Argument:

I've been zeroing in on genuine and actual fitness for something like five or six years now. I put in my miles (for the most part) but I don't really see the results I want. I've come to believe that the most pressing problem (there are several) is the extra fifteen pounds of dinner table I've been carrying around on my runs and bike rides--so here's my line in the potato salad, as it were--my marshmallow line (we'll pretend like history doesn't remember how quickly the French defenses fell). I'm going to maintain a reasonably high level of exercise over the next thirty days while drastically curbing the worst of my eating. This blog, then, serves on two levels. First, it will force me to at least loosely track my eating and second, it will make me vulnerable to semi-public scorn and humiliation if I don't actually hold to a generally reasonable diet and exercise regime for the next thirty days.

Plan:

This isn't a food diary. I'm not going to carry a little book around with me everywhere I go. I will be honest and open, but I do not think that a man who weighs his pasta is technically alive. I will also consider the realities of my life and make certain allowances for exercise and travel. My goal here isn't to be a fascist or a spartan, but simply to hold myself to a reasonable diet (say, 2300 to 3200 kcal/day) and justify my consumption for at least the next thirty days.

Hopes:

Thirty days from now I would love to weigh 175 pounds (roughly fifteen pounds less than my current weight) without having given up any of my exercise. If that's where I am a month from now, I'm not going to argue with a single one of the decisions I made. If not, it will be time to regroup and see what I need to do. Short of that, I suppose I can get abs implants--big, jiggly, fake-tanned ab implants. But that's another blog altogether.