The Hunger

No, not Tony Scott's moody Deneuve-Bowie-Sarandon vampire flick, but rather, the pit-of-the-soul carb craving only two years of Atkins Diet induction can spawn. That's right, I've never made it out of induction. Oh, would I love to make it out of induction. Six months ago I overcame 20+ years of lassitude and joined a local gym. I reasoned that if I increased my activity level, I'd be able to eat more carbs. But then something interesting happened: I discovered that I'm a mesomorph trapped in an endomorph's body. Or, as I learned this evening on bodybuilderpro.com, I am Sylvester Stallone trapped in Roseanne Barr's body. Yo. I began trimming off inches, replacing fat with muscle. This was all well and good -- I have a nice, hard tukhas now -- but it galls me that I can't get my weight below 160. Indeed, as of this writing, I'm having a devil of a time cracking 165. I think I could tolerate this number if my stomach would flatten . . . but it won't! Damn me, I can feel that washboard lurking in there, that six-pack yearning to be free, but I'm told by the gym jocks I'll have to starve and dehydrate to really get that definition. I've been shooting for a Body-Mass Index of 25. That's 155 lbs for me. It ain't gonna happen. The few times I've made it to 159 (thanks to food poisoning, stomach flu, that sort of thing), I've binged my way back to 163. I caught a recent news item that the Feds are going to loosen these guidelines, thereby creating far fewer obese people in the United States, but I can't seem to find the exact stats. What BMI do I shoot for now? If they raise the bar to 27, I'M LEAN! This is the stuff I think about as I do my 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, trying not to look at the 90 lb woman next to me who could kick my ass in two seconds. (Her boyfriend was working out, too. "Hey, Ron! This guy's bugging me. Horm* him for me, will ya?" Well, maybe three seconds.) Because I'm not assertive around guys who could bench press me, I never gripe about the music (Jurassic rock today . . . AC/DC, Aerosmith, etc.) or change the TV (Seinfeld of all things). On the drive home, I put on an old Cowboy Junkies CD and let Margo Timmins' satin voice mellow me out. I'm okay now. Atkins dinner for me tonight: a four-egg omelet, five strips of bacon, and two pieces of low carb toast. Handful of dried cranberries and a stinkyfart bar (love those sugar alcohols) for dessert. I made pesto for Karen and Jake, so I can't eat that, and I'm sick of salads. But I'm not complaining. (What, you thought I was complaining?) I'm keeping the weight off. I can see my wiener when I go pee. Some things are important. D. *Hormed: a verb cherished by all of us old enough to remember Rogue:

. . . . . I . . . . . . I @ . . . . . . I I . . . . . . . . .

Translation: you are about to get hormed by a quartet of Intellect Devourers. "Your mind reels from the Intellect Devourer's ego whip." Ah, the good old days: when it took imagination to enjoy a computer game.