I have been doing this for a month. And, if I can be a little overzealous, I’m super proud of myself. This is an interesting fact when judged against what I suspect is Cody’s level of satisfaction with my progress – which I would estimate as low.

I ate decently well this week and really kicked shit in with working out. Possibly a little too much, because my deteriorating husk continues to fail me! Last week, while attempting deadlifts, my knee protested vociferously. Perhaps there was not as much vociferi as italics would indicate. My knee didn’t actually ululate audibly, (I am a little high on vocab right now. Back up off!) but I happily conveyed the protuberance of pain into my frontal cortex with what I will describe as the most macho yelp ever. Cody recommended I take it easy on that front and gave me what I’m going to call wimpy exercises to compensate. Then, this week, while doing my run (I actually run for parts of it so I can call it that now. No, for real. It’s happening), my achilles on my right foot began to complain. It was a stiffness, if I’m honest, and it’s only grown stiffer and the pain resulting I can only describe as sharp and measurable. Both of these are good things. Sharp indicates that it’s probably just strained, from what I can tell, and my ability to quantify it means it’s not the sort of white, eye-bending pain associated with something torn or otherwise duly sundered. WORDS!

On a personal note, I had a pretty awesome week. I met some cool people and got to check out a part of my native city that I’d never actually spent any real time in, and that was quite invigorating. I’m also quickly approaching the point where my weight loss will eclipse my 5-year low! I was 228 at last week’s weigh-in, making it something like 18 pounds in about 5 weeks, which feels like a damn win and a half. This week, my goal is to show up at 225 or even 224, and it will feel, ladies and gentlemen, amazing. Partly because that will be nearly the least I’ve weighed in six years and partly because it stands to reason that I will weigh less than some of my other chubby friends.

Also, new jeans. And this is one of the saddest truths of my existence: I am a clothes hoarder. I never throw things away, long past their prime and long past the point when propriety or convenience indicates this is the done thing. This very moment, I’m wearing a tee-shirt extolling the virtues of being aware of the location one’s botanical vascular organs reside – in a cultural sense. This shirt looks like it’s been through a  Dick-Cheney level hunting accident. If I spread blood and dirt on it, you woud be convinced I wore it through a Transformers movie starring Shia TheBeef. I’m saying it’s torn up and full of holes. I can’t let go of it! I adore it. It once held deep sentimental value because it was a gift, and some of that lingers, but I like it by nature of the fact that it’s mine and I am an inherently greedy ape.

The point is, I keep clothes forever. I have jeans from 1998 in my closet, back from when you were supposed to buy jeans 4 sizes too wide and at least 2 sizes too long so that they bunched and billowed like you were some Arabian Street Rat Turned Adventuring Heir to the Sultanate. I continue to own and wear these jeans. I never buy my own jeans. This is a sad truth. In the last 14 years, I had previously purchased 2 pairs of jeans. I was never concerned with the fact that all of my denim clothing was ill-fighting, highly tarnished, and ancient. I just loved it because it was mine.

But I have bought jeans! Jeans that fit, and they are a size smaller than the last time I attempted this very thing. It was very satisfying, to say the least.

I suppose I should talk about my diet. I’m still having a hard time getting to my target caloric levels, and this is shameful and depressing. I think this is where my belief that Cody is disappointed with my progress stems from. Also, missing a couple days of lifting the week before last really slowed my progress on that front. I’m planking now! No, not that. That! Yes. It is difficult and strenuous. I may have mentioned it in a previous update, but I’m starting to strangely enjoy it? There’s a lot of yelling involved. It’s normally best that I do it in relative privacy, because I typically have to yell at my ailing corpus to complete the task at hand.

Anyway, week 5 begins now in earnest, and my commitment must be redoubled, and so it shall be. I sort of want that Clint Eastwood speech from the Superbowl commercial to listen to whenever I go to work out. It’s a pretty baller narration. I may actually start a collection of riveting “to war!” speeches. Henry V or Marc Anthony moments, if you will.

Shit, I may just slap Coriolanus and Captain Picard’s turn as Macbeth on repeat. The fact that old British and Scottish dudes shouting hypes me up unnerves me. I should get that looked at.