What I’ll Eat Tomorrow
Meal 1
Bowl of Cheerios
Calories: 300
Fat: 0 grams

Meal 2
Turkey Sandwich and an apple
Calories: 250
Fat: 4 grams

Meal 3
Tuna Sandwich and an apple
Calories: 360
Fat: 3 grams

Meal 4
1 orange
1 pear
Calories: 150ish
Fat: 1 gram

Meal 5
Turkey Sandwich
Calories: 200
Fat: 4 grams

Total calories: 1,260
Total fat: 12 grams

How Wednesday went: It went well. Glad you asked, actually. I followed the menu to a tee, and ellipticised for 30 minutes, burning the required 500 calories. So I guess I can say I am healthier for it today.

The Real Reason I Brought You Here Today
So what do we want to talk about today? Feelings? No. I have made it clear that I am optimistic. We could talk about the diet itself, but these days I find that kind of boring. You can only get so much mileage out of turkey sandwiches and salads.

I could, however, talk about how this diet helped me forge a love of tea. But that seems kind of dry as well.

Instead, we’ll talk about body image. In recent years, I have compared my body to that of football players, namely, what position a man of my measurements would play in the NFL.

There’s a pretty good reason for this analogy. See, I was blessed with NFL size. It’s true. I am thick and meaty, a full 6-foot-3 inches, bulging up to 300 pounds by my sophomore year of high school. I was an offensive lineman in high school and even caused a bit of a college recruiting frenzy (three schools sent letters!) after my senior year.

I don’t know that I was ever really looked at as "fat" in high school, there were other shorter, much fatter kids around to play that role. Instead, I was always called "Big." My freshman year of college, I was nicknamed "Big Dan" by the somewhat uncreative but good natured "Sweet" Ray Barger, who took it upon himself to give everyone nicknames (including himself). I am large-framed and broad-shouldered, the kind of guy who girls have always said they felt protected around. Some (many) have called me a "big teddy bear," which is a euphemism for "We can be friends, but I’ll never sleep with you".

So to give you an idea, if all it took to play professional football was decent size, I would probably be a backup linemen for the worst team in the league.

I began using the football player analogy when I was 370 pounds. Back then, I was obviously a defensive tackle, the fattest men in sports. During the 100 Days blog, all I wanted was to get to 270 so I would have the measurements of a defensive end. Well, here I am, definitely more defensive end than defensive tackle.

But now I want to get to 240, which is linebacker size. Granted, I won’t look like a linebacker, what with ways to go before I get any real definition in my arms and back. But weight-wise, I’ll be right there.