The Fatslayer Chronicles

Today's Weight 184.5 lbs

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My weight loss has slowed a lot this past month, and I’ve had to put my new-found maturity and patience into practise. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that I’ve only lost a couple of pounds in the past 4 weeks,  especially since I’ve been so committed and conscientious, but for the first time ever I’m not disheartened. I realise that I have no other choice but to keep plugging away at it, however long it takes – quitting is simply not an option.

 

I was looking at K2 as he lay beside me on the floor yesterday, and it suddenly struck me that K and I have looked after our dog’s well-being better than our own. K2’s a Labrador, and as any folks that have ever owned a Lab could testify, they could eat their owners’ body weight in food and still be hungry. Man, they are eating (and pooping) machines! K2 thinks about food – and schemes to get it – from the second his eyes open in the morning till the moment they close at night. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he even dreams about eating. Left to his own devices he’d probably eat himself to death within a couple of days. 

 

K and I have seen our fair share of fat Labs, and we were determined not to let this happen to K2. We’ve ruled the poor mutt with a will of iron, and strictly governed his food intake. Throughout all of his 14 years he’s been just under the top end of his acceptable weight range - so he’s not starving, though he’d have you believe he is!  Titbits have been strictly rationed, we’ve learned to ignore his supplications, and have grown hardened to paddling in a puddle of doggy drool every time we sit down for a meal.

 

Whenever we’ve gone on holiday and K’s mom has looked after K2, we’ve come back to find a food-bloated, flatulence-riddled pooch roasting beside the Aga just in case she drops any more jam tarts or rock buns on the floor in his vicinity. She finds it impossible to ignore his apparently insatiable hunger, and feeds him constantly. She means to be kind, but if he were her dog and not ours I’m pretty sure he’d never have lived to the grand old age that he’s managed to achieve under our firmer regime.  Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

 

I wonder why K and I have been wiser with our dog than with ourselves? In the whole of the past 14 years we’ve never once lost sight of the fact that K2 will live longer and stay healthier if his weight is within tolerable limits. If that seems so axiomatic where our dog is concerned, why haven’t we extended that simple truth to our own lives? Are we so self-indulgent that in order to make wise choices we need the equivalent of a concerned owner standing over us and refusing us the treats and titbits that we feel we deserve? Can’t we take proper care and responsibility for ourselves?

 

It would seem not...

 

I guess it’s easy to be good when someone doesn’t allow you the opportunity to be bad, but it’s not so easy to stay on the straight and narrow when the only person policing you is yourself. Being naughty is just so much more fun – and I’m not just talking weight management  !