What a workout! a diet challenge you've got to read about! by Chris Keys

What a workout! A diet challenge you just gotta read about! By Chris Keys


Author of the soon to be released ebook The Fishing Trip-A Ghost Story and Reprisal! The Eagle Rises! Due out summer 2010

I am sure that many of you can relate to this blog. Dieting is America’s number one pass time beating out the fan favorites of baseball, wrestling and even football. A friend of mine, who is a doctor, has written a diet book, which despite the crowded market place has preprinting sales that I’m sure I can only hope for when my first book hits the market place.

I, myself, have been on a diet for several months. No, it hasn’t been supervised by a doctor but it has been effective. I have lost over thirty pounds. It’s the age old diet that was practiced by millions over the years. Push back from the table and don’t put any food in your mouth. It has worked. For the longest time, I felt I was on the see food diet. See food and gain weight, but now I’ve learned not to look. The longer I can avoid looking the more weight I don’t gain from eating whatever I see.

So what does this have top do with writing? Well, over the last three years as I started to write, I’ve found myself spending more and more time sitting at the computer, writing. I’ve become a “Pooter tater.” That’s a new name I’ve just coined for people who sit at the computer all day and night, blogging or socializing or writing. We have the “Couch Potatoes” that are the TV watchers and now we have “Pooter Taters” for the computer potatoes. I am the top tater. I spend hours and hours, everyday, writing this or that, or editing something or rewriting something so it is fit to publish, making me a “Pooter Tater”

Of course I have an excuse. I have a disability that limits my mobility so it’s not like I’m going to suddenly stop being a “Pooter Tater” and become the next exercise guru. I simply have to limit how much I eat, if I’m going to lose weight. Which brings me to Easter Sunday, after church time, we went to a local park and picnicked which was great. I was very good about not eating too much of anything and I actually had to walk a bit, which was good for me, despite the issues.

The problem came into focus for me after we returned home and discovered that we, this included our two daughters, our two grand children, one boyfriend and Great Grandma plus five dogs, for a total of eight people and five animals, hardly ate enough of the food to have bothered to bring it in the first place. There was almost the entire potato salad left over. The baked beans only had few spoonfuls missing; plus we had burgers and hot dogs left over as well. Plus as I soon discovered, the chips and dip hadn’t been touched.

Chips and dip, the crinkled cut dipping chips all nice and salty with the French onion sour cream dip, was and still is my favorite snack food. Now as many of you will attest, this is like pouring contact cement glue into your veins and stuffing yourself with lard. Not exactly great stuff when you’re not super physically active, like when I a teenager some forty years ago. I sat and eyed the bags of delicious chips, knowing I shouldn’t eat them. But oh they were so tempting. When my wife crashed at six o’clock and went soundly to sleep, I was left with a quandary. I could make myself something for dinner, eat the left over potato salad and other items from the picnic or I could just eat the potato chips and dip. I mean who would know? I was basically alone in the house. It was just me and the chips and dip. I battled the issue for a couple of hours, mentally fighting the urge to devour the chips. I spent my time as usual editing my book, the big novel, Reprisal! The Eagle Rises! trying to focus on it, rather than on eating. For the most part, it almost worked.

I guess I’m a nervous eater, because when I’m writing or rewriting, I tend to look for something to nibble at. The draw back being, that while this is happening, the writing and nibbling, I’m not paying any attention to how much I’m nibbling, but a bag of pretzels, a full one pound bag only lasts for a chapter or two, depending on their size.

Once I’d managed to hold out against my desires for close to three hours, I decided to finally eat something. So I went to the refrigerator and was all set to eat potato salad when I was shocked to see that the potato salad was gone. The daughters upon helping us get back home, it was on their way home, had helped themselves to most of the food from the picnic. It was ok they did so, since Donna and I wouldn’t have eaten it and it would have gone to waste. But it did create another issue, because they left the chip dip.

So I did my best to resist. I closed the refrigerator door and checked the cupboards for something else, though nothing sounded very good. I went back to editing and did my best to ignore the calling of the chips. But at last I surrendered and gave into my desires. As the wife slept, I cheated. I cast aside the trust and the emotional investment I had placed in my diet, for the cheap tawdry sensation of the mouth watering taste of chips and dip. The months of sacrifice now ended as I gave in. I allowed temptation to overwhelm me and destroy all of my hard work and the bond of trust I had forged with myself over my diet.

So, today as I write, I’m not snacking at all. I’ve renewed my efforts to lose weight while not exercising at all. Except for my continuing with my regiment of jumping to conclusions, watching spectator sports and running my proverbial mouth for all the exercise it may provide. I am have rededicated myself to success in my quest to lose weight and then to write the definitive diet book, based on will power, alone. Just don’t let anyone get too close with chips and dip or ice cream for that matter.

Yes, this was just a writing exercise, but the story it is true. I felt I needed to fill some space with my brand of musing while I continued to research and develop my take on epublishing and POD publishing. Look for my first book to reach the market, The Fishing Trip-A Ghost Story, to be an Ebook and a POD (Print on Demand) paperback book very soon. I’m going through the system with this much smaller book so that I can work out the kinks on my end before I get involved with publishing my super novel, that’s a book over 140,000 words, which mine is. Check out the excerpts and synopsis on my Face Book page under notes for, The Fishing Trip-A Ghost Story. It should be released by the end of the month at the latest. I’ll be sure to post when it’s available. Chris Keys 04/05/10

Maybe the next book could be diet horror story?