A heavy issue: Living and dieting

I am going to lose weight. This might sound like a New Year’s resolution – seeing as it is coming shortly after the start of the new year and there is a law that says columnists have to write a resolution piece within seven days of Father Time being ushered out – but it is not. I have no evidence that New Year’s resolutions work, so I am not going to make one. I am just going to lose weight.

It was a suggestion from my doctor. Here’s what he said:

“You really have to lose some weight, big fella.”

That’s not really what he said. You can’t charge someone $128 and simply tell them they are fat. He used words like “high blood pressure” and “bad cholesterol” and “stroke” and “or you’re going to die” to make his point. OK, so he didn’t say “or you’re going to die,” either. But he didn’t have to ... I got his point.

Not that a doctor’s words or the threat of eating my way onto a seat on the Cardiac Arrest Express are enough on their own to motivate me to lose weight. Healthy living has never been my trump suit. Cheeseburgerandabeer is one word in my world. I fall asleep at night thinking about what I am going to eat the next day – and those thoughts are more likely to be about corned beef and cabbage than couscous and raisins. Everyone eats to live. I live to eat.

At least I did. Now there is a bigger issue pushing me to change my ways: My niece is getting married in March and I need to fit into the only suit I own. So maybe I sound like the girl I took to the senior prom in 1975, but that’s my major motivation.

I don’t mind being known as “the puzzling uncle,” or “the crazy uncle,” or “the uncle who buys our love with really neat Christmas presents.” I might be all those things, but I don’t also want to be known as “the uncle who showed up to my wedding in sweatpants and a XXX-sized sweatshirt with chili stains on the front.” Which is one of my favorite outfits these days.

So I am going to bite the bullet and stop biting things that are fat rolls waiting to happen. I was going to try Weight Watchers, but the idea of a bunch of people in a room all giddy that Bertha lost half a pound and only has the equivalent weight of a Volkswagen bus left to lose didn’t seem too appealing. The Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem programs are out because they cost money (buying a new suit was a plan eliminated early for the same reason). So the plan right now is eat less, weigh less.

I have until March 20 – that’s the big day for the little niece who somehow grew up while I wasn’t looking. The numbers look like this: Today I weighed in at 260 pounds naked. In my youthful prime I was 200. The goal – with an allowance for age, for those of you who are handicapping this race – is somewhere in between those two numbers.

I could probably squeeze into my suit at 240 – which would only mean losing about two pounds a week before the wedding. But three pounds a week seems utterly reasonable. I’d be the poster child for fat and happy if I manage to crack 230 before Lara says I do.

This is a quest ... not a New Year’s resolution. I have to succeed. Would someone pass me a veggieburgerandadietsoda?