The Married Man’s Weight Loss Plan!

A couple of days ago, a friend sent me an email concerning a newly discovered way to lose weight. It was supposed to be a real study done at the School of Physics in Sydney, Australia. According to the study, when you eat something cold, your body expends energy to heat the substance to body temperature, before digesting it. Expending energy means you are burning calories and in the cases given many more calories were expended than what was contained in the substance eaten, thereby resulting in weight loss. The substances used in the study were ice cream and beer. The study went on to explain that some people eat pizza as an excuse to drink beer. Well since pizza is already heated and contains lots of calories, you obviously cannot eat pizza to lose weight. The solution: drink more beer.

I have to admit I’m not the scientific type, but the argument makes sense. However, it is not an option for me since I only like pizza and ice cream on occasion and not as part of a regular diet. Beer on the other hand…

Lucky for me, I stumbled on an easier way for married men to lose weight and you don’t have to get drunk to do it, just send your wife away. Yep! Two weeks ago I sent my wife to visit her family in Panama, since then I have lost six pounds.

Now, I love my wife dearly and miss her terribly. In fact she left on our 33rd wedding anniversary due to some unfortunate circumstances, but there is no denying it’s helped me slim down. My wife is a really good wife and nobody has one better. The fact is she takes really good care of me whether I like it or not.

After a second major surgery on my left foot and my hip replacement last year, I had put on a few extra pounds, OK 20 extra pounds. I’ve tried here and there to exercise to get rid of the tonnage, but it usually ends in pain, so I don’t try too often. I’ve also tried to eat right for the sake of dropping the extra weight but this is a problem because I have a great wife.

My great wife insists on cooking good meals every night, in addition to making sure I eat a good lunch and big breakfast. Sometimes she says she doesn’t know what to cook and I’ll offer up French fries and fish sticks, which I happen to like, a lot! She’ll say that’s not  a dinner and proceed to cook something better, in her opinion.

Not only does she feed me well three times a day, but she insists on covering the plate so you can’t see the design underneath.

Since she left, it’s been lots of stuff that takes 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees in the oven, all of which I can do on a sheet of aluminum foil, thereby avoiding pots and pans to wash.  If I can do it in the microwave in 2-3 minutes and use paper plates, it’s even better. I also take my vitamins and eat cups of yogurt and fruit in a cup, so I’m getting lots of vitamins too.

I’ve also been getting exercise, like chopping wood, cleaning the pool, cutting the grass and washing the cars. This past weekend I also scrubbed the tiled floors in the kitchen, dining room and laundry room. This required me getting on my knees to clean the grout, but it looks great and I found a couple of places I have to re-grout, so I already have plans this coming weekend.

I have two more weeks to lose more weight. When she gets home I’m hoping she’ll be very surprised and help me stick to my new weight loss plan. My guess is she won’t because she’s a really great wife.

I Know I’m Not Getting Younger, So Stop Reminding Me!!

Every time I get ready to go in the back yard to clean it up, my wife shakes her head and says something like “Oh baby”.  That means she thinks I made a bad decision. Well, maybe I did but I’m determined to see it through and make the yard look better.

The decision we are talking about concerns taking down two big oak trees in the backyard. They had been expanding in recent years and the roots are spreading and were getting closer to the septic tank and side of the house. Besides that, they seem to attract ants and then the ants come to the house looking for food. When you track them back to the source they are climbing the trees. The trees provide so much shade that I can’t get grass to grow in a large part of the yard. Then there are the leaves always falling in the pool and bugs falling out of the tree. Once a squirrel fell in and my wife and I had to rescue him (her?). Then there is the bird poop landing on the deck (I wonder if that is where they got the term “poop deck”?). Anyway the trees had become a problem and we decided to have them cut down.

When we first moved in here, we had several trees cut down and it cost about $100.00 a tree. So when I decided to get three estimates I was surprised to find that $1,000 for both trees was the lowest of the estimates. This included cutting down the two trees, grinding the stumps to below ground level and hauling off the wood. Well, we were expecting a lot less so I asked what it would cost if they left the wood and I took care of it myself? The guy who wanted $1,000 said he’d take off $400. One guy said he would charge more because he wouldn’t have the wood to sell. I didn’t bother to ask the last guy, because I had already decided not to do business with him (he was scary). I told the first guy to go ahead and cut ‘em down and I’d take care of the wood. He said he would change me for cutting them down now and I could call when I cleared the area and he would come back and grind the stumps. So the deal was made.

I watched while they cut down the trees and moved the branches out of the way. It seemed fairly straight forward and besides I had cut down 10 trees myself back in 1974-75. It wasn’t that hard and we had burned what was left. So I figured I could take a couple of days off from both jobs and take care of it over a long weekend. I went and purchased a chain saw and two spare chains. Then it started to rain and even while it was still raining my son found a new house and we spent a couple of days moving him in. So I had two days to work on the felled trees. 

This is where everybody started telling me “You’re not as young as you used to be”. After the first two days I was barely able to walk or lift my arms. I had so many cuts on my arms, I was weak from loss of blood. My new hip was killing me and the plates in my left foot were a constant reminder of other bad decisions. So what did I do? I kept working and now we (my wife felt sorry for me and is helping out) are about three quarters done. When we started you could barely get around the yard because of all the branches lining the fence. All that remain are a few branches and the trunks of the two trees.

I saved $400. Well, $250 if you take out the cost of the chain saw. OK, $200 because I bought the spare chains, oil and gas, but that’s still $200 I wouldn’t otherwise have, not to mention the exercise I’m getting.

So if you need some firewood, let me know and I’ll save you some. If you could use a log about 30 feet long and three feet around, come and get it, there are only two left.

Somebody Out There Has A Good Health Care Plan

Why do our representatives continue to talk about a heath care reform bill that nobody agrees on. It’s not just Democrat against Republican anymore, it’s everybody against everybody. Remember the “gang of six”, that consisted of Democrats and Republicans, who were putting together their own bill behind closed doors? Well, they managed to come up with an even worse version than the full house. 

Many, including me, think that we are rushing this a little too much. The argument against that is; this debate has been going on for years, so that’s not rushing it. Well, talking about  something and putting it on paper to become a law, are too very different things. Yes, it’s true that health care reform has been talked about for years. It’s also true that something needs to be done. However, we need to have a bill that will help those that need it, cut costs, leave those who are happy alone and get it to pay for itself.

Here we are with 15 million people out of work, businesses closing by the score and somebody is talking about a national sales tax to help pay for health care. Stop with the taxes already. I heard the other day that we can help pay for it but getting rid of the 65 million dollars in Medicaid fraud that has been going on for years. My first thought was; if we know there is 65 million dollars in fraud, why aren’t we already doing something about it. To top it off, that was the amount of the abuse in only five states.

Maybe, what the government needs to do is offer a reward to the individual or company that can come up with a workable plan.  They are already doing it to get more energy efficient cars. We already know that the smartest people in the country are not in the government, so let’s offer some incentive for them to come out of hiding.

I feel for the people who don’t have health care, but let’s separate them from those who “choose” not to have it and then find an efficient way to help the rest. If you want to make sure we have real health care reform, tell our elected Representatives that they have to be on whatever plan is finally voted on.