A Day Without Treats. Cuz Something's Gotta Give And It May Be My Pants!

Warning.  This Post Contains Graphic Material That May Be Disturbing To Sensitive Viewers.

I don't know about you, but in our house, there's a year-long parade of sweets.  The official kick-off of the candyland festivities is Halloween - the big kahuna of all things delicious.  Of course, it's preceded by a pre-season schedule of birthday celebrations in summer and early fall with plenty of cake (homemade of course) and ice cream ("Moose Tracks anyone?").  Then another birthday in November, followed by the grand-daddy of all eat-fests - you know the one - Thanksgiving.  Christmas treats start arriving in early December, and keep me chomping all month long.  A brief reprieve in January is thankfully broken by the heartfelt sugary sweets of Valentine's Day.  In addition to green beer, there are chocolaty gold coins on St. Patrick's Day.  A basket at Easter with enough candy to feed small family for a month means I'm sneaking snacks throughout spring, until the whole process repeats itself.  Call it, The Seasons of My Sweet Weakness.

And you noticed I mentioned beer right?  Right.  I like beer.  It's delicious and there are so many varieties to sample.  How can you possibly say no?  I know there's a few calories in beer, but really, it can't be that much right?  It's mostly water after all.  I mean, I've made beer.  It takes a lot of water.  (Does the fact that I've made beer indicate that I may be a bit too obsessed with the topic?  How about the fact that I'm pretty sure I've even written a post about how much I love beer before?  Oh, and  wrote one about how much I love M&Ms too.  Are you seeing a pattern here?).

So here's the deal.  I'm getting (gotten!) fat.  Those of you who know me will say things like "Oh no.  Look at you!  You look so thin."  That's nice.  But here's my dirty little secret:

I hide it well.

It's there - hidden from the naked eye - you just need to know how to look for it.  Much like the many rings of Saturn are only revealed through a high-powered telescope, the many molecules of sweets and beer form a layer of rings around my waist that are only revealed by.... a camera-phone.

Brace yourself!  Small children and those with weak constitutions should look away!

Good Lord! What IS That?!

Yowza.  That's nasty.  And hairy.  Yeah, so I don't subscribe to the body-shaving the young dudes do.  I'm a middle-aged man after all.

Hopefully by now you've been able to compose yourself and recover from the shock of this revolting image.  But that's me.  All me.  All. Of. Me.

So now what?  Well, I've got choices.  A couple weeks ago I posted about "The first day of the rest of your life."  Looking at that image reminds me, I need to take my own advice.  I mean, seriously, back in 2007, the first time I did Team In Training, I used to look like this:

"Hello ladies."

Well, ok.  Maybe not exactly like this.  But I was about 20 pounds lighter, a whole lot fitter, and I had many fewer rings orbiting my mid-section.

So, what's my point?  It's this.  We all go through ups and downs, good and bad, highs and lows, hots and colds, broccoli and chocolate, gatorade and pale ale.  That's cool.  Sometimes you just need a little friendly reminder to get your lazy butt off the couch and get out there and do something.  Ya know I mean?

So, here's what I did.  I went a whole day without any treats.  Yep, no candy, no cake, not even beer (see, that's why I titled this post "A day without treats."  You were wondering weren't you.  It's ok.  I know I get sidetracked.  Like this one time when I was cleaning out the garage, and I came across our t-ball set and the girls wanted to play so then we started a t-ball game, and then we thought it would be fun to add a soccer ball, and then...oh, yeah.  Anyway).

Next up - an entire week of no treats.  It's gonna be tough.  Think I can do it?  It's only seven days.  I think I can handle it. But first, I gotta drink all the beer in the house.  Gotta eliminate the temptation right?