This isn’t going to be pretty.  In fact, that’s part of the motivation.  Embarassment, discomfort, public ridicule are primary behavior modifiers in my life.

You see at one point in my life, I want to be “ripped” and I mean black guy “ripped”.  I’m 32 years old and only getting older.  I’ve got a son, a dog, a wife, and a mortgage.  I write pretty much all day long, slurping down Chai tea and hot cocoa, fixing my expanding ass into a pleather office chair and trying to avoid eye strain and carpel tunnel.  I’m shaking the magic 8-ball and its coming back, “You’re Fooked.”

Am I going to end up like this guy?

The summer after my sophmore year of high school, I weighed 134 pounds.  I remember this clearly because I used to work out everyday at the Rockhouse Gym just down the street and weigh myself religious after each session.  At 5′ 8″, I was a on the lean to bitch-ass side of physicality.

Then I went to college, joined a fraternity and all of the sudden in three years, I was up to 161 amazingly.  Well, I didn’t get any taller, but I did fill out a little in the arms and chest.  But mostly it was a tire forming around my mid-section.  A tire that I like to call the Anti-Soccer Ring.

Soccer is one of those few sports that actually requires some level of fitness to play on any level. It’s not like basketball, flag football, or softball.  There are positions for fat people, slow people, or lazy people.  Unless you want to be goalkeeper, then you’re hosed if you play soccer.

For instance, you absolutely cannot play proper football and drink.  If you try to run when you are drunk, you WILL get a cramp in your side that feels like two ribs have just been smacked with an aluminum bat.  If you try to run when you are drunk, you will trip over the ball and break your ankle.  If you try to run when you are drunk, you WILL puke all over yourself, instantly sober up, and no longer have the desire to a) drink, b) play soccer, and c) talk with anyone.

So you can see how the beginnings of an ASR can really effect the outcome of a career of hack soccer.  Now fast forward another eight years.  I was living in Australia, just married, and still exercising sporadically in between watching cooking, travel, and docos on the 4 TV stations in Melbourne.  By the way, I went to Saigon last year and they have 40 .. FORTY channels … on their basic cable.  Four-Zero.  Maybe there is something to be said for being communist after all.

My weight was 77 kilos.  Remember, we’re on the metric system here.  That equates to 170 pounds.  Hmm, I’m starting to get worried.  Well, fast forward again.  I’ve had a kid with a pregnancy completely based on Macca’s (Mickey D’s) and KFC.  My kid is born at 9 pounds.  I weigh myself and I’m coming in at 87 kilos.

87 KILOS!

You know its bad when you see the result on the scale and beginning channeling Pazuzu from the Exorcist in a demonic-Turette syndrome fueld rage.  “Karas!  Your mother is in here with us!”

OK, let’s just put that into the calculator for metric conversion … yep … its official.  I’m a fat bastard.  I’ve been super-sized.  I ate the 76er.  I joined the Oliver Miller weight plan.  God, forsake me with one of the plagues of Egypt … except for one that is edible like frog legs, because I can’t trust myself.  I’m such an emotional eater.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Well, that was two months ago.  I’ve lost 6 kilos since then by limiting myself to one fudge popsickle per hour, playing a little more soccer, and lifting my gargantuan son over my head every hour, on the hour.  I’ve also starting the sorority weight loss plan.  I stand in front of the mirror and use a black magic marker to circle all of my cellulite and verbally abuse myself, “Fry like bacon, freshman piggy!”, and then go to sleep in a coffin with a dead owl.

It’s working, of course, but not as fast as I would like.  Remember, my goal is not to maintain a slightly rotund shape.  I want to be ripped, shredded, cut.  Like Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise or Ryan Reynolds in Blade 3 or the crazy Irish guy in Charlies Angels 2.  At least once in my life.

So I’m making a suicide pact.  Not one of those I’ll kill myself, if you kill yourself, but you go first.  Pinkie swear that I’ll do right after.  I’d pretty much have to insist on going second, because I just don’t trust anybody that much and then whether I did it really depended on 1) how painful it looked for the first person and 2) if you really crap and pee yourself when you die.  Eeeh.  No, that just ends up with one dead body and one person trying to sneak away.  Plus, I’m not too keen on dying.

Rather my suicide pact is taking a different form, the aforementioned disgrace, humiliation, and exile.  I know that I’m hard to motivate, especially when “bacon tastes good, pork chops taste good.”  So I’m using my date with potential self destruction to motivate my lazy ass to actually do something.

Here’s my pact: in four months (my son’s 1-year birthday, March 20th), I am going to post a bare chested picture of myself and let the cards fall where they may.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

There are some conditions …

First, I reserve the right to trim chest hair.  Second, I’m cropping out my face, but I assure that it will be me.  The THUGLIFE tattoo across my stomach and deeply tanned, nearly black, skin will guarantee it.  Third, I will not PhotoShop at all … unless I contract ringworm in the four months between now and then.  That will be for both of our benefits.

So there it is … my self annihilation.

I officially started my regimen tonight.  What did I have to eat for dinner?  Um … I’d rather not say.  OK, I had a Whopper, large-sized French Fries, and a Sprite.  Geez, this is going to be harsh.

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