let’s quickly review what happened this preseason on Season IV of the Football Fan’s Diet….

Week 1: Win, 58-9

The Saints defeated the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV quite handily and Matt did the same by running roughshod over his Inner Fat Slob tallying 58 points and giving up only 3 fields goals, which really are beer drinking days according to this guy’s system. All in all, it was a great first week. Matt got out of the gate to a good start. This week was an A.

Week 2: Win, 37-27

For the most part, the success from the previous week continued. Matt hit the YMCA with regularity. I see the only beer day for a while occurred on Thursday of that week. However, at this point, the shit hit the fan.

Friday Matt got his ass kicked by his Inner Fat slob after he was up 4 days on the week.

Yes, he escaped with the win, but only because there were not more days to play in this game. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all losses. Friday in particular was very bad and unhealthy. In fact, it was down right dangerous. Matt drank way too much beer. Luckily, he was smart enough to walk home that evening from the local horse that ran him over.

Still, why did this guy go out and sabotage all he had worked hard for? The heart of champion was clearly missing. Champions don’t do things like that. Champions put up wins. This was giving up for a day and then packing it in the rest of the week. Even though Matt escaped with the win, there was nothing to really be proud of in my book. It came back to bite him in hte ass next week too. This week was a D. It would have been an F had he not won with 4 decent days prior to packing it in. Still, a win is a win.

Week 3: Loss, 23-38

This poor week was the direct result of the previous poor work ethic and dedication. I will say there were 2 days in there that were wins but all in all, the previous weeks loss proved a lingering dark cloud over this week. And, if we went back and included the last weekend with all 7 days this week, what a pathetic showing of loser football and health: only 2 winning days out of 10 possible! If you ask me, Matt should have taken the loss for the previous week as well. Grade for week D-.

Week4: Win, 47-14

Okay, this week, Matt came back. Monday appeared to be the last vestige of the pitiful 11 day stretch of poor eating and health to say nothing of wallowing in shame and feelings of inadequacy. This guy needed a wake up call and I think he started getting the message. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were 10-0 shutout days respectively. Yes, there was a loss on a Friday, but it didn’t involve beer and it was not a harbinger of more bad things to come. In fact, it was sort of remarkable in that it was an isolated score by his inner fat slob. On major issue Matt must work on is when he does give up a score, to go out and get that momentum right back. In years past and as the previous horrid week demonstrated, when Matt losses momentum he really looses it. The same pattern could well explain why this fat slob is prone to Yo-Yo dieting. He needs to learn, there will be days when his Inner Fat Slob runs it back for a score. The trick is to get the ball back and execute the game plan. Talent will overcome that Inner Fat Slob but only if Matt lets it. I give this fat slob a B+ for finally pulling out of the tailspin.

Week 5: Win, 70-0

This week Matt dominated his Inner Fat Slob like a true champion. Each day including those weekend ones, were goose eggs for his Inner Fat Slob.

In fact, never before had Matt put out such an offensive display while matching it with equally dominating defensive play. This was the best week this guy ever had on the Football Fan’s Diet. It is showing too.

The scale is going down for this guy. How much? Well, leave it for the end of the season, but I will say this: very impressive. If he can do this week in and week out, he will truly be the man he wants to be health wise. He will get that Super Bowl of health. However, now the regular season starts. It won’t be so easy now. And, in Season III, it should be noted, he got off to a great start but in the second half of the season, he feel into mediocre football and healthy living. His talent carried him to the playoffs but he was shot by the end of hte regular season. What will he do differently this time around? This was and A+ effort. Super Bowl champions put in weeks like this.

Overall Preseason Report Card

Matt gets a B+ for the preseason. The last week he put in was unprecedented. Were it not for that, his preseason report card was looking very average. Still, there is much work to be done for the Regular Season. It remains to be seen if he can put up many more performances just like last week. He will need to if he wants to hoist that Lombardi this year. There is much to be excited about. The potential is there. It is a matter of having the champions heart and dedication. Champions are made in the preseason. But, now the regular season is upon us. Time to get going.

PITTSBURGH – This is Matt’s Inner Coach here to review Week 3. Week 3 sucked. Matt can talk all he wants about his brain and that he is a monkey’s ass or whatever. He can talk all he wants about changing his head coach. It doesn’t change the fact that in Week 3 Matt got it handed to him. The health wheels had come off the Football Fan’s Diet.

As his Inner Head Coach, I can help him think of the game plan – the mental aspect of living a healthy lifestyle for guys that still want to enjoy football. You can like and enjoy football, TV, basketball, golf, whatever and still be healthy. It is possible. That is what the Football Fan’s Diet is all about. However, he still needs to do the damn thing. Something in him needs to make him do it. For crying out loud, this guy has every excuse in the world.

I am pissed at him about last week’s lost. I could see it coming like a fullback on third and short. He lost the last 3 days of Week 2 and that was as sign of a bad week to come. It came. It all stemmed from that atrocious effort from that disastrous Friday in Week 2. He got killed. He gave up. Then he got outscored 10 of the next 12 days. This coming on the heels of a 14-day winning streak!

I could kick his dumb ass sometimes. He can sit there and say he wants to read this new book or that – he needs to get in the game and start scoring. You score by taking it to your Inner Fat Slob. You score by going to the gym and making healthy choices. He should stay way from the beer for a while too. That Friday of beer was his doom.

Luckily, he has appeared to turn it around. The past three days have been shutouts. But, it is Friday. What is he going to do this Friday that will be different?

To be a champion, he needs to work like one now in the preseason. It will not get any easier in the regular season. And despite what he wants to do about his Inner Head Coach, he is stuck with his brain. Yes, I am his DAMN brain for better or worse. Ownership is not going to make a change, so he has to put the game plan into action.

Health is an elusive thing for this guy. He has the potential to be healthy day in and day out. We all do. You do to. He has to loose this fat slob identity and assume the identity of a champion. One loss in preseason does not a season make, but it is going to be a long season and there will be many weeks ahead. I am not saying there won’t be challenges, but if he works hard now, good things will happen. The talent is there. The motivation is there.

I am reminded of an old line from the Paul Newman film The Hustler. When Burt Gordon (George C. Scott) is asked if Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) can beat a certain fellow, he responds something to the effect “Yes, he can beat him. Will he beat him. That is a different question for Eddie.”

That is a different question for Matt. That’s it I am out of here. No more questions.

PITTSBURGH – I am happy to report that this tub of guts, Matt, showed a modest weight loss for last week, despite living like a pig from Friday to Sunday. We got the win, yes, but that weekend is cause for great concern.

Champions don’t stuff themselves and drink beer like this fat bastard did on Friday. Worse, he mailed it in and other than shoveling snow, did nothing so much as shovel food.

I am tough on this guy becuase he has potential. During Week 2, I didn’t necessarily see it. We got the win yes, but this guy set his expectations for the season lower than the last one. So that does not really impress me much. It’s time this guy gets up off of his fat ass and puts in a full week.

The work he does now, will pay off later. Any questions?

PITTSBURGH – Last week was a “Win” on the Football Fan’s Diet. Matt was able to hold steady. It inspired him to wax poetic – though as his Inner Health Coach, I am simply abhorred at the thought that this guy thinks he can be lyrical. What sort of pansy is this Matt? Well, here is his little ditty.

More snow is on the way. So they say. So they say.

Hey, what about today? Will I be healthy – yeah or nay?
Nay is not okay. Yeah would be gay.

The world is all but gray. Some new blizzard comes this way.

Holding steady I am. I will not sway.
Neither tomorrow nor today. This will be my way.

As the white falls. As the piles of white flakes grow. I will take my health from slow to whoa.
Now here I go – to shovel damn snow. Never a rest for me on the cursed FFD!

That about wants to make me puke!

Not entirely sure where that came from and what this says about this so-called “Football Fan.” I will say this: Last week was a most curious win for Matt becuase he had a lot of those “7″ point scoring days. I am half convinced that under my more strenuous guidelines last year, those “7s” would be losses. We are taking baby steps and getting better.

That is very good news. That means Matt can “live” on this thing. That means this is not a diet. He can actually make this a moderate lifestyle without feeling deprived of anything. Hey, he even had a couple six packs during the course of the week and yet he is showing a modest weight loss. That is what I have been after all along with this fat slob – you can have a little, not a lot.

This coming week I am a bit more inspired to push this bag of guts a little harder. You see I don’t want to make his super moderate goals de rigueur . I want Matt to get back into a role where he can kick it into high gear and really super charge his health system. This means I want to use this past week as the absolute moderate baseline from which Matt can push myself yet from which Matt can go back to should he get tired of hitting the gym and walking past the six pack refrigerator at the grocery store.

That is the plan for Matt in Week 2 of the Football Fan’s Diet. Press conference adjourned. Now, can somebody help shovel my car out?

Pittsburgh – It feels good to update this and that in itself is a victory. Since the last posting, I have got it handed to me. So bad, I am to the point I am going to alter history. Yes, that is right: I am going to start this thing again – one last time. I have to. I must. I simply can’t have a such a nasty streak tarnish what surely will be a Super Bowl year. Of that, I am convinced.

I will say the past couple days has been one of focusing on whole Matt system, including how I get things done, what I am doing, where I am going in life, the whole Shebang. I like to think in that respects I am closer to a Universal Theory of Matt, but I am not. I do not, this new inner focus is different than what I have had before so maybe that in itself will be enough to right the ship not just once but for all.

That remains to be seen. So tomorrow, I will begin a combine week. On Monday, the whole shebang starts again for how many times I am too embarrassed to count. But such is life on The Football Fan’s Diet.

PITTSBURGH – Yesterday I had my first lost of Season IV on the Football Fan’s Diet. I lost my way for a day. I went over my Daily Game Day Objective and blew it. How do I get back on track with my health plans? Isn’t that the real trick?

To do so, we must analyze why we went off track to begin with. In this case, it was the “woe is me” blues. To be more specific, I had this sense of marginalization. Marginalization puts you in the margins of the paper so to speak. You feel like you make little difference. I think in the course of human emotions we all experience such feelings on occasion with varying degrees of intensity.

Yesterday was one of those days for me and the feeling was intense. I simply felt like what I was doing, this diet, my other web sites, my personal goals, were marginal – a joke! Ouch. Woe is me. Go ahead Inner Fat Slob and score? You got me in the wrong defense yesterday.

Today, I feel differently. I am ready to take on the challenges with a bit of perspective. I simply must do, will do, and I just might beat your ass if I am motivated enough. I call these days “Kickoff Return Team” Days.

Just like in real football, The Kickoff Return Team takes the field after you give up a score. Your Inner Fat Slob must kick the ball back to you. You will get the ball. You have to ask yourself: what will you do with the pigskin on this new drive? Will it be 3 and Out? Will it be a fumble? Will it be a pick 6?

The whistle just blew. The kick is high and in the air. Today’s game has started….

High Diddle Diddle, Health Up The Middle!

PITTSBURGH – It is a remarkable start to the season to have a week without any daily losses so early. Comparing this feat to the Season II chart, it wasn’t until Week 2 of the Regular season that I notched the first week without any daily losses. Now it should be noticed that I never quit did get a “shutout”. That would be holding my Inner Fat Slob to 0 for the week. The best I ever did was hold my Inner Fat Slob to 3 points. I did that twice last year and that was it. As for scoring the maximum points of 70, I did that 4 times.

Enough with all of that. I have to go the the gym today.

I should finish this posting by stating that it appears my irritability is gone. I actually feel even keeled for a change. I am convinced that overindulging food wreaks havoc on your mood as well. It is my hope I can tap into some of this “even keeled” feeling and get a lot of work done this week. And, I’m sailing.

PITTSBURGH – Yesterday we did a lot of bending but didn’t break and got the shutout. We tallied up the most points possible on our version of the Football Fan’s Diet: 70. Granted it is only preseason, bu this score essentially means we exercised or got some form of physical activity for 7 consecutive days and hence kicked 7 field goals (21 points). We met our daily game day objective, which is stay under approximately 1,700 net calories (calories minus calories burned during exercise), each day for a total of 49 points. Sunday we exercised the “Maintenance Day” and met our goals on that day as well.

We gave up 3 field goals and no touchdowns. This means we drank beer on 3 days but stayed under our daily game day objective nonetheless. That is bending, but not breaking my friends.

The “Maintenance Day” theory was tested for the first time and it worked. In case you forgot, the “Maintenance Day” is one day out of the week where you can select a Daily Game Day Objective that “preserves the progress” you have made during the week.

Matt stepped on the scale today and held what he worked hard to accomplish during the week. That is the scale didn’t go up. That is what we ask for on a “Maintenance Day.” In many respects, the “Maintenance Day” served as a release valve for a lot of pent up healthy lifestyle irritability. That irritability is gone this morning. Early Sunday it was boiling over. However the maintenance day served its purpose beautifully. It blew out that irritability yet still preserved the losses from the week.

Last season this was a major issue, which we are trying to rectify. You see, so many consecutive days of reduced calories to loose weight would often lead to one day were cravings were so strong that they resulted in a loss. Then momentum was lost and usually a string of losses to Matt’s Inner Fat Slob would follow.

What we did this season to alleviate that is the “Maintenance Day.” This is one day a week, where you can simply opt to preserve the work you have done be healthy and lose weight but not necessarily anything more than that. But, one preseason week does not a season make!

Matt has a lot of work to do still and it starts with getting mentally prepared for what this week’s opponent might bring to the table (literally, in terms of food). So Matt will continue to exercise, mediate and be active. That’s all for today folks.