They Should Call It the South Bitch Diet

So a few months ago I had just gotten home from playing hockey with my Dawgs team, and I was feeling worse than I ever had after a game. I was exhausted, my arthritic knees were killing me, and I had played like warmed-over shit. Saves that used to be routine were now really hard, and I just didn't have the same old jump.

I thought to myself, "Is this it? Are you finally getting to the part where you can't do this anymore? You're 50, for Christ's sake- it's going to have to happen sooner or later."

Then, just on a whim, I jumped on the scale in the bathroom. I hadn't weighed in for almost a year, because I normally avoid that thing like the Black Death. The scale and I have always had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But it was right there, and for some reason, I needed to know what the damage was.

So I crossed my fingers, and stepped on. I looked down at the dial, and it said "tilt". That may have been a bad sign. So I stepped on again. The dial went back and forth, back and forth, until the needle finally settled on:

Drum roll, please...

202.

Have you ever seen "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"? There's a part where Cameron looks at the odometer of his dad's Porsche, and discovers that the guys in the parking garage put three hundred miles on it, and his dad is going to kill him when he gets home. You can hear him scream all over Chicago- it's funnier than shit.



Well, that's kind of what happened after I made sure that number on the scale was right. Yep, it really said 202, and nope, I didn't have an anvil shoved up my ass.

Fuuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkkk!!! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

My friends, 202 would be pretty good if I was, say, six foot three. But your Uncle Al comes in at a little under five foot seven, so those numbers just don't really add up, do they?

So after I stopped sobbing, I figured that I had three choices. The first was to change my blogsite name from "Short Fat Goalie" to "Short Morbidly Obese Goalie". While I was intrigued with the handle of SMOG, that didn't seem like the right decision.

The second was to develop a Scottish accent, and learn to yell the phrase "Get in my belly!" at midgets. That sounded like fun, but you almost never see a midget in this part of town, so that was out.

So I was left with the least attractive of my choices: get my head out of my chubby white ass and lose some goddamn weight.

I had a pretty good "Come To Jesus" meeting with myself right there in the bathroom at midnight.

I know I don't have much time left to play at a decent level. I mean, come on, who am I kidding? I'm 50, have arthritis in both knees, a bad back, and a torn rotator cuff in my left shoulder. Between 40 years of competitive soccer, baseball, softball, hockey, and acrobatic sex, I'm pretty much physically beat to shit. The morning after games, I look like a walking question mark.

But you know what? Every now and again, when I find just the right combination of Advil and Red Bull, I can still play a little bit, even in the higher leagues, and that's what keeps me going. Plus I still have that little tingle in my enormous belly on game days- I love playing so very much.

So I decided right there that if I'm going out, it's not going to be because I'm a fat fuck. I'll be going out because I'm a broken down, old fuck, thank you very much. I can live with that.

Lose the weight, bitch...

But how? For those of you that don't know me very well, I have about the same level of will power as golfer John Daly (that's funny if you know who he is- he's a smokin'/drinkin'/gamblin' train wreck). I've never smoked one cigarette, hit one bong, or done one drug. Not because I think there's anything wrong with it- shit, I think marijuana should be legal. It's because I always knew that if I started, there would be no fuckin' way I could ever stop, and I'd spend all my money on that shit, instead of the Eskimo porn that I invest in now.

(Don't laugh- Eskimo porn is way underrated. There's something special about a girl with four teeth, having skin tone that looks like a baseball mitt, and wearing nothing but mukluks- always good for a "totem pole", if you know what I mean. Uh, that may have been an overshare. Let's just move on...)

Anyway, I had done the Atkins diet before with some moderate success, but that is one boring mother-ripper. If you're not familiar, with it, you can basically eat all the meat, cheese, eggs, and salads you want, but there are no carbs allowed. So no breads, pastas, any fruits or vegetables with sugar in it, and anything potato related is out. So basically, nothing good to eat.

Now kids, there are only so many ham and cheese omelets a guy can consume, and as much as I am a huge carnivore, meat and then more meat gets pretty old quickly. There had to be a better way to go.

Then I read about the South Beach Diet. It's pretty similar to Atkins, but you get a few more liberties with some fruits, cereals, and pasta. It's like you get a little reward every once in awhile for dealing with the boring shit the rest of the time.

I thought, what the hell? The diets like Weightwatchers and Nutrisystems let you eat a better variety of foods, but the portions are so goddamn small, there would be no friggin' way I would make it. Homeboy needs a full belly, even if it's enough meat and cheese to stop my heart.

So I bit the bullet (no carbs in bullets, by the way), and started on my journey. Since I'd been down this road before, I knew the first couple of weeks would be the toughest. That's when you go cold turkey on the carbs, and your body has to kind of filter all the bad shit out. In case you were wondering, it's not a barrel of laughs.

I'm struggling to find the best way I can to describe those first two weeks. When I can't find the right words, I usually fall back on one of my dad's old sayings. Here goes:

You ever get a thumbtack in your pecker? It was a little like that...

When you're used to bad eating habits, it's really hard to adjust to a new regimen. The worst time was at night, when I was watching TV. I drink gallons and gallons of Diet Pepsi, so thank God that didn't have to change. No fuckin' way I make it if I would have had to give up the Diet Pepsi.

But it was the things that went with the Diet Pepsi that had to go. Chips, cookies, crackers- all that shit. Plus, I had to give up that bowl of Fruit Loops that I had almost every night before I went to sleep. I've loved cereal since I was a little kid, and that was probably the hardest thing to let go.

Now, I had to find something else that would keep my hands occupied and my mind off of the Fruit Loops, etc. It would have to be something tasty, and preferably, something salty. I love salt almost as much as I love the Diet Pepsi. And to boot, it had to be something low in carbs.

I found just the thing a week into the program, and it saved my ass. It was David's Pumpkin Seeds. I've always hated sunflower seeds, because they're like being married. It's way too much work for the little that you get out of it.

(I love that joke-I've been telling that one for years. Annie doesn't think it's nearly as funny as I do. She really needs to lighten up.)

But pumpkin seeds have a little more substance once you crack them open, plus they are a salty sonofabitch. The problem is, once you've eaten a few million of them, the salt wears a big hole in your tongue and the inside of your cheeks. Totally worth it- those fuckers are good.

So the seeds became my nighttime snack. But I still missed the cereal. How much, you ask? Well, every night, during those first couple of weeks, I'd have this ongoing dream of me being in a love threesome with Cap'n Crunch and Tony the Tiger, while Snap, Crackle and Pop sat on a couch beside the bed, watched us and whacked off. Did I mention that I really love cereal?

(I may need to talk to a professional about that someday. Again, let's move on. Quickly.)

So I made it through the first two weeks, eating basically nothing but meat, cheese, eggs, salads and vegetables. Plus those beautiful, beautiful, pumpkin seeds. How was my mood, you ask? Well, let's just say that there have been bears caught in traps that have had a happier outlook on life than I did in that time frame. It was a bitch (and I was a bitch), but it helped when some of the weight started coming off.

Shit, I was just happy to be back under two bills- I still can't believe I let myself get that fuckin' big. I guess I should have noticed something was wrong when my heart would beat like a hummingbird when I brushed my teeth. Live and learn, I guess...

So the weeks went on, and I was finally able to introduce a few fun foods into the diet. There were three things that helped get me through the program without killing myself or one of my children:

Balsamic vinegar dressing- Boys and girls, I've eaten so much lettuce in the past few months, that last week, I actually shit a rabbit. But Wendy's balsamic vinegar dressing on their BLT salad is really tasty, and pretty low in carbs. Dave Thomas would have been making big bucks off me, but he sort of went "tits up" a couple of years ago. Bummer for Dave.

South Beach Granola Bars- They make a cinnamon-raisin bar with only 15 grams of carbs that is a decent breakfast. They're a little expensive, but at least it was something sweet. You don't realize how much you miss sweets until you don't have them for awhile.

Breyers Low-Carb Ice Cream Bars- These are a little gift from God. They only have five grams of carbs, and they are fucking brilliant. Satified every sweet craving I had. Now, I imagine there are enough chemicals in them to render my liver and kidneys useless, but let's address one problem at a time, shall we?

I continued on the diet, and let those three things I mentioned above serve as my South Beach "rewards". In the meantime, I would continue to play hockey at least three times a week, but there was one problem. "No carbs" means "no fuel", and it's tough to find energy to play when there's nothing stoking the old furnace. I was more sluggish than Detroit's housing market, and believe me, I need all the pep I can get on game nights.

So, once a week on Tuesday afternoon, before I would play in summer league with my Dawgs brothers, I would allow myself to have a bowl of oatmeal before the games. Oh, and I'd slam a couple of sugar free Red Bulls on the way to the rink. The pregame meal of champions.

After not having anything with sugar for a few months, eating that first bowl of oatmeal was kind of like being paroled from prison after 10 years and then getting laid. I mean, laid by a girl instead of a triple axe murderer named Bubba. Well, you know what I mean. It just tasted real good, okay?

Anyway, I kept going, and after awhile, I could really start to see some changes. My clothes fit much better, I was moving a lot faster in goal, and I got to have a sweet, tearful reunion with my dork. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, but there he was again, right where I left him before I got so goddamn fat. Hadn't changed a bit.

For those of you out there that have been on a diet and seen some results, you know that once you make decent progress, you kind of get a little obsessed. That was me after I got down to 185 (still can't believe I'm writing down to 185). Even though by that time I was allowed to have 60 grams of carbs per day (that's the equivalent of four pieces of bread, or one serving of spaghetti, in case you were wondering), I kept down to around 20 most of the time. I was pretty religious about everything- I didn't want to take the chance of going back the other direction, and I still had a long way to go.

A couple of more months passed, and more and more people started to notice that I wasn't quite the giant blob of shit that I used to be. Trust me- that helped a bunch. I was starting to feel like those people on "The Biggest Fatty", or whatever the hell that show is on TV. Except without all the crying, and that horrible, loudmouthed female trainer that looks like a dude. Fuck, I hate her...

See? She looks like Steven Tyler's little brother

Then, at the end of July, I jumped back on the scale one day to see where I was. I hadn't looked in awhile- just got busy with other things. The dial went back and forth, only this time without the sheer centrifugal force of that first time I weighed myself. It gave me hope.

Drum roll, please...

165.

Now for those of you not so good with the math (and if you're spending your time reading this bullshit, you can't be too fuckin' smart), that's a total weight loss of 37 pounds. Or approximately 1/5 of my body weight. Or a small child. Or Barry Bonds' head.

Kids, I haven't been this low in many, many years. And I'm pretty close to where I want to be- maybe five more pounds if I could somehow manage it. The only bad part about a low carb diet is that if you start eating bad shit again, you'll put the weight right back on. Been there, done that. So it's going to be a constant battle against my willpower, and Toucan Sam.

(Writer's note: Stop scratching your head-Toucan Sam is the Fruit Loops mascot. Yeah-I've had sex with him in my dreams as well. Snap, Crackle and Pop waited outside.)

I know I'll get enough exercise- shit, I'll continue to play three or four times a week, and be on the ice another four times a week coaching my kid's team. He's a goalie too, except he can play circles around my sorry old ass. 13 year old legs can bend in ways 50 year old legs can't- but that's a whole other article.

Now, I have no excuses. I guess I'm in decent shape considering Eisenhower was president when I was born, and there were only 48 states (that's not a joke, by the way). My weight is at an acceptable level. My knees, shoulder and back are still fucked up, but the strain is a lot lower with 37 less pounds to carry around. This is probably as good as it's going to get.

Can I still play? Winter season starts in two weeks. I guess we'll find out soon.

Fuck, I hope so.