May, 2017: The Return of the PHAD Diet

Cork’s Late in Life, God-I-Hate-Diets,

Foolproof, Last Chance,

Desperation, Lifesaving Diet—The Series

Part 1: May 19, 2017

I’m fat. Again.

I have two excuses for being fat (again).

Excuse Number One: I’m old and I have two bum wheels. To wit:

Bum wheel Number One: My right leg comes with a fused right ankle and a calf still recovering from its 2015 Deep Vein Thrombosis.

The author at 240

Bum Wheel Number Two: My left knee made of rusted lug nuts and Silly Putty.  It sounds like a baja marima band playing the drum solo from “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida.”

Add them up, and it means I can’t walk from here to the door without stopping for a Scotch. Dieting is tough enough without  exercise in the picture.

Excuse Number Two: I was born without Willpower—specifically when it comes to food. And by food, I mean bread. Never met a piece of bread I didn’t like. I dabble in other fattening foodstuffs, but the food I stuff my face with most is bread. Warm, delicious bread. Mmmmmmmm, bread.

So, thanks to this Dynamic Duo of Excuses, I’ve allowed myself to get fat (again).  As with many folks who let excuses be their enablers, (you know who you are), one day a triggering incident takes place that launches your next diet. For me this time it was a sweet little video my wife took of me reading to my two-year-old Granddaughter. I was slouched in a chair next to her and right next to Mt. Kilimanjaro.  Excuse me…That' not Mt. Kilimanjaro?  Whattaya mean that’s my stomach?

This raised the logical question: “Whatcha gonna do about it, Fatso?”

The easiest course for me, of course, is just stay the course: Just keep getting bigger britches until I keel over.  But I’ve pooh-poohed that plan because my life ain’t half bad these days, and fat or dead is no way to spend it.

So I’ve dipped into my past dieting experiences looking for a solution. So many many diets to consider that I've tried.  And by golly,  I remembered the perfect—perhaps the only—diet I know will work for me these days.  

So, why am I telling you about it? Because I have to. It's part of the diet..

I didn’t invent this diet. There’s no book that describes it that I'm aware of, even though it was created by one of the country’s most prolific authors. To my knowledge the first and only only reference to this diet was in a magazine article in The Washingtonian magazine some 40 or so years ago. I ought to know. I wrote the article.

The diet was successful. Successful? I lost 46 pounds in four months. What I didn't succeed at was keeping the weight off.

So now, once again, unto the breach, and smaller britches I stride. 

Join me each week for updates of  “The PHAD Diet.”

NEXT WEEK, PART TWO: Leo Durocher, Paul Dickson and how the PHAD Diet works. (Plus second weight update)

STARTING WEIGHT: 240 GOAL WEIGHT : 220.

START DATE: MAY 15 END DATE:  July 21^th  (10 weeks)

Week One Weigh-in: (May 19 short week)  WEIGHT 233.5  Gain/Loss 6.5