How a Manly Man Watches His Weight

Here is how you lose weight like a man. Spray a nonstick pan with Pam, and then pour a cup of nonfat egg product in it.

When it hardens sufficiently, it is ready. Just like concrete. Add a coat of Tabasco and then knock it all back with a quart of Crystal Light.

The one good thing about this breakfast is that it only penalizes you three Weight Watcher points. And since the human body hasn’t adapted to digesting nonfat egg product, it spends most of the morning resting on the bottom of your stomach like sludge, taking up enough space to deter you from racking up any more points until lunch.

Thanks a lot, Charles Barkley.

When corporate America wants to sell feminine products to men – and by “feminine products” I mean unmanly creations such as Miller Lite or Old Spice – it often uses athletes. In the case of diet products, it uses overweight, retired athletes.

This makes Charles Barkley the perfect shill for bringing men to the women’s world of Weight Watchers. Have you seen his before and after pictures?

There is the really fat Charles and then, 27 pounds lost later, there is the just pretty-fat Charles.
“Diet is not a man’s word because we don’t like to diet – we like to eat,’’ says Charles.  “Like a lot of athletes, I’ve gained weight since I’ve retired. But I don’t want to be a fat, old man taking lots of pills.’’

Like Charles, I once participated in sports that burned calories as fast as I could consume them. For breakfast, I ate an entire loaf of unsliced Publix White Mountain bread, ripping off delicious chunks all morning long. For lunch, it was half a barbecued chicken, with fries and garlic bread. And then came a half-pound of pasta for dinner.

Life was like a box of carbs. I ate more Weight Watcher points in one day back then than I’m allowed in five weeks now. And then the marathons and bike racing stopped. My pants became tights, and my bellybutton a closed mouth. I realized I would be a fat old man taking lots of pills unless something changed.

That’s when I saw Charles talk about eating meatballs, pizza, burgers and losing weight like a man.
And I signed up. I typed in my personal information and was informed that I could eat 32 points a day.

That sounded good because four of the meatballs that Charles talks about eating are only two points. And then I checked out the recipe. The meatballs weigh a third of an ounce each. They are not meatballs. They are meat pebbles. It would take 12 of them to make a quarter-pounder, which would get the total up to six points, not counting the five-point bun and 13-point fries.

But the real bad news is beer. A Yuengling comes in at five points. So one day’s sustenance could consist of a six-pack, four meat pebbles, 3 pounds of broccoli and a half-gallon of blueberries. (Fruits and vegetables are point-less to encourage you to eat them.)

Life has become an internal negotiation – food or beer. I bargain for beer by accumulating “activity’’ points. Riding my bike hard for 50 minutes is worth two Yuenglings.

If the entire nation lived by points, we would shut down McDonald’s and the Cheesecake Factory.
We would bankrupt every food company from PepsiCo to General Mills. We would live in a world of Crispers and Kashi.

There would be no games, no gimmicks, no miracle foods. We would go back to three sizes – L, M and S. If you asked for XL, people would think you were looking for a spreadsheet.

Weight Watchers is reality. You are what you eat.

It’s dinner. I’m thinking two Boca Burgers and thin multigrain buns, with all the lettuce, tomato and onions I can pile on. Tabasco replaces barbecue sauce, because barbecue sauce is two points and Tabasco is none.

Two points, plus 15 minutes on the bike trainer, buys me another beer. 

Native Floridian and longtime Orlando columnist Mike Thomas is a freelance writer.