After a week battling Johnny Reb, we're back in business

Nine score and 13 days ago, I set out on a journey to bring myself back into shape regardless of what obstacles, hindrances or summertime federal holidays came my way. Those who know me are more than familiar with my zest for July 4th, which is usually accompanied by a BBQ that is probably too much work and certainly too much food. But that's what life is about, right? Enjoying the time we have to relax in the sun, eat, drink, be merry and all those other cliches. Much like St. Kilda's lone Grand Final victory, that's the point of it all.

But when you have a goal in mind, sacrifices sometimes have to be made, and if I were truly dedicated to winning this battle of physical fitness, spending this past Memorial Day chomping on a plate full of sausages (to say nothing of the barbecued chicken, hamburgers and hot dogs) really wasn't the best way to make strides. This is all particularly alarming considering one very important thing.

Time is running out.

My sister's wedding is a mere 17 days away, which means, really, there is no time to dawdle. I ought to be in the gym every morning just as voraciously as I have been the past six months. Yes, I already am basically as thin, generally, as I'm going to get, and while it's not lost on my friends or family, it strangely hasn't been lost on the random assortment of neighborhood characters I run into on a near daily basis. In the past four days both the cashier at my local Duane Reade and this middle aged woman, who uses the gym at the same time as me every morning, commented at how much weight I've lost. This was particularly surprising from the middle-aged woman, whom I was convinced hated me ever since she made a face at me from the other elliptical machine some four months ago.

All of this is reassuring, and it's certainly confidence-inducing. But more importantly, it's pertinent to keep my nose to the grindstone because of how near we are to the end. In the great battle of weight-loss in 2013 we are currently in the last throes of the insurgency. This is a delicate time. So delicate, in fact, that it makes one wonder just how I could suddenly decide to take not just a day off, as I did this past Memorial Day, but nearly an entire week.

For that, I blame yet another insurgency.

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.

We're entering the home stretch, and it will not be easy

I love my family. Most people love their families. But most people can also understand the complexity of family overload. I know I do. Strangely, though, for me "overload" isn't really so much about the quality time of finding out from each of your family members that they have some girl they want you to meet -- though that is its own special kind of overload. No this is about food.

And in my family, you get overloaded with food almost every time you see them.

That's fine. As my grandmother has put it, if you're going to go out to eat, you may as well eat well, and if the discomfort I felt wearing all of my old pants over the last five years is any indication, I agree with the sentiment. However, there is one positively brutal stretch of the year that includes so many family gatherings it makes people's fears about gaining weight during late December seem like child's play. Every year from mid-March until Mid-May if you try and fail to make plans with me on a weekend it's a good bet it's because my family has taken me hostage, and I'm busy consuming all of the food that comes with it. To wit, all of these fall within a span of roughly eight weeks:

My uncle's birthday
Passover
My mother's birthday
My father's birthday
Mother's Day
My step-mother's birthday (which this year is the same day as Mother's Day)

I should note that this stretch also includes two cousins birthdays and has in the past included the birthday of more than one person I have dated, fortunately for me though, both of those cousins do not live in New York and I'm no longer dating any of those women, which eases up the docket a little bit. The long and short of this, however, is that over this period there is a lot of eating. And my family has never been one for the light crackers and cheese hors d'oeurves, either. When we barbecue we serve diced up sausage and skirt steak before you've walked in the door, let alone sat down for an appetizer. This is made even more complicated by the fact that my mother, father, step-mother and sister-in-law all happen to be tremendous cooks, so generally speaking, even if you're full, you don't want that brisket at the passover seder to go to waste.

Passover: Friend of Foe?

For those of you that know me, which I have to assume is absolutely anyone that reads this blog, you already know that I'm Jewish. After all, it's not like I keep it a secret. But the impact of Judaism on my diet is usually not terribly dramatic, though if anything, it does have a tendency to induce more eating because what Jewish family gathering is complete without loud political debates, frequent hand-gesturing and a ton of food?

None. That's how many.

So yeah, my family enjoys a good meal, which in the past hasn't exactly served me terribly well as I look to keep the waistline under control. Not that I mean to blame my parents for my own lack of self control, but the idea for us that if you're going to eat, you might as well eat well, isn't unusual. It is rare, however, that Judaism finds a way to actually restrict my diet. After all, I don't keep kosher, which means cheeseburgers, bacon and shrimp fairly regular choices. But there are two times every year when being Jewish actually has to hold my food choices in check, with one being Yom Kippur -- a straight "Don't eat or drink for 24 hours" bonanza -- and the far more fickle yeast-free Passover.

And lo and behold, here we are.

Passover is typically observed by, among other things, not eating bread for seven days. (Yes, I know some more conservative adherents don't eat bread for eight days, but if you look up why that tradition was established, you can see that it's totally ludicrous and completely unnecessary in modern times. Some Haggadot have been updated to reflect this.) But bread isn't the only thing to avoid. I can't drink beer, cookies, pasta, most cereals or any number of other foods made with yeast or leaven. Instead I get to eat matzah, which every gentile seems to think is awesome, and every Jew knows is an oversized flavorless saltine, which begs the question of how any person, Jewish or gentile, could possibly think matzah is awesome. But there is matzo ball soup, which is pretty fantastic.

Now, on the surface, an inability to eat wasteful carbohydrates should seem like a blessing in disguise if I'm trying to cut weight. After all, in this Atkins Diet world (note: I think the Atkins Diet, or any other fad diet, is total bullshit), everyone knows that carbs are basically the worst things known to man and not at all necessary to live properly and keep your brain in proper chemical balance. Nope, they just make you all big and fat. You don't need them to live.

Sometimes the world is just against you

Let's be frank here, people. The holidays are a very trying time when it comes to the subject of weight loss. Late December is a gorge of eating, then there's New Year's Eve, then there's New Year's, then there's the inevitable heavy drinking involved when Northwestern wins its first bowl game in 64 years (Ed: Go Cats.) and combined with all of this is the fact that it's just so damn cold outside and you start thinking and extra layer or two of cellulite might not be the worst thing in the winter months.

You fight through that shit.

You need to push yourself through the easy exits so you can actually make some progress in losing weight -- or at least keep yourself in check while you pound down loads of empty calories. Fortunately, while I haven't made much progress in getting the number on my scale lower through this most dangerous time of the year, I've managed to keep myself from going too overboard. However, now it's time to take a deep breath and focus. The holidays are over, I'm in the clear, and with the exception of my grandmother's birthday next weekend and the Super Bowl, there is nary an eating holiday in sight for me until late March, when I enter a brutal stretch in which my family and Judaism force me to endure about 87 food-heavy celebrations in seven weeks. Yes, Passover and the birthdays of my uncle, mother, father and step-mother all fall within close proximity, which means before those days hit I need to get some serious work done. We're talking "be in the 180s by mid-March" work.

I didn't think that would be too hard since I've made pretty solid progress over the first six weeks of this stupendous journey, but right as I walked into the gym on Jan. 2 to get my most pivotal period of weight-loss underwear I saw something on the door to the elliptical machine. It was that notice you see in the top right of this entry, a warning that if I should so much as dare to jump in the pool, I will not be allowed to for ten full days while it undergoes "annual routine maintenance."

Now that is some bullshit right there.