Drop Dead Healthy

The future self needs to be around for my sons. They deserve to know him.

I thought Julie would dismiss my egonomics, but she found it intriguing.

“Can you age me?” she asked. When I showed her photo to her, she burst out laughing and said she looked like Dustin Hoffman. That’s inspiring, she said. On the rare times she doesn’t feel like exercising, she’ll do it for Dustin.

Checkup: Month 2

Weight: 168

Hours of sleep per night: 6 (not good)

Visits to the gym: 12 (should have been more)

Bench press: 55 pounds, 15 reps

I lost only a pound this month, but that’s because I’m gaining muscle weight. Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I flex in my bathroom mirror searching for any microscopic changes to my biceps and chest.

I’m still doing my best to control portions. Still using my kids’ cartoon dinosaur plates at home. At restaurants, I transfer half my entrée onto the smaller butter plate, and get the other half in a doggie bag. My chew-per-mouthful ratio is ten to one, which is decent, if not great. I carry my little blue-and-white shrimp fork in my back pocket wherever I go—which has resulted in tiny holes in the back of my jeans, as well as several puzzled waiters who returned the fork to me after I accidentally left it on the plate.

So the portion size is respectable. But what should I put in those portions? I’m still struggling with what constitutes a healthy menu.

This month, at the very least, I pledged to cut down on sugar, since almost everyone agrees it’s poisonous in large doses. But the stuff is so sneaky. Case in point: I was at Newark Airport—on my way to Los Angeles for an Esquire article—and I spotted a little kiosk called Healthy Garden. That sounds promising, I think to myself. So I wander over only to find: highly salted Chex mix, plastic containers of Gummi bears and Swedish fish, “Grandma’s” chocolate chip cookie (I’m assuming from the ingredients that Grandma has a Ph.D. in chemistry from CalTech), and a “healthy mix” of fruit and nuts. The “healthy mix” contained some decent stuff, like walnuts and almonds. But it also had banana chips, which included refined cane sugar, coconut oil, and best of all, banana flavor. When you need to add banana flavor to bananas, there’s something askew with the world of food.

My sugar woes aside, I do feel slightly healthier overall. Less logy, more energetic. As if my body used to be cloudy and smog-filled (think Beijing), and now it’s only moderately polluted (maybe Houston). I like climbing a flight of stairs without my heart thumping like a cartoon animal in love.

But is that sensation worth all the hours at the gym and the dietary restrictions and extra showers? I’m not convinced. Maybe I need a break. For my next body part, I’ll do something that doesn’t require additional sweating or hunger pangs.