We have 30 days to go, people. It's crunch time.

Which is to say, I guess, I should be doing more crunches. I'm not sure that that's true, really. My stomach is tighter and less voluminous right now than it's been in at least eight years, and probably ever. But that doesn't mean the screws aren't tightening. I've maintained all along that it's those last few pounds that will cause the most trouble and with us just 30 days left before my stated June 22 deadline, those last few pounds are being tricky.

Depending on the day I'm anywhere from 3.5-7 pounds away from that magical number of 175, and getting much closer has proven extremely tricky. At this point, the lowest I've tipped the scales at is 178.4, a number I thought I might break this morning until I saw otherwise. All that said, I'm not beating myself up over it too much, clearly. As I've noted before, any particular number you see on a scale on any particular day isn't particularly trustworthy.

Still, I am human, am I not? I still crave that irrational satisfaction of seeing months of painstaking, deliberate accomplishment boiled down to one number for half a second if I can balance myself on my shitty scale just right. Considering my doctor told me recently there was no need for me to lose anymore weight for health purposes, this seems to be my raison d'être: To see a digitized number on a piece of plastic my mother bought nearly 10 years ago.

I think I need more things to do with my time.

More visual evidence that no one looks good exercising

Oh yeah. That's me right there to the right, looking less like an athlete and more like a cramping sloth whose shorts are way too tight as I make the final turn at a 10K I ran this past weekend in the lovely Newport section of Jersey City. My friend Theresa took it upon herself to snap this shot of me passing the girl I was using as a pace-setter for the final mile and while I would have preferred she didn't share it with the outside world, such is life sometimes. There I am, dragging myself through the last half mile of the longest distance I had ever run with my noticeable green and yellow shoes that are far too snazzy for a man with my fashion sensibilities.

On the plus side, though, it's hard to lose me in a crowd.

So yes, a few weeks after I ran an actual organized race for the first time, I decided to test my mettle again by doubling the distance. This may not have been wise. After all, 6.2 miles, while not an insurmountable distance, was not something I had ever pushed myself to. In fact, I often opt for the elliptical rather than jogging outside these days because I know my ankles and knees have gotten somewhat balky and running on pavement for roughly an hour straight isn't really going to help that. What's more, when you get past three miles or so, it's wise to kind of train for these things and gradually improve your mile base rather than just throwing yourself into the fire. My training involved exactly one run of 5.5 miles a week earlier, which nearly killed me since I may (definitely did) have had too much to drink the night before.

But hey, when you've lost 40 pounds in five months, I suppose you take it upon yourself to prove just how physically fit you are by indulging in these feats of endurance. If you're lucky like I am, the result of this is, well, survival. Beyond surviving, if you can deal with the lingering pain for at least a little while you're ahead of the game. In my case that pain was pretty ever-present, as I could feel some nasty discomfort hitting my right hip about halfway through the race. Fortunately for me, that is gone now, but my legs were extremely stiff for the first 48 hours after the race and just now are starting to loosen up a bit on me. All of those aches made the fact that my shoe got soaked when I stepped in a puddle during the first half mile seem immaterial by comparison.

There was a pretty big holiday yesterday. I did not celebrate.

Far be it from me to judge peoples' logic or reasoning marking certain days. After all, the start of May is just chock full of important, universally enjoyed celebrations such as Cinco de Mayo, May Day or Star Wars Day, but in some cases, I question the rationale, and yesterday a holiday I had never heard of caught my eye. It seems that every year on May 6, the few of us that can't be bothered to celebrate Willie Mays' birthday are actually celebrating the curious International No Diet Day. This particular holiday is actually far less jovial and full of reckless abandon than one might hope for, particularly since I first heard about it while reading an article about excessive ways to consume bacon, but it is actually a celebration of the natural human form in such a way that it intends to lash back at the societal pressure to maintain an unhealthily skinny body.

According to Wikipedia, the key terms involved are body acceptance, fat acceptance and "body shape diversity." Much of this has been spearheaded by the International Size Acceptance Association, which, amazingly, is actually a real thing. Who knew?

Now, on its surface, I can certainly understand or even appreciate the need to boost morale among people that are either genetically predisposed to weight gain are simply have a larger structure and frame than someone who is, uh, "pretty" like Kate Moss. Like everyone else who has been obese at some point of their lives I've been victim to my fair share of teasing or societal pressure as a result of my own weight. In some sense, I can understand or even appreciate the need to reassure people of their own self esteem when they tip the scales a little more than they'd like to. Lord knows I've met more than my fair share of women who think they still need to lose three pounds when there isn't anything left to lose.