I had a dream.

It was a simple dream and one that I was sure that I could accomplish.

My dream was to lose a little weight while I was visiting my family in Kentucky.

Now, I’m not super-overweight or anything.  Small children don’t turn and gawk at me when I walk down the road, but I definitely have a little more of a belly than I have had in the past and there are a couple of things on my side that look suspiciously like love handles.

This is not good.

But I wasn’t too worried.  I haven’t had any kind of regular exercise in over a year and I knew that if I could just get back into a regular exercise routine and maybe throw in a couple more salads into my weekly meals, then all of this excess baggage would at least recede a little.  That’s the beauty of not being too far gone.  It doesn’t take that much to bring you back.

However, I was aware that my weight had gotten to a point that it needed to be addressed.  I knew that I had crossed some kind of line a couple of weeks ago.  You see, the whole family was at a little community festival that was offering health screenings.  Now, normally, I don’t like health screenings, because they tend to tell you things that you don’t want to know. 

The way I see it, you can eat all the cheese and carbohydrates you want as long as you don’t physically repulse yourself or get admonished by a doctor.  So, as long as you have a very low standard for your physical state, you can kind of eat what you want.  The problem with a health screening is that it is very likely to end in a doctoral admonishment, forcing you to admit you have a problem. 

This is never good. 

So, anyway, we were at this health fair and they had this little device that tests your overall body fat. 

Wow.  That sounds dangerous.

But I had been somewhat concerned that my body fat was getting a little high (namely visible by the ring of body fat sticking out over my belt) so I decided that maybe it was time to face the music and check it.  I went up to the booth and went through the test and was pleasantly surprised to find that my body fat was 12%, putting me in the “very good” category.

Awesome!

I went over to my wife, Sarah, and told her the results.

She looked at me head to foot and then said, “really?  Is that all?”

Ouch.

When your own wife would rather believe that the magic fat machine is lying than believe that you are in the “very good” category, you clearly have a weight problem.

So, I made a plan.  I know myself and I knew that I was not in the dangerous area yet.  Just a couple of weeks of jogging and watching what I ate would allow me to get back to just pinching an inch.

I was taking the kids and going to visit my parents for about a week and a half so I decided that I would make a real effort to exercise while I was there and maybe just eat watercress sandwiches for lunch and then I would come back and surprise Sarah by looking all lean and sexy.

This was a brilliant plan, and perfectly achievable, except for one thing.

I forgot that I was going to Kentucky.

Kentucky!

I mean, the restaurant isn’t called Kentucky Spiced Tofu!

This is a place where anything and everything that can be deep fried is deep fried.  The meats are deep fried, the vegetables are deep fried, the fruits are deep fried (in pie form).  You can easily eat a whole meal that only requires one giant pan and a vat of Wesson.

The problem is I grew up in the South and I love that food (who wouldn’t?).  I love fried catfish and hush puppies and meatloaf and potatoes with gravy and green beans with fatback and fried celery dipped in fried peanut butter all of those tasty southern delicacies.

The problem is that I don’t get back down South all that often and it doesn’t seem fair to avoid all those tasty foods on one of the few occasions that I do get down there.

Do you know how hard it is to get a Krystal Burger or a country ham biscuit up here in Maryland?  It’s damn near impossible.  Plus sweet tea is so omnipresent in Kentucky it practically flows through the streets.  Am I to deny my southern heritage just so I can feast on salads made exclusively out of iceberg lettuce?

No, indeed.

So, I didn’t make a whole lot of progress on the diet front.  It’s just hard to diet in a state where the phrase “low fat” just means that you’re going to get a small french fry instead of a large.

But that’s ok, because, even with a little extra caloric intake, I could still whittle this waist away with some good old fashioned exercise. I put my bike on the bike rack and stuffed my running shoes and jogging stroller into the back of the van.  By golly, I was going to be so skinny when I got back that my wife would practically insist that we devour an entire pan of brownies in bed.

But I forgot something else.

It’s hot in Kentucky. 

Oh my Lord in heaven above it is hot.

And humid!

The lowest high we had the entire time I was there was 95 degrees.  I didn’t want walk outside to the car, much less run.  Every time I stepped outside, it was like someone was aiming a hair dryer at my face.  I did nothing that whole week except sit around and sweat.  And that was inside in the air conditioning.  Which meant that, to stay cool, I had to just drink more sweet tea and eat ice cream….. lots of ice cream.  Plus, you can’t get a peanut butter milkshake up here in Maryland, so how could I pass that up?

So, my dreams of walking back into my wife’s arms as a skinny piece of rock-hard-abs and be-muscled beefcake was not to be.

Luckily, without me here to cook, my wife spent the whole week eating frozen dinners, McDonalds drive through, and the new Snicker’s “dinner bar.”  So, we were at least on even footing. 

But I’ve still got more than an inch that I can pinch, and unfortunately we have a pool which is sort of a public invitation to have all of your friends stop by and judge your physical appearance when half naked.  So I need to come up with another plan.  I definitely need to start exercising, although, it’s supposed to be really hot this week.

And I definitely should eat a little better, but it is barbeque season and I don’t really want to diss my grill by eating too many salads (it’s very sensitive).  So I’ll probably just keep doing what I’ve been doing - which is drinking diet coke, eating a yogurt every few days and wondering why I’m not skinner.

That and I need to avoid health fairs.

I definitely need to avoid health fairs.