Bill Cooke

When I was younger I never ate breakfast. I am allergic to milk. I quit eating cereal at the age of 12. The milk thing makes breakfast so difficult I just gave up. These days if I don’t eat something it screws up my whole day. Cereal is the go to low cal breakfast, right? Dry it sucks. I have tried the soy, almond and rice milks. Not a fan. I don’t crave cereal that much to have to put up with them. I ate frozen waffles for a time, pure sugar and carbs. Oatmeal is a good choice and I do like oatmeal. Just not every morning. Sometimes I’ll have fruit and toast or something like that but mostly it’s been leftovers. Meatloaf or ribs and mashed potatoes for breakfast is NOT a good start to the day. What I need is three or four other “Good” options to help me lose weight and not feel so hungry at 10 am. Still searching…

I am trying to find a better way to eat, live and be healthy. You would think that would be easy these days. Just Google “Healthy Cooking” or “Healthy Recipes” and you are set. WRONG! What you get is a mess of lentil and bean sprout recipes and vegan “meat is murder” BS. You know what’s murder, having to eat tofu and calling it Tofurkey. Men can’t just flip a switch and stop liking pizza and burgers. Why is there no middle ground?

The person who writes a cookbook for guys like me will be RICH! Wait, I should write that cookbook. Problem is I have no idea what to put in it. I found the “Eat This, Not That” site. Really? Instead of a 2,000 calorie bacon cheese burger I should eat a veggie burger with sprouts. It’s the same thing, right? Bullshit! That is not the next step down, that is rock bottom! The next step down would be extra lean ground chuck, low fat cheese and turkey bacon. Cut it down to 1,000 calories and still make it delicious. Where is that cookbook?

Still searching…

Today is the day my life starts over. I’m 42, fat, disabled, and pissed off! I can’t change my age or my disability so let’s see what I can do about fat and pissed off. The only god thing in my life is my wife Patty. We have been together for 22 years now and we have grown up and out together. She’ll kill me for this but the truth is we got fat together over the last 22 years. At this point it just has to stop!

Today I am 42,  6’2″ and 289 pounds. Yikes! How did my weight get this far out of control? I like to try and tell myself it’s because I can’t really walk (bad leg) and sit in front of a computer 10 hours a day. I think it’s time to admit I eat too much. I mainly eat the wrong foods. You should never eat cheese for breakfast! I mean cream cheese on a bagel maybe….. but then that is not what I meant. I make bad choices but as I just looked in my fridge I could not see one thing that would be a good choice. I’m not sure what a good choice is to be honest….

I love to cook and I’m pretty good at it. I eat food that tastes good because it makes me happy. Little in my life lately makes me happy right now. I quit smoking a year ago to try to make my life better. I don’t feel one bit better. I’m just pissed off all the time now. Cigarettes used to calm me down. They are great at that. What it really is, you jsut get a timeout while you’re smoking. It’s just 7 minutes of peace and quiet. Now I don’t have that happy time so I’m just pissed off a lot. Still, I’ll stay quit this time. Logic tells me this is for the best. It was pretty easy to quit too. I just quit… no patch, no gum and BS. I just wanted to so I did. I smoked for 25 years too. If you want it bad enough you can make it happen. Now I want something else. To be happy again…

So, this whole I’m pissed off thing keeps coming up a lot. I think I’m mad because my life is not exactly how I thought it would be at this point. I’m always broke, never go out or have any fun, I’m in constant pain and we live in the same crappy apartment for the past 18 years. The fact I’m fat is just the icing on the cake but it’s the one thing I can control so that’s where I’m going to start. I quit smoking by simply wanting to so I should be able to lose weight the same way, right? Wrong… For that all I had to do was not pick up a cigarette. I can’t just not eat to lose weight. I have to eat the right foods and in the right amounts. That will take some new thinking on my part. I’m not sure how to do that yet.