I didn’t realize it until last night, but Saturday was the one year anniversary of the end of my mega diet.  During that diet, my goal was to lose 20 pounds in two months.  I lost 33.  Winner.

When I started that diet, I was a voluptuous 232.5 pounds.  I had been around that weight for about, oh, 12 years (as I junior in high school, I ran for student council under the slogan "239 pounds of Vice President" – and I won).  When I first got on the treadmill at the gym, I could run just about a tenth of a mile before turning blue and popping a Bayer to help ease my minor heart attack; by the end of the diet, I was running three miles every day.  I felt lighter, sexier, and my penis, God bless it, looked a lot bigger.  All good things.

During the diet, I also significantly cut my calories.  I tried to eat about 1500 calories a day, and subsisted on cereal, almonds, Healthy Choice/Lean Cuisines, and chicken or turkey sausages.  I did not, however, cut my drinking.  If I was going to diet, I was going to do it my way, and there was simply no way I could give up drinking.  The only drinking-related thing I did give up (or tried to give up) was post-bar eating.  This was difficult, because at the end of a night of drinking I love few things more than two slices of pizza and a chicken roll.  To make it easier, I just got so drunk when I went out at night that it would be physically impossible for me to a) walk to the pizza place; b) exchange cash for the purchase of pizza.  For the most part, it worked – although one time I did fall down a flight of stairs, which totally sucked.  Especially for that Armenian guy, whose hand I was holding when I fell.  I often wonder what happened to him.         

When all was said and done, at the end of the diet I was down to 199.5 pounds.  I reached my lowest weight since puberty shortly thereafter, dropping to (I think) 196.  At that point, flush with success and satisfaction, I put the scale and the gym bag away and went about my normal pre-diet life (read: hoagies, watching titties on the internet, more hoagies).

When I realized last night that I had missed the anniversary, I decided that I would weigh myself in the morning.  With not a small amount of trepidation, I got on the scale.  I closed my eyes, said a little prayer, thought about some boobies, and when I opened my eyes I saw…200.5.  By some complete fucking miracle, I am only one pound heavier than I was when I ended my diet a year ago.  I don’t really know what to say about this, because I have no idea how it happened. 

I know it’s not because of my intense post-diet gym routine.  Since the diet ended, I’ve been following a ten week cycle at the gym, which goes something like:

- Week One: Three gym visits, 45 minutes running/walking each time

- Week Two: Two gym visits, 35 minutes running/walking/thinking, "This sucks much worse than I remember" each time

- Week Three: One gym visit per week, 20 minutes hanging out in locker room, hissing and making cat noises at men as they change

- Week Four Through Week Ten: Off

And I know it’s not because of my stricter eating habits since my diet ended.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little more conscious about what I eat, but I’m not exactly counting calories, either.  To wit, while in LA my dinner for three consecutive nights was an In-and-Out double-double animal style, fries and vanilla shake.  I would have gone for a fourth straight night, but, long story short, the In-and-Out on Gayley in Westwood will not allow public access to its restroom any longer.  Here in NYC, every week, usually on Sunday, I get takeout from Sea Thai that includes the tup-tim fritters (seven fried balls of goodness) and the largest and most delicious bowl of chicken pad thai in Manhattan, always washing that down with a whole pint of ice cream (Oatmeal Cookie Chunk, Cookies and Cream, Cherry Vanilla, or Banana Split usually).  I have a "regular" at my deli near work, a breakfast sandwich featuring sausage, double egg and cheese on a plain untoasted bagel.  And of course, in the past year I’ve eaten three babies and a half-dog, half-man.  So I haven’t been perfect.

(This weekend I’m heading up to Boston to, among other things, tailgate at a BC football game, and I’m actually frightened for my friend Danielle’s dip.  We may need to have a police officer on hand to make sure things stay under control.)

So it’s not the gym regime, nor is it because of my eating habits.  And I don’t throw up after I eat (not that often, at least), I haven’t gotten any stomach stapling or other procedure to keep weight off, and I am not addicted to cocaine, amphetamines or any diet pills (kinda).  However, I do have a few ideas as to why I’ve kept the weight off:

1) Something inside of me is alive and it’s eating all of my food.  Remember, I’ve traveled to numerous exotic and unsanitary places in my life - hell, I grew up in Philly, spent every summer at the Jersey shore, and live in an apartment with a toilet that explodes once every two months - and have had a number of questionable sexual encounters, mostly involving non-native English speakers (if they were English speakers at all).  I easily could have picked up some parasite along the way that’s now nesting in my colon, listening to Van Halen, smoking cigarettes and being surly.  

(Actually, that’s the perfect description of my old roommate Brian.) 

This would also explain all of my poo problems, which, let’s be honest, are getting downright terrifying.  One of my last poos looked like a shillelagh.  I felt like I was trying to reel in a marlin during that one: lot of rocking, lot of sweating, lots of boats around.

(Note: actual picture of my poo)

2) God is setting me up a major fall.  For the most part, things have been extremely good for me for the last two or two and a half years, what with all the fame, fortune, and the never-ending stream of blowjobs.  Keeping the weight off with no effort is just the latest good thing to add to that list.  This means that any number of calamities will strike me in the next 10 to 14 days.  The front-runner right now is a bizarre subway accident resulting in the loss of my genitals, but that’s followed closely by a bizarre ski lodge fire in which I do not lose my genitals, but instead they are badly damaged. 

3) My scale is broken.  Yeah, this is probably the right one.