One Shake at a Time - Day 2

Stardate Tues Jan. 10, Day #2 of Mission "Clean".

I wanted to get started early on today's blog entry before the weakness, hives and hallucinations make it impossible to distinguish food from, say, dog poop. And as you can imagine it's very difficult to type when you're scratchin' like a hound and there's tiny pink piglets wiggling their little curly tails in unison while dancing in a conga line around your computer.

So, while I'm still relatively perspicacious, let me provide a little context to what many may perceive to be a hopeless effort to retrieve the shape and energy of an individual who, many excuses down the road, has let things slip just a tad, and in the process has developed a massive growth between the chest and the waist that was once a rather appealing and sexy testimony to advanced wisdom and maturity but has now simply become a gut. A big fat gut.

 With my lovely sister, Katie, New Years Day 2012. Watch out he's gonna blow!

A fifty year-old in his birthday coat, 2005. He still has all his teeth!

Ahhh. I have just finished shake #2, a delicious blend of frozen peaches, almond milk, coconut oil, a dash of vanilla and agave syrup (my additions) and a veritable shitload of the inscrutable mystery powder. So, just now I am starting to feel that rush of toxin busters into my bloodstream and I can hear the clang of swords and axes as the mighty supplements meet their enemies, the toxins, of which there are many and they have grown strong and powerful for they have lived in my bloodstream for a very long time. And I can feel that  there is a vicious fight going on in there.I am feeling a great physical weakness come over me as the battle rages within. I must blog now or blog nevermore!

But WHY you ask! WHY are you torturing your body so? Good question. Besides the globe that has taken up residence in my midsection, I really have no desire to get clean. Shit when folks my age with a rap sheet as long as mine try and get clean it usually kills 'em. But I think I mentioned earlier in today's offering that I let things slip, just a tad? It occurs to me that I'm probably not the only guy that has encountered rough waters in decade #5. I'm just guessing but, having always been average myself, I assume the average 50-something has parents in somewhere in decade #8, and that it's check out time for many of them. Well it was for my folks anyway, back to back, and in each case the final curtain call was preceded by several years of high maintenance geriatric care, which I found to be so exhausting that things like a balanced diet and exercise just simply got shitcanned. Not that we were swingin' by Mickey D's on the way home from the rehab, but we did hit Hi Tech Burrito more than usual. Deli sandwiches, chips and cookies became respites of comfort, especially once the breeders could no longer eat and I had to eat for both of us. Then, shortly after Dad moved on it was time for a long postponed back surgery, which resulted in a dramatic reduction in back pain but also in peripheral neuropathy in my feet. Neuropathy, when it is unrelated to type 2 onset adult diabetes, is a bitch to treat or at least it has been for me, and there has been a virtual cornucopia of various medications parading through my medicine cabinet for several years, most of which cause weight gain. So take the middle-aged man off the bicycle, the skis, and the golf course; throw every painkiller known to man at him until something sticks (which has finally happened), and sit back and watch him blow up like a fuckin' balloon! That's what I call slipping, just a tad.

Now you have the backstory and that's all y'all is gonna get! The battle within rages, supplements battling toxins tooth and nail while giant globs of fat slink off into the corner to watch TV and eat Doritos. Get out there and fight you lazy sacks o' shit!

(Stay tuned for Day #3, when "Doris Gets Her Oats!")