I have to give credit where credit is due: the Hulk.
I have a vivid imagination. I also have a Hulk action figure on my desk. He’s an inspiration, and it’s not just the two-per cent bodyfat and anatomy chart build. It’s the personality, too: a Jekyll and Hyde disorder, swinging from mild-mannered scientist to raging psychopath – a green-skinned steroid-pumped bodybuilder hepped up on Mountain Dew and Dewars – yet still managing to be a positive force for change. He was quietly encouraging when I was on track. But when my resolve wavered…
“You lose fat! Or Hulk smash!”
I guess as a journalist I should have some kind of commitment to the truth. Hulk can’t take all (any) of the credit. No, fear of the T-shirt kept me on the straight and narrow; the T-shirt I was going to have to wear if I didn’t lose at least a pound. “Don’t feed me” it would say scrawled across my chest.
That’s what brought me back from the brink of disaster this past week. As per my usual pattern of diet failure, weigh-in last week was followed by two days of binging. All I can say is, thank god we hadn’t gone Halloween shopping yet. But the fear of failure, and wearing that failure on a shirt for a week, brought me to my senses. I rigidly adhered to my diet for the second half of the week, and a loss of 1.2 pounds was the result.
Not a stellar number, I realize. But this is the lowest I’ve been yet on this diet. I should have been here weeks, even months ago, but better late than never.
Of course, doom still hangs by a thread over my head. I must lose another pound this coming week, or face the shirt.
Humiliation waits for weakness.
This is not an advice column. Please consult a medical expert or nutritionist for sound dietary advice. Eric Sparling is an Amherst Daily News reporter, and former senior editor at Oxygen, a women’s fitness magazine.
