Day 4: One and a half Jesses

In the course of thinking about this blog, I've struggled with a dilemma: how much to reveal about myself?

I'm not an avid blog reader, but it seems to be the name of the game to be as gut-wrenchingly honest as possible. I read a blog about a guy's weight loss that, while kind of inspiring, was also awfully uncomfortable, as he went into great detail about his feelings and progress. Frankly, it was more than I wanted to know about this guy.

From whence does this exhibitionism come? I suspect American culture has a lot to do with it. We all want to believe we're special in some way, and that everyone would be thrilled to know exactly what's going on with us. Hence Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and whatever else.

Addressing this topic in a blog may make me a hypocrite. I accept that. But I can still avoid going over cliff of blog-disseminated oversharing by exercising some moderation in self-revelation, and thus preserve both my dignity and my readers' comfort.

The most obvious way that this discussion bears on this blog is in regard to my weight. One of my stated purposes for embarking on this fast is to drop some pounds. A typical blog thing to do is to note the starting point and progress, which would require me to disclose what I weigh now. That seems like a strange thing to broadcast to the entire world (as if my readership were that large). With that in mind, I will be using another method to track my progress.

I know a girl named Jess who is one of the smallest people I've ever met. And it occurred to me one day that my weight-loss goal is nearly exactly equal to one and a half times her weight. So I will be tracking my progress in terms of Jesses, and my goal is to lose one and a half Jesses. As of today, I have lost 0.12 Jesses in three days.

I'll also try to continue posting recipes. Here's one from my never-ending game of "hide the kale," inspired by a flavor of Naked Juice. Slainte!

So-my-wife-won't-hate-me

1 bunch kale

1/2 cucumber

10 strawberries

Handful of blackberries

Handful of blueberries

2 Granny Smith apples

1 banana, pureed

1. Make it happen.

2. Enjoy on the rocks.

3. Bask in the love of an appreciative wife.