Back to the back

In case you've missed the latest news affecting the world, my back is torn up again. I did a great job on it this time. Had to miss work, use a wheelchair, made it back to work, progressed to a walker, still at work, and now I'm on a cane. Still working despite the agonizing pain and sheer agony. There seems to be an unfortunate theme in this.

The theme is that work is bad. No, wait, that's not the theme. That's the refrain. The theme is that we need to take care of our backs so that they will allow us to continue to work at our soul-crushing jobs. Yes, that's the theme. Now let's all hum it.

The most important thing we can do for our backs is to lose weight. Didn't see that coming, did ya? You were just reading along and then suddenly the dreaded weight loss is in your face. Ha! That'll teach you to be so trusting.

Seriously, just one pound of fat on your belly puts 1,754,321 pounds of pressure on your back. You get to be over 50 pounds overweight, and your back is actually having to support the weight of the entire world! Including Australia! I apparently am supporting most of the planets. I'm a mighty man, I am!

So you must lose weight, mustn't you? But enough about you. Let's talk about something interesting, like me.

I have to lose weight and thus have embarked on a diet. It consists of a protein drink for breakfast, a bran and cardboard muffin for a mid-morning snack, a protein drink for lunch, a chewy bran and dirt muffin for an afternoon snack, and then a sensible evening meal, which usually consists of a small dinner salad and a side of beef. Well, not always. Sometimes I skip the salad.

I also take a multi-vitamin and drink as much water as I can drink without sloshing. Woohoo! I'm living the high life!

Of course, I cheat on this. But I try to confine my cheating foods to those that are healthy for me, such as broccoli, carrots, lettuce, Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, roasted chickens and double dips of cherry pecan praline ice cream.

So how's this working out for me? I can hear you asking. I have excellent ears. In fact, many of my body parts have received excellent ratings by the International Council of Body Part Rating.

Slowly. It's going slowly. The big problem seems to be that my activity level has dropped severely due to the limitations imposed by my back. Moving hurts, walking hurts, breathing hurts. I sneezed once at the beginning of this injury, and the pain was so bad that I asked the doctor to shoot me. After I wrestled the gun away from him, I switched doctors.

But my back is getting better slowly. Yesterday I sneezed at lunch, and as I watched the particles of snot fly toward the neighboring table, I thought, "Hey, that didn't hurt much." There's always a bright spot in everything, you know.

So how are you doing? Did you lose any at this Wednesday Weigh In? You might notice that I've taken my weight loss to zero. I consider today a new start and hope to show a loss next week.