The Big Reach Around

Starting weight: 328 lbs.
Current weight: 288 lbs.
Total lost: 40 lbs.

Hello all. First, I've held serve since my last post and am still at 40 pounds lost. I go in for my second fill this week, so that should give me and my weight loss a much needed kick in the pants. I'll report back next on how all that is working out.

Secondly, in my last scribbling I threatened to start delving into the more personal benefits I am seeing as I shed the elle-bees.

So consider this your first warning. I'm about to describe in great, gross and stomach-churning detail the SINGLE GREATEST BENEFIT I have seen and will see, even after I lose 70 more pounds.

There is no doubt that what I'm about to go into will put horrendous images in your head that will cause weeks of nightmares and most likely some intensive psychological counseling. That or you will fall on the floor laughing your ass off. Either way, consider this warning No. 2.

As a pre-emptive strike, I sincerely apologize to my wife, mother, mothers-in-law, step mother, sister-in-law, niece and any other female that I know. The following mental pictures are something you should never, ever, ever have to consider about your husband, son, son-in-law, step son, brother-in-law, uncle or friend. If you're a dude, it's gross, but you'll get over it.

This is your third and final warning .....

If you are still with me, then hold on tight. We're about to get all scatological up in here.

Going to the bathroom is something you don't give much thought to, kind of like sleeping, breathing and the dialogue of a Steven Segal movie. So when you've gotten so fat that it affects the shadowy and secretive goings-on behind the brown door, well then, Houston, we have a problem.

Now don't get the wrong idea. I've never actually had a problem, err, producing in the bathroom. I can drop a deuce with the best of them and still will be able to when I'm 100 pounds lighter.

It's the post-bomb cleanup that has been an issue.

As a fat man, I've always carried my weight in my belly and lower back (lots of real estate for a tramp stamp should I ever get drunk enough).

And all that back fat has meant that I couldn't get back there and properly clean what needs to be cleaned without FIRST taking my pants halfway off and hiking a leg up on the side of the commode.

And even then, with my reach improved, I still had to strain and stretch to get to where I needed to be. And EVEN THEN, when I finally got in position to clean the back porch, I often came away with, uh, dirt on my hand. Which then sent me into an explosive convulsion of icky grossness as I put my pants back on one-handed and spent the next 10 minutes scrubbing the offending hand at the sink until the skin comes off.

Now that you are all sufficiently appalled, let me just say what a difference 40 pounds make. My reach around (not that kind!) abilities have vastly improved, I no longer have to do the No. 2 one-legged clean up dance, and when I wash my hands before leaving the room I do so as a matter of routine hygiene and not because I'm trying to recreate the Silkwood shower scene (look it up!).

And I don't care what happens from here on out. The fact that I no longer have to go through all this on a (sometimes twice) daily basis is the single greatest benefit of my weight loss.

Raise your hand if you agree, but only if you've washed it first.

Peace, love and antibacterial soap!