“I was so fat I always had two buttons undone…”

Weight loss, weight gain, exercise, dieting and getting physically fit are constant conversations at the office and the DFAC (Dining Facility).  We eat together almost every meal (center section close to the mainlines), and the staff meetings with my folks are every morning at 0830.  “Oh, sir, no, I don’t eat breakfast!” said Sexy Jake. 

“I don’t care if you eat breakfast.  We are meeting every morning here to review the day and discuss the issues.  Everybody!  See you there!”  (That is what a loving boss (ash-ole) sounds like.)

We can eat as much as we want and there is no shortage of things to eat.  Omelets, French toast, eggs, bacon, ham, pressed sandwich (my latest is a biscuit from the one main line and then get them to put on pancake like eggs, bacon and cheese on the other and LOOK OUT McDonald’s!  Bacon, egg and cheese biscuit pressed like a Panini).  Fresh fruit, cereal and so forth...a self-serve Denny’s menu.

Lunch is similar with a fast food line, a sandwich line, a main line, a salad bar and a whole dessert line.  Calories are plentiful.  So we talk exercise and then some finish and say “Are you going to get dessert?  I will go with you!” or “Don’t tempt me…okay just bring back a cookie.  You know the one I like”.  LTC Fall and I were talking about the cheesecake once and he calculated it out.  If he ate cheesecake every day he would gain 40 pounds in a year if he didn't change his diet or exercise a lot more.

Dinner is a smorgasbord of eating opportunities.  Think Lunch and Dinner plus extra.  Can you feel the weight gain from there?  So can we!

So the Chief is planning to lose weight (some) and her boyfriend’s old wife was 70 pounds overweight so she knows she has a little wiggle room, so to speak.  But she could tell she was getting fat when she tried to put on her boyfriend’s pajama bottoms and they wouldn’t get over her hips.  Is that a hint?

Then of course she had to tell me the story of a friend, Claudia, on her wedding night.  The husband (Joseph) took off his 42 inch waisted pants and threw them over to his new bride and said “Honey, put these on!”  She said, “Oh sweetie, you know these are too big for me!  They won’t even stay up!”  “That’s right!” he said, “Don’t you forget I wear the pants in the family.” Claudia then took off her small, sexy panties and tossed them over to him.  “Honey, why don’t you try these on?” she purred sweetly.  “Oh, gee Baby, you know I could never get into these.”  “That’s right!” Claudia said, “And if you keep that attitude you never will!”

Hot Cakes said he measures his weight loss by the spot he marked on his belt.  He lifted it up to show us and he had lost an inch or so.  Of course with his body type (husky, not too fat exactly) he could probably lose about another 2 inches no problem.  SFC Rucker is going to race me to a weight loss goal and he plans to lose easily thirty pounds. “Just you wait and see sir!  I have done this every time I get deployed (this is his fourth time).  I lose about thirty or forty pounds.  I stay in the gym for an hour every day on the treadmill.  You will see!”

Maybe I will lose that bet.  After all, when you are as buffed out as much as Mike Kelly (getting the “Mike Kelly buffed out look”), it is hard to lose any weight.  I mean what is my body fat percentage?  Eight percent?  Eighteen percent?  Twenty-eight percent?  I know there is an eight in there somewhere…   

CPT Elliot (Spitzer) started a vegetarian diet back at NFH and included exercise.  He has lost quite a bit (20+?) and his wife even noticed on Skype.  So you know he lost a lot because Elliot has the look that only a mother or a woman with very bad eyesight could love (kidding of course).  

 So I have my own weight loss plan.   Eat no more than one plate at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Have at least two sections filled with cooked vegetables and perhaps add a bowl of mixed raw vegetables (bell peppers, cucumber, carrots, tomatoes and maybe a few green olives) with no dressing.  Then, after I am acclimated to Iraq (soon) exercise aerobically every day and do some weight work every day or so;  maybe even do two a day workouts (not too much, too fast or too hard, but twice a day) a few days per week.  I will supplement that by walking everywhere (as though I had a choice) in stifling heat to every meal, every meeting and every other errand.  I think that should do it.

My belt has already come in an inch (but I haven’t marked it), Chief’s pants button again (she never takes off her blouse so we would never know), SFC Rucker it is hard to tell yet (when you have that much mass it takes awhile to notice) and Elliot is down 20 pounds.  

When we return to civilization most will gain it all back (and plus some).  Beer, fast food, no time to exercise, laziness, cooking yourself, or just driving everywhere you go adds on the pounds.  I have seen it many a time with Pine Tree, SSG Flueck and even Young Matthew; after the exercise is over fun living catches you and throws on 20+ pounds.

The next thing you know you are talking about getting in shape and you really have to because “I am so fat I have two buttons undone…”