By Marc Brodsky
What’s the difference between a married guy and a single guy?
In my case, seventeen pounds.
I married my wife, Jill, on Aug. 28, 2005. Wanting to look good in my tuxedo, I trained for my wedding the same way some people might train for a triathlon. I spent six days a week in the gym for about a year, and at age 33, I was in the best physical shape of my life.
Then came the wedding day.
The ceremony was beautiful, and it was followed by a cocktail hour with hors d’oeuvres that would have made the U.N. General Assembly envious.
There were smoked salmon canapés, grilled Portobello mushrooms, spinach quiche, potato pancakes, quesadillas, tempura and myriad other cultural snacks from around the world. There were chaffing dishes filled with Spanish paella, fried calamari and seafood fra diavolo. There was a pasta station serving baby shrimp and roasted garlic in a pink cream sauce and a grill station serving beefsteak tomatoes topped with prosciutto.
Once everyone had sufficiently stuffed their faces full of hors d’oeuvres, the reception began. After introductions and a few teary-eyed and heart-felt toasts by family and friends, we ate dinner: an appetizer of chicken, spinach and ricotta cannelloni followed by Caesar salad. For the main course, guests enjoyed their choice of potato crusted tilapia vin blanc, breast of chicken topped with mozzarella, spinach and prosciutto in a marsala sauce or (my favorite) a New York shell steak with a cognac peppercorn sauce. As the bride and groom, Jill and I got to enjoy a little bit of all three.
For dessert, plates of cookies, brownies and pastries were placed on each table for people to sample. In addition, we went for the “optional” Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar (like it was power-steering on a car). Then came the wedding cake.
But while the wedding feeding frenzy eventually ended that night for our guests, it had only just begun for Jill and me.
The following day we embarked on our honeymoon: a plane ride to San Francisco, a train ride to Napa Valley, another plane ride to Seattle and then a cruise to Alaska.
As a native of Southern California, I was looking forward to one of the west coast’s finest culinary traditions: In-N-Out Burger.
The beauty of In-N-Out is, and always has been, its simplicity. You can get a burger or a cheeseburger and you can get it with or without French fries and/or a soda, and it’s always delicious. That burger tasted just as great as when my mom used to take me there when I was 9 years old. Jill agreed it was the best burger she’d ever eaten.
From there, the celebration continued. We did our best to see all the tourist traps in the short time allotted to us. In addition, we had a special dinner every night – and every night we proclaimed, “This is the best dinner I’ve ever had!”
We crowned our honeymoon with an Alaskan cruise. On board was a gym fully equipped with free-weights, Swiss balls, nautilus machines stationary bikes, stair-steppers and enough treadmills that no one would ever have to wait for one.
I saw the gym exactly once.
It was nice, but we opted for “anytime dining,” which meant we could eat in any of eight fine dining rooms any time we wanted. The gym took a back seat to the awesome meals.
Our honeymoon was incredible. We saw some of the most beautiful and breathtaking scenery in the world and enjoyed the finest meals of our lives. The downside for me was when I stepped on the scale back in New Jersey, only to discover that I had gained ten pounds.
To add insult to injury, I wasn’t going back to my healthy ways from before the wedding. Having sold a family business and decided to make a drastic career change from franchise developer to political journalist, I began RVCC full-time in fall 2005.
In my career I was used to making my own schedule and I was always conscious to make time for the gym. Returning to school was a rude awakening; not only was my schedule suddenly not my own, but studying and homework took up any spare time I had. It was as if the gym were officially off-limits (although, in a fit of denial, I continued to pay my membership dues).
Upon discovering that RVCC had adopted a “Health and Wellness” theme, I started thinking about how my diet and exercise regimen had crashed and burned after the wedding. In addition, a friend of mine recently got married and, two hours prior to the wedding, I discovered my tuxedo pants didn’t fit. I remedied the situation by rigging them up with two extra-sturdy thick rubber bands and hoping for the best. They held nicely, and I’m considering patenting the device and calling it the “belly extender.” But I knew it was time for a drastic change.
I went on a diet.
Well, not a diet, really: an “eating plan.”
The term “diet” is such a dirty word these days. And because of this, people assume a diet is temporary and, once they lose the weight, they will “go off” their diet. This is why America’s weight bounces up and down like a yo-yo. But, in reality, we are all on a diet all the time. Every time you put food in your mouth, that’s your diet. Some of us (like me for the past fourteen months) are on an 8,000-calorie-a-day diet filled with sugar and fat; others of us are on a more well-balanced, healthy diet.
Whether we call it a “diet” or not, I went back to the way I ate before the wedding. What worked best for me was to kick my metabolism into high-gear by eating six times a day: three meals and three snacks. Meals would contain slow-burning carbohydrates, such as whole wheats and whole grains, and low-fat protein, such as grilled chicken or broiled salmon. Every meal also had liberal portions of vegetables.
Snacks would consist of anything from a cup of yogurt or a handful of unsalted almonds to smoothies (always with berries or some kind of fruit) with an added whey protein supplement punch. If I go to the gym (I’m taking this change slowly for a greater degree of success), I’ll increase my calorie intake accordingly. Additional fat-burning tricks that have always worked for me are things like drinking green tea instead of coffee and adding flaxseed meal into egg-white omelets and wheat germ to sandwiches.
I’ve lost a few pounds so far, and I can already feel the difference of eating healthy again. With this semester coming to a close, I look forward to spending a lot more time in the gym. If I can manage to stay on the current path, I figure I’ll have the “wedding weight” off just in time to go away for my second anniversary.
But I think we’ll celebrate with something other than a five-course meal.
Well Done: Winning Logo Design
to promote Health & Wellness Theme
| |
