Recently, I decided to go on a diet.Over the years, I have relied heavily upon my stomach for making the food consumption decisions for the rest of my body. This seemed like affective body management delegation, since no other part of my body sends signals to the home office complaining of hunger.

It’s becoming painfully evident that when it comes to job performance, my stomach has been “overachieving.” In a typical business environment, you usually don’t want to stifle overachievers because they compensate for the underachievers, commonly known as the general workforce.

My body is similar. My stomach is overachieving while the rest of my body is underachieving. In a typical business environment, the evidence of this would be disproportionate performance. In my case, the evidence is a disproportionate gut.
So I have to redefine my stomach’s job description and performance expectations. Right now, my stomach is working to a requirement that says something like, “When the level of food inside the stomach reaches below 10% of capacity, the stomach will alert the rest of the body of this impending crisis by sending out a series of painful aches.” My stomach has taken that requirement and determined how best to meet and manage that requirement. Empowerment. That’s good business practice. No one likes a micromanager. Even a stomach.

So my stomach decided to reduce the risk of ever running below that 10% threshold by adding sufficient margin to the requirement. Unfortunately, the threshold was set at 90%, which meant my stomach would send hunger signals to the home office seven minutes after every meal. So in order for my body to meet the tailored food consumption requirements as imposed by my stomach, I have been in constant “feed my face” mode for a very long time.

Something had to give-and I was tired of it being the seam of my pants.
Several unfortunate consequences of exceeding eating performance expectations have been:

1. Based on the extra weight that’s latched onto me, and the devaluation of U.S. currency in a competitive global market, I have determined that a five-dollar Lincoln is the minimum I can afford to bend down and pick up. Anything less would not be cost- or health-effective.

2. When given the choice of using an elevator or walking up stairs, I’ll take the elevator and drain someone else’s energy rather than my own.

3. Whenever I shop for shirts, I now look for colors and patterns that blend well with meals served at most restaurants. In my pre-corpulent days, any food trying to escape from being eaten would simply push itself off of whatever utensil I was operating at the time, and fall to the ground. Freedom. Now, thanks to restaurants reducing the distance between their benches and tables, food lands on my stomach, which means it’s still in the playing field. No freedom. And any residual stains contrast well with paisley.

4. I poke “extension” holes in my non-fitting belts, thereby making them fitting belts, thereby extending the illusion that I’m not gaining weight since I haven’t had to go out and buy the next-size-up belt.

5. I find myself accusing clothes manufacturers for why I can no longer fit into the same size clothes I used to. I go into a dressing room and try on a pair of pants, which fit perfectly until I try and close the two-inch gap between the button and buttonhole. A major gut suck reduces the gap by 50%, but the only way I can eliminate that last inch is if I perform an immediate liposuction procedure, which I can’t, because the stupid clothing store hasn’t figured out how much more business they would do if they would install those machines in all of their dressing rooms.
So I walk out of the dressing room where Lady Debby is waiting to see me model the prospective pants.

Dustin: It’s a conspiracy. Clothes manufacturers are making their clothes smaller to increase the number of pants they can get from a bolt of fabric.

Lady Debby (muttering): Either that or you’re getting fat.

Dustin: No, I’m not getting fat. If I were, I’d be shopping for a new belt, wouldn’t I?
Some of you may be wondering just how big I am. I’m not forklift big. I’m not nine months’ pregnant with twins big. I don’t require two airline tickets, one for each cheek. I don’t require the use of one of those motorized scooters in ___mart-but I’ve got to be honest with you. You add more horsepower to those scooters and make them available for all shoppers, and I’ll probably never leave your store.

Over the years I have just become more sedentary. I have a job where productivity is measured in part by how many hours my backside is planted in an ergonomically approved office chair. And the only exercise I get is when I pry myself out of my ergonomically approved office chair to make my daily pilgrimage to the vending machine down the hallway to buy something that has no redeeming nutritional value, that, once consumed, immediately converts into trillions of flabby cells.

As the landlord of my body, I have to tell you, flabby cells make much better tenants than muscle cells. Muscle cells are high maintenance. “We need to go run five miles. We need to pump some iron. Don’t put that in your mouth. Hey, stop in front of that mirror. Lookin’ good!”

Over time, my muscle cells began to complain about the inactive living conditions. Thousands by thousands they began to find other, more energetic places to live. On the other hand, flabby cells are low maintenance. As long as you have a cozy sofa, a TV remote, and pizza, they’re happy squatters who show no sign of leaving.

So now that I have decided to shed these extra pounds, I’m faced with a critical decision. Do I go it alone, or do I join some diet program? If I do, which program should I choose? Carb or no carb? Protein or no protein? Fat or no fat or some fat but only certain kinds? Do I join a program that requires me to purchase their products, where the picture on the outside of the box tastes better than the actual food inside the box? Do I take diet pills that suppress my appetite, but force me to never wander farther than 17.5 feet from the nearest bathroom? Or do I chose a program based on which celebrity spokesperson lost the most pounds and looks better in the jeans they thought they would never be able to fit back into?

If I go it alone, will I have the discipline to follow through? A quick glance in the mirror doesn’t raise my confidence level any higher than “Slim to none,” and Slim can consume an entire deep-fried cow and not gain a single flabby cell while I pack on an extra five pounds just by choking down a single rice puck.

The biggest complaint I have about eating healthy is that healthy food tastes terrible, while unhealthy food tastes terrific.

Case in point #1-salad bars. You start by putting a thin layer of healthy food on a plate, and then you immediately start piling on the unhealthy food. And what’s left when you’re too full to eat another bite? The thin layer of healthy food.

Case in point #2-baked potatoes. You order a meal that comes with a baked potato. The waitperson asks you what you would like on your baked potato. When have the words “Just plain” ever made it past your lips? Usually it’s more like, “A little of everything you have back in the kitchen.”

Case in point #3-yogurt. I actually like yogurt for breakfast. But it’s not quite satisfying enough for me. I have tried supplementing it with fresh fruit or low-flavor granola, but it was still missing something. Finally I discovered a food that reacts in perfect harmony with the active cultures in the yogurt. Apple fritters.

Well, the battle lines have been drawn. Word has spread throughout my body that big changes are on the way. Apparently my stomach did not appreciate our little “performance expectation” discussion.

There is dissention amongst the body parts. My stomach and taste buds are threatening to invoke a gag order if I allow certain healthy foods to enter my mouth. They even made a list of unacceptable foods. Any vegetable that started life out as a seed-except carrots, and only if said carrots are an ingredient in carrot cake-meat substitutes not originating from barnyard animals, and any type of fat-free food where the flavor was removed during the fat-extraction process.

And while I can understand their concerns, their gag-order threat is not my greatest concern right now. I just found out that in order to lose weight and keep it off, I also need to exercise. I have no idea how I’m going to motivate my millions of flabby cell tenants to either shape up or face eviction.

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Check out L. Dustin Twede’s website at www.ldustintwede.com. He can be reached at ddtwede@yahoo.com