Transition period

Is it worth the waiting for?
If we live 'til eighty four
All we ever get is gruel!
Ev'ry day we say our prayer --
Will they change the bill of fare?
Still we get the same old gruel!
There is not a cust, not a crumb can we find,
Can we beg, can we borrow, or cadge,
But there's nothing to stop us from getting a thrill
When we all close our eyes and imagine

Food, glorious food!
Hot sausage and mustard!
While we're in the mood --
Cold jelly and custard!
Pease pudding and saveloys!
What next is the question?
Rich gentlemen have it, boys --
In-di-gestion!

Ah, transitioning from my wonderful, flavorful, and filling diet to a reduced calorie offering has been fun to say the least. And by "fun", of course, I mean "horrible".

In an effort to get to a 1000+ calorie deficit, I try to stick to about 2000 calories of food a day. 400 calories for breakfast or lunch, some 100-200 calorie snacks here and there, and about 500-800 calories for dinner. Sounds simple enough, and if you look at what you can eat for 400 calories it almost sounds like a diet you can follow. You can have two whole bowls of cereal and a banana for breakfast, and a turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch. Not bad right?

Well, actually, it is pretty bad. You see, I'm not exactly what you call a Ferrari, a finely tuned machine that performs well on premium gasoline. I'm more like Mater from Cars - an old rusty tow truck that burns a steady diet of diesel fuel. And when you put premium gas into a diesel, it isn't good.

My diesel fuel is doughnuts, kolaches, double stackers, milk shakes, beef n cheddars, and bacon. You take that away along with the other things that led to my pre-diet caloric surplus, and the premium fuel I am now eating starts to disagree with my engine. Note that I'm also asking my engine to work harder than ever on top of this, which isn't helping matters at all.

At first I thought this was temporary. My stomach is used to eating until packed, so I expected it to be a little distended (and trust me, it is a little distended). After a week, though, I thought it would start to realize what's up, conform to the plan, and get on board with what I am doing. King George III made a similar miscalculation with the American colonies, and got a similar result.

Yes, instead of reaching some sort of inner karmic balance with my new quest for fitness, my body reared up in a revolution that would make Thomas Paine proud. At first, it was pangs of hunger. Then it was painful pangs of hunger. And then it was crippling pangs of hunger. And then it started to get serious. When the hunger pangs didn't work, my internal organs got together and issued my body a full Declaration of Independence. If you put your ear to my gut you could almost hear it crying the famous anthem of protest from Twisted Sister: We're not gonna take it, no we ain't gonna take it, no we're not gonna take it anymore.

And they didn't take it. I'll spare the gory details, but suffice it to say I am fighting a full out internal revolution. It cripples my abilities to exercise, and puts me in severe pain at time. But I'm fighting through it. I'm not going to let the terrorists inside my body win. I'm going to continue to eat healthy and exercise until the rebellion is put down.

Let them eat rice cakes.