CLIFTON'S AMBITIOUS SELF-IMPROVEMENT PLAN
(aka Diet)

Why, you ask? I got another nasty headache earlier, about an hour after I blogged this morning. It sent me into a funk pit, so I ran right out to Taco Bell and had a healthy lunch of 4 soft tacos, a bean burrito, two orders of potatoes, and a chicken enchilada bowl. Naturally, I've spent the rest of the afternoon bemoaning my angry stomach, which only made me angrier at myself. So rather than do what I usually would -- run out and eat a huge dinner, too -- I decided that it's time to stop lying to myself.

How's that, you say? Lying to myself about what? Lying to myself about the fact (fact) that most of my trouble in every aspect of my life stems from being overweight. When you consider that eight months ago I weighed around 350 pounds (estimating, but I know I'm not far off -- maybe less, maybe more) and I've still got issues like these, well, I guess I'm just glad I'm not dead yet. But I look at myself in the mirror and I think, "Yeah, I'm better off than I was, but I'm still worse than most." I'm not THAT far from 300, here. I've been hovering around 282 for two months now... I dipped down to 279.5 on one check-in at the track (I'm using the track's scale), and I've bounced up to 285-286 on a couple of occasions. The main problem is, I eat the wrong kind of eating-out food, far too often. You know what I've had for dinner while I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to approach this topic? A can of chicken broth. Exactly one gram of fat in the whole 14-oz. can, and 30 calories, and I feel like I've eaten a meal. It's just, I'm a weak, weak person, and it's far too easy to stop off and grab GreasyBurger on the way home. I need to go to the store tomorrow and get some healthful food, as well as some supplements (why not?), and get going on this. I'm not going to do the Atkins thing, or go on one of those crazy cabbage-soup diets... I'm just going to eat smaller amounts of more healthy food. And I'm going to go down to the workout center here in my apartments and see what they've got. I'm at the same time tired of being lightheaded after I climb my stairs.

I don't know. I guess I'm finally caving in to society. That's all it boils down to. I'm 22 years old anymore... it's time to stop being the fat kid.