I grew up on the outskirts of Amarillo, Texas, less than five miles away from the Big Texan. If you’ve ever been on I-40 anywhere along it’s nation-wide stretch, you’ve probably seen a billboard touting their “FREE” 72 ounce steak. Yes, it’s for real. Yes, I’ve seen it. Yes, it’s free… IF you can eat it, a baked potato, a salad, a shrimp cocktail, and a dinner roll (about 4500 calories total) in under 60 minutes without a bathroom break (or even standing up to “pack it down”). If you don’t make it, you pay about $80.

Generally speaking, Big Texan is a tourist trap. The kind of place you should visit once, just to say you’ve been there, but the locals just kind of chuckle about. The food is good, but expensive. The atmosphere is comically cliché. And the seat-cushion sized steak is only attempted by “fariners.” (You know, ignorant yankees and such.).

So imagine my surprise when I saw the Big Texan on Good Morning America this morning! (Quintessential ignorant yankees!) One such “fariner” made a visit to Amarillo this weekend and records were broken, nay, shattered.

A 125 pound Nebraska woman, competitive eater Molly Schuyler, cut the previous record in HALF finishing the massive meal in under five minutes! UNDER FIVE MINUTES!! And, as if that wasn’t nauseating enough, she ordered a SECOND MEAL which she finished in under ten minutes. Oh… Em… Gee.

Let that sink in for just a minute. a 125 pound woman ate nine pounds of meat (and another few pounds of sides) in 15 minutes. Nine… Pounds…

As they say in my home town, “That thar’s gonna be a three flusher!”

(Read the full story.)

I’ve never liked McDonald’s. It makes my mouth feel greasy. It makes my stomach feel heavy. It doesn’t taste quite right. There’s just something wrong about it.

When I saw “Super Size Me” a couple of years ago, I didn’t really see it as an attack on Mickey D’s. It did opened my eyes to American food trends in general: Out-of-control serving sizes, massive amounts of calories, sugar, and fat. And certainly McD’s has let the charge. But is there more to it than 44 oz. Cokes and too much salt?

I just found out about several studies into McDonald’s food shelf life. Clicky clicky to see a happy meal that has set out in the open for over a year. Not only has it not decomposed. It has not drawn any pests. Even ants and mice agree that McD’s is gross. The video below shows a four year old happy meal that looks nearly as good as the day it was served (compared to a three month old potato that does not). And here is a whopping 12-year-old McD’s hamburger.

And now, for the craziest of the crazies: A “Burger Museum” featuring McDonald’s sandwiches from every year since 1989. How about a nice, clean, decay free 18 year old hamburger? Sound yummy? No, I didn’t think so.

This week’s white board quip has me thinking about food and fat.

That’s the problem with sweatpants.

I don’t even know where I heard that one. (But isn’t it just a perfect fit for the white board?!) As soon as I saw it in my queue, though, I knew it was the right quip for this week because I feel very much like switching to sweat pants for my office attire.

Despite my insistence that holiday food “doesn’t count,” my weight has been steadily increasing. I’ve almost completely erased my Weight Watchers success from a couple of years ago. It looks like I’ll be punishing myself with another diet… after the holidays, of course.

People get upset over the dumbest things. I can’t comprehend how people can be so sensitive. I know I get it from my dad, who has about as much tact as a gorilla at a tea party. Oh, the stories I could tell.

My favorite bumper sticker (sadly it was on the truck I used to own and I haven’t found a replacement) said, in big bold letters, “GET OVER IT.”

So, I hope you’ll have proper context when I say the people who’s panties are wadded over the new Burger King “Whopper Virgins” ad campaign are idiots.

I really love the concept. A whopper and a big mac, side-by-side taste test, offered to people from different cultures that have never had (and sometimes never heard of) a hamburger.

I’ve always thought that food is the most fascinating aspect of culture. Unlike politics, religion, and economics, you can ask a person from a different culture about the food and be sure you’ll never offend them. In fact, I’ve found that they usually enjoy talking about it.

Every time I have a chance to talk to someone from outside the Unites States, I ask them what they think of American food and what they miss about food back home. Everyone eats and everyone has things they like and don’t like to eat. It’s universal and, at least to me, very interesting.

Now, as for the controversy, Hot Air has a post that sums it up. Rather than rehash it here, I’ll just link to it.

Clicky clicky.

I had great success with Weight Watchers last winter. I lost 30 pounds in a few months. But I last Spring I quit counting my points thinking I could just live off what I learned and eat better. It didn’t work very well. After hitting 225, I plateaued and have slowly gained back about five pounds.

Now, I have renewed interest in counting my points. I was trying to remember how many points I was allowed. I finally found a formula. Yeah, I know. Weight Watchers formulas are patented and I’m probably going to jail for life for publishing it. Then again, I like to live dangerously.

The food-point-value formula is widely available on the ‘net along with oodles of sites that offer pages and pages of food value tables. I’ve only found one site with the point allowance formula. So, I’m linking to that page and republishing it here to help folks like me have more success when they google it.

Based on a series of questions, you add up points to get your daily allowed point total. And don’t forget, no matter what your daily allowance is, everyone is allowed 35 “flex” points per week. You could look at this as an extra 5 points per day, but it’s better to take this weekly so you can have lighter days and heavier days throughout the week.

1. Gender: Female (2) (Add 10 points if you’re nursing), Male (8)
2. Age: 17-26 (4), 27-37 (3), 38-47 (2), 48-58 (1), over 58 (0)
3. Weight: Add the first two digits of your weight in pounds (ex. 199 lbs. = 19 points)
4. Height: Under 5’1″ (0), 5’1″-5’10” (1), Over 5’10” (2)
5. Activity Level: How do you spend your day? Mostly Sitting (0), Occasionally Sitting (2), Mostly Walking/Standing (4), Physical Labor (6)

For me, it looks like this:

So now I can start counting again and we’ll see if I can get down to 200 by Thanksgiving. That gives me three months to drop about 30 pounds. I think I can I think I can I think I can…

While I’m no longer paying for WeightWatchers, I’m still employing what I learned. I’m not “on a diet” but rather I have “changed my diet.” Last week I broke the 230 (227.8) mark for the first time in seven years. Then I got cocky and this week I’m back on the wrong side of that mark by a quarter pound.

This weekend the weather in DFW was gorgeous and Tammy and I busted out the bicycles. We stuck to pavement, but still got a great “break-in” workout of 15 miles (followed by some sadistic weight lifting).

This leads me to this week’s white board quip on dieting.

I have a great diet. You’re allowed to eat anything you want, but you must eat it with naked fat people.
– Steven Wright

An important lesson learned from WeightWatchers has been that little things add up. You can shave a good amount of calories from your normal diet by making small changes. Croutons, for example. Croutons add a couple of points to your salad. Are they really that important to the enjoyment level of your meal? If you can forgo the croutons, you’ve got two more points you can spend on something more enjoyable, like fresh fruit or a hot fudge sundae. (What?!)

Speaking of croutons, here’s this week’s white board quip.

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It’s just stale bread to begin with.
– George Carlin

Okay, so, like, you know all this talk about WeightWatchers lately? You know how I’ve said that I get 28 points a day and stuff? Well, I’ve been living for the last three weeks on that 28 points a day (more or less… okay, mostly more) and I’ve done pretty well. I’ve figured out at which places I just can’t afford to eat and what foods just won’t fit in the points budget. I think I’ve been a great student.

So why would I be upset? Well, you know me. I didn’t really read every word of instructions when I signed up. I’m a guy. Worse yet, I’m a geek – a web geek at that – and when I sign up for some web service, I pretty much feel comfortable figuring it out on my own.

But somehow, somewhere, I missed the part where you’re supposed to “click here” to take your “target point quiz”. See, even the name doesn’t really tell me what’s really going on there. The “target point quiz” is where you “confirm” your height, weight, age, and gender, and pick whether you want to maintain your weight or lose weight. I figured that since you asked me all those questions when I signed up that the 28 points that showed up on my profile was correct. But noooo.

See I stumbled across the “target point quiz” purely by accident late last week. I “confirmed” all that information and clicked “save” (Why it’s “save” and not “calculate” or something more descriptive, I don’t know.) and then noticed that my point total changed from 28 points a day to 37. 37?! Good grief! That’s HUGE compared to 28. I could eat like a relative pig and not use up 37 points a day (plus the 35 “extra points” I get per week).

I took the “quiz” several times and the result was always the same: 37. I crawled all over the web site trying to find out how to set it back to 28, how to fix my calculated result from the “quiz”. I even googled the points and found a chart that showed, for my weight, I should be at 28:

225 to 250 pounds = 28 Points

Finally, I relented, and sent an email to support. Two days later, I get this response:

Based on your information 37 POINTS® is your correct POINTS Target. It is possible that you were viewing your POINTS® Target before you took the POINTS quiz. After the sign-up process you would have been assigned a POINTS® Target value that is based solely on your current weight.

So what you’re telling me is that 28 points is correct for a person that weighs 250 pounds, but is… what? …a four-foot-tall, ten-year-old girl? How could they make such a retarded assumption. They already had all the information they needed, but somehow they assigned my points target based on only one criteria. I’vE BEEN EATING LIKE A BIRD FOR THREE WEEKS WHEN I DIDN’t HAVE TO??!!

Never mess with a large, hungry man. He may not have the energy to curtail his ham-sized fists of rage.

So anyway, that was last week. I’m pretty much over being mad. I know I should be happy that I’m allowed to eat more now. But somehow I feel cheated. I feel like three weeks of happy eating has been stolen from me. Granted I’ve lost almost ten pounds, but the victory is as hollow as my stomach has felt for the last three weeks.

I’m going to have some ice cream now. About a half gallon. With a bottle of Hershey’s on top.

You know what I like best about real mexican restaurants? I love those warm, fluffy, hand rolled, love soaked tortillas. Mmm. I could eat a whole batch with a little melted butter and honey.

But I have bad news for you. If you love those little white disks of happiness, stop reading right now. I’m serious. Look away. You have been warned.

Tortillas are made from two basic ingredients: Bleached white flour and lard. That’s right, those yummy little flat breads are 100% fat and carbs. As far as your digestive system is concerned, you might as well, eat a big spoon full of Crisco with sugar on top.

I *LUVS* me some taco bell. I could have a 7-layer burrito and a bean burrito for dinner every day for the rest of my life and I’d die happy. I’d die at 38 years old and 800 pounds, but happy.

Using my handy-dandy WW Points calculator, I discovered that the meal above weighs in at 17.5 points (out of my daily allowance of 37*). Here’s the total, using my previous nutritional notation.

27 grams of fat:

9 grams of sugar (But more importantly, 119 grams of carbohydrates. Remember, you body treats bleached white flour much the same way it treats sugar.):

2540 milligrams of sodium:

And my new measurement, 17.5 WW Points:

Taco Bell has an awesome nutritional calculator (as do all the Yum brand stores). On their calculator, you can add extra or completely remove any of the ingredients in an item. That means that, yes Virginia, you can have a burrito without the tortilla.

I had to give it a shot. Today at lunch I ordered a 7-layer and a bean burrito sans tortilla. The staff was confused, but the manager assured them it was possible. Visualize a short, hispanic woman looking at you with furrowed brow like your just asked her to make a taco with extra crazy on top. “¿Menos tortiyya? ¿¡Por que!?”

Here’s what I got.

And it was delicious!! Even better check out these numbers with the lard pie removed.

17 grams of fat:

4 grams of sugar (And only 49 grams of carbohydrates, down from 119.):

1410 milligrams of sodium:

And only 8 WW Points:

Every value virtually cut in half! That’s SO AWESOME! The tortilla doesn’t add anything to the flavor and really offers nothing more than a handy carrying case, but doubles the gut busting anti-nutrition. From now on I’m a burrito bowl boy, baby!

I’m sure you picked up on the hints last week. I’ve signed up for WeightWatchers.

I have a few friends who’ve had great success with WeightWatchers’ online point system. One young man in our youth group lost 70 pounds last year. It’s easy, inexpensive, and you don’t have to buy any special foods, just be more conscious of the things you already eat.

Ultimately it came down the the fact that most of my “XL” shirts have become uncomfortably snug and my clever tactic of doing nothing about it was not working out for me.

Today marks the first day of week two. I am allowed 37* points a day, with 35 points of overflow to use throughout the week. I did really well last week, averaging about 30 points a day, until the weekend. My in-laws were in town and we spent the whole weekend together shopping and eating and site seeing and eating and eating and eating. I honestly surprised myself when I tallied up the points for Saturday and topped 50 points. That’s much closer to what I was eating on a regular basis before I started. Not every day, but at least a couple of days a week.

I weighed in this morning at 1 pound less than last Monday. I could probably lose one pound by getting a hair cut, so I’m calling the first week a wash. But it was a learning experience and that’s better than nothing.