Feaverish

On the morning of March 20th I was standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror when I realized I was still carrying my Winter Weight™, even though it was now, equinoxically speaking, Spring. Thinking my eyes must be deceiving me, I reached for a handful of chiseled abs only to find them protected behind a squishy, flesh-colored forcefield of indeterminate constitution. A biopsy confirmed the Emergency Room doctor’s initial diagnosis: fat.

Dr: It’s not so bad. Just get some exercise.
Me: I ride a bike 12 miles a day.
Dr: …
Me: …
Dr: …
Me: I enjoy beer.
Dr: I see. And is this beer made with butter?
Me: …
Dr: Bacon drippings? Nacho cheese?
Me: Look, Doogie, if I wanted to be insulted I’d visit my urologist. Just hook up the liposucker and let’s get this over with.

Actually, I can’t afford liposuction. Also, my body doesn’t store fat in any one particular place; it’s just kinda thinly layered over my entire torso, as though I’ve been battered and deep fried. Like a corndog. And so, with more exercise out of the question and liposuction looking like a painful head-to-toe affair, the only available option seems to be dieting.

The problem with sticking to a diet in Portland is, as I mentioned to Dr. Sarcastic, beer. If you’ve been keeping up with my Flickr photos, you know that I enjoy the occasional beer. And it’s difficult to give up beer in a town with 28 breweries (more than any other city in the US, according to this New York Times article), where you can get a beer at the movie theater (some of which are also breweries!), where even the lowliest mini-mart sells a dozen local microbrews, where my neighborhood pub has a separate, double-sided menu just for beer, and where, a half-mile from my house, there’s a grocery store with a dedicated walk-in beer cooler. I’m only human, after all. Wish me luck.