You're Daddy is so fat . . .

"Ofosu Yeboah and Jim MacLaren"








Again and Again and . . . Again!


YUMMY! I eat.

I eat a lot.

I have a beautiful wife, healthy, thin, tall, beautiful so I am so sorry for our future children. The other little kids won’t tell “Momma, fat jokes”. They’ll tell “Daddy fat jokes!” I can hear it now . . .

“Yo Daddy is so fat, that he eats Wheat THICKS!”

“Yo Daddy is so fat, when he wears a yellow rain coat, people yell TAXI!!!”

“Yo Daddy is so fat he had to go to Sea World to get Baptized!””

And this is just one of the reasons that I will not be fat in one year. It is not going to be easy. I have fallen off of the wagon several times since I began this adventure almost four months ago. I have lost a little and I have gained it back, I have eaten healthy for a month or so and killed it in a week! I have exercised consistently for three weeks and then I have not seen a running shoe near my feet for three.

No one said this was going to be easy. As a matter of simple fact, I think it is clear that everyone knows it will be quite difficult. I think it will be.

I began this trek to healthiness weighing in at 406 pounds. I weighed literally right now and I come in at 388 pounds. A month ago I was at 376 pounds. Talk about a Yo-Yo!

It has been difficult the past few weeks here in Baton Rouge. My home town of New Orleans, 55 miles away has been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and Rita, but worse, it is being demolished by politicians in Washington. The city I love will never be quite the same and I fear it may be radically different if the politicians have their way. It is sad. And to a man of compassion, which I am to a fault, seeing all that is happening around me is emotionally draining.

So I eat. Then, the more I eat, the worse I feel about myself. The more I eat the less I want to go out and exercise because the worse I feel and the more I see myself as a grotesque, fat, lazy bum. Maybe I am? You know. I am not trying to be funny. Is it possible that I am grotesque? Is it possible that I not only feel fatter, but I do look that much fatter? Am I lazy? I could answer yeas to each of those questions.

Now . . .

Can I stop? This is the much more difficult question. Can I stop these actions that are killing me? Is it possible to turn around my current trends and patterns and renew my thinking patterns so that my kids won’t be made fun of because their Daddy is grotesque, fat and lazy?

Only time will tell. But I am running out of time. We are running out of time.

I know it is difficult to go into public as we are. I feel you when we walk into a restaurant and as the good looking size 4 hostess walks towards the booth with the table that won’t adjust; we cringe as we ask her for a table. “SHE KNOWS WHY!!” We scream to ourselves.

I know people stare at us as we are walking or jogging on the side of the road in our subdivisions, but that’s ok.

I must accept who I am right now. I am a fat man. I am an unhealthy man. I am a man with no direction. I am lazy to a fault. This is who I am right now. I have to know myself to change myself. I must realize who I am before others do so that I feel comfortable in my own skin.

If I can realize who I am with all of my faults, then whatever others think about me is arbitrary, because once I know myself, then I can begin to find the self I want to be.

I am going to make a list of all of the things I am right now. I am going to make another list of all of the things I want to be. Not a second list of what I don’t want to be, since I am sure all of that will be covered on my who I am right now list.

I am going to post that list for all of you. I want you to help me be that man.

I have fallen again, but I am getting back up.

Do you know what the funny or maybe it is the ironic thing about all of this is?

I am the only one who can get in my way here. The only person that can keep me from being the ma I want to be . . . Is me. Sure others can hinder me. Others can intentionally and unintentionally set me back, but none of those people picks up a fork and put s food o it and puts it in my mouth and moves my jaws back and forth until I swallow.

Until that happens . . . It’s all about me.

I’m back.

There are 12 months until I compete in my first Olympic size triathlon in Florida. Twelve months. I am in control. No one else. God allows me to choose, while he is in control of all things, he lets me find my own way. Twelve months.

Make your own lists. Who are you right now?

Who will you become?

I know you will become great. I am going to and I want you to come along with me.

God Bless