"I thought they smelled bad... on the outside."

Okay, here's the thing: I know there are benefits to going on a juice fast. I know that my body is full of toxins and fat. I know that an all-juice diet will not only help to eliminate those toxins and help to reduce the fat, but it will give me more energy, give me healthier skin and hair, help me to think more clearly, improve my mood, and generally make me feel better about everything.

I seriously don't give a crap about any of that right now.

I'm hungry, I'm grumpy, the very thought of drinking another meal makes me nauseous.

I have a new plan. This one is far more reasonable for a person like me. It is this: Raw fruit and vegetable juice for breakfast and low-fat, low-calorie meals the rest of the day. Grilled chicken and beans and crap like that. And occasionally, an entire package of sausages. For the protein.

And I have no problem admitting to all of you naysayers that I was wrong.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

I gotta stop trying everything I see on TV.

I just checked my tauntaun... It's not looking too good.

In other words, my ten-day juice fast just turned into a three-day juice fast. Or maybe a one-day juice fast.

Throughout the day I just kept coming up with unpleasant adjectives to describe the texture of the juice. When I arrived at "slimy," I lost all interest in living.

I want to eat something that was once alive, preferably something that died a painful, bloody death before being dragged, twitching, to the deep-frier. And some french fries. OH, muh GAHHH! KFC! Seriously.

I'm not giving up, people, don't worry. I'm just thinking that I might have to resort to exercise if I want to lose any weight.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Lime

I bought a juicer. I bought five mangos. I bought three limes. I bought three "Pink Lady" apples. I put one mango in the juicer. I put one lime in the juicer. I put one "Pink Lady" apple in the juicer. The juice receptacle wasn't full. I reached into the fridge and grabbed a pear that we already had. I put one pear in the juicer.

A whole lime may have been too much.

I was in Mexico years ago and, in the process of tarring a roof, I got tar all over my hands. One of the locals siphoned some gas from a gas tank and I used it to clean the tar from my hands. The local quickly grabbed a lime and used it to clear the taste of gasoline from his mouth.

Lime can kill the taste of gasoline. Keep that in mind when adding lime to your food.

I love mango juice. For reals. On our flight home from Serbia I kept making the flight attendant bring me more mango juice, ignoring a look of annoyance that she had obviously perfected in the night clubs of Paris. I also enjoy the electric blast of lime, but this is too much. It's muting the mango.

So, rule number one when making your own juice: Don't use a whole lime.

This is day one of my ten-day juice fast. I've only had one meal and I'm having trouble finishing it, not because it's disgusting or anything, but... the lime.

It was so small and cute... I didn't think it could cause this much damage. I know better now.

That doesn't mean I won't make the same mistake later. I'm dumb like that.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Completely out-of-place Star Wars reference right at the end. Don't miss it.

I didn't realize it at first, but the past few days have been a sort of farewell tour for many of my favorite foods. Pizza, sausage rolls, steak fajita quesadillas, coney dogs, sesame chicken, brownies, pie... I've partaken and enjoyed, but grudgingly. I'm supposed to be losing weight, or at the very least, I'm supposed to be getting healthier. This food I've fallen in love with simply will not do.

I've been doing a lot of weight-lifting (a lot for me, anyway) and I'm really starting to enjoy it. It doesn't hurt that I'm starting to see major results. I'm getting pretty beefy, ladies. Unfortunately I'm not burning any fat. I'm adding muscle and, thus, adding weight. So I've decided to make some changes.

The first change might seem kind of drastic, and I'm sure after the first day I'll be jeering at myself right along with the rest of you, but here it is: I'm going on a ten-day juice fast. I'll consume nothing but water and fresh fruit and vegetable juice. For ten days. Mm-hm. I even went out and bought a juicer and a butt-load of mangos, which kind of sounds like a punk band.

Right now I'm drinking my last can of soda and I'm baking my last pan of brownies... at least for the next ten days. After that I'm going to be far more aware of what I eat and I'm going to attempt to take more responsibility for my body.

And for those of you who claim that my tauntaun will freeze before I reach the first marker, I offer this rebuttal, "No, it won't."


Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Taking control of my density, just like George McFly.

It's change for a time, people. And I mean it this change. (That started out as a typo and I turned it into a joke.)

I've been pretty bored with my blog lately, and, as this blog is about whatever I'm thinking about when I decide to write a post, that must mean I'm pretty boring. I'm not going to dig any deeper into that grave than I already have. Instead, I'll make some superficial changes and assume that the problem will fix itself.

Project 1: Jazz Up The Blog

Phase One: New Banner
Phase Two: Less Clutter
Phase Three: Topical Specificity
Phase Four: Use Words People Know
Phase Five: Another Contest
Phase Six: No More Contests
Phase Eight: Counting Lessons
Phase Nine: Think Of Something For Phase Ten
Phase Ten: TBA

So, I need a new banner. I have a few ideas I'm batting about, but if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to staple them to your face and I'll look them over the next time we meet. Or you could just e-mail them to me (the200lbman@hotmail.com).

Project 2: The Quest To Be Less Gross

I am, as you may have guessed, a smidgen overweight at around 215 lbs. The intraweb-net tells me that my ideal weight is between 114 and 150 lbs. My BMI, or Body Mass Index, which I think someone made up just so they could sell charts, is 35.8. It should be between 19 and 25.

I haven't weighed less than 150 lbs. since I was in junior high. So, I'm gonna ignore the "ideal weight" concept and shoot for "manageable weight." I'm thinking around 190. By then I hope to have developed some better life habits. I'll decided at that point if I need to set a lower goal for myself or if I just want to quit.

To document my progress I'm going to be starting another blog, a mini-blog, if you will, which I will update weekly. More on that later, like, when I actually get around to setting it up.

Fun things are just around the corner, people!

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Plans. (NOT the very excellent Death Cab For Cutie album.)

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post. I must be lazier than I realize. I've been trying to tie up a few loose ends in my life that have been a constant distraction. By this I mean that I've finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica. Now, with Admiral Adama and President Roslin out of my life, I can focus on what really matters: finally finishing Arrested Development. I'm almost kidding.

The weather lately has been pretty nice. The promise of Spring is one thing, but seeing the first tiny payout of warmth and sunshine has really sparked a change in me. I'm feeling much less grumpy and far more willing to actually move. I've even been lifting weights! Well... lifting weight. Singular. I only have the one.

I've made a decision that I'm going to lose some weight and get in better shape. Lifting my weight is step one. Step two is to cut out soda. Step three is to sew my head back on after I cut it off while in the midst of soda withdrawal. Step four is to... I don't actually have a step four. I doubt I'll get past step two.

In addition to improving my physical health I am putting a lot of focus on my spiritual health. Even though I've been a Christian most of my life, I've never made a habit of reading my Bible. I have a Bible app on my iPod Touch and, as I almost always have it with me, I have no excuse NOT to read.

I'm also planning on spending more time writing. I have tons of story ideas for a series of short stories I've been writing called "In the Shadow of the Standard and Hope," a few of which have been published in the sublime quarterly publication known as Ferocious Quarterly.

Other summer projects include (but are not limited to): planting a tiny 3x3 garden in the backyard for the daycare kids, removing some items (dead plants and large, broken toys) from our backyard,  figuring out what to do about the mole problem that seems to have gotten worse over the winter, and setting up a permanent memorial in honor of the gazebo that collapsed last year.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Desmond sure took his time about reacting to the explosion. I would have gone straight for the gun closet.

Rehydration is under way. Betsy bought me some sports drinks and my urine should be back to normal in no time.

That said, my body is still in pretty bad shape. I am currently freezing my balls off and in about seven minutes I'll be sweating them off. I'm super tired and I can't stay focused on anything very I watched the first few minutes of Episode 1 of Season 2 of Lost tonight. Holy crap. It makes me shiver just thinking about it. So, Lost shivers on top of dehydration shivers. I probably look like I'm trying to rap dance or something.

Betsy showed me this free app for my iPod called Instagram. It's been around for awhile, I know, but I've only had my iPod for a couple of weeks. Anyway, what you do is this: You take a picture with your iPod, if your iPod has a camera (sorry, Brian), and then Instagram gives you all of these filters to make the pictures look like they were taken with a really old camera. Then you click a button and *ZING!* it's on the World Wide Internet. Mine is linked to my Facebook account, so all of my Facebook friends can see the wacky pictures I take throughout the day. If you would like to to see some of the wack of which I speak but have not yet discovered the new Facebook Fenomenon, you can download the app on your mobile device and follow from there. My username is Matt242.

I also play Words With Friends under the same username, if anyone is interested in a little Scrabble-esque beatdown.

Wow. I literally just posted a request for friends on the internet. Believe it or not, this is not a low point.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

My insides are a desert. And, if you're a Zombie, a dessert!

I've been having some seriously weird symptoms the last few days. I'm dizzy most of the time, I go from being absolutely freezing to sweating profusely with no warning, I have no appetite all day and then, around eleven at night, I'm ravenous, my skin hurts constantly, my pee is dark orange, and my poops aren't nearly as much fun as they usually are. I'm tired and unfocused and I have no motivation whatsoever. Those last three symptoms are omnipresent, but the other stuff is pretty new.

I did a little research on the information superweb and I think I have found the problem: dehydration. Dehydration is a fancy word for "drying out." Dehydration occurs when a person experiences a period of heavy exertion and fails to replenish the fluids they lose. Or when an overweight person drinks primarily cherry cola and Irish Cream.

The solution? There is this stuff called "water." In Germany I believe it's called "Wasser." The capitalization alone makes me think it must be pretty important. To showcase just how much importance the Germans put on this mystery fluid, I will now list other words they capitalize, just for reference.

backpack
laser
bear
trampoline
Nerf gun
Lincolnberry pancake
dehydration

So you can see that this water stuff is no joke. There's an international grocery store downtown. I think I'll try to score some. It's probably a special-order item. That would totally happen to me.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Take cover...

The year was 1997. The 56K modem was king. I had a Juno email account and shockingly few friends. One fateful day while working at Video Stop I discovered Cherry Laffy Taffy. I purchased the entire bucket.

That night I consumed approximately fifty pieces of Cherry Laffy Taffy and about four cans of Cherry Coke. What happened next was a very schizophrenic tale entitled "The Ionosphere Monkeys." It became a twenty-eight part epic (thirty-five if you count the seven bonus haiku) and was very, very bad.

I will attempt to replicate the experiment tonight. Stay tuned.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

My doctor is a moron.

So, she didn't come right out and say it, but my doctor thinks I'm fat and that if I don't do something soon I'm going to die. So she put me on a diet. And she told me to get more exercise. And I'm not doing very well with either of those things.

About a week ago Betsy and I started doing this Shaklee detox thing. This is what my dinner looks like.

Delicious.

The green things are alfalfa. The other green things are an herbal laxative. The big white things are fiber. I have no idea what the alfalfa does, but I'm very aware of what the other two are for.

Anyway, next week I stop the detox super-poo-pills and start on nutritional supplements. I'm looking forward to my b-hole no longer being a volcano.

So, about the diet. I'm not supposed to eat chocolate, pastries, fried anything... I can eat all the vegetables I want, which I already do, which is none, which is a big part of the problem. I'm supposed to avoid all sugary drinks and most hard cheeses.

I'm not entirely sure that Cherry Coke counts as a sugary drink and "most hard cheeses" seems pretty vague to me, so I'm gonna use my best judgment on that one. I've also determined that brownies aren't pastries or chocolate, technically, and they may, in fact, be classified as a vegetable. And I'm expected to forgo any alcoholic beverages, as well, but as Irish Cream is *barely* alcoholic and I dilute it with milk and ice, I think it passes.

Weight loss is easy! You just have to find the diet that works for you.

Thank you,
Fatt Beers