"I'll just work it off tonight"

I just left a particular well known sandwich franchise that serves all manner of bread and meat combinations in "submarine" style sandwiches. I am reticent to name the franchise because to do so might constitute libel and render FCN vulnerable to a lawsuit that could result in the loss of all of its meager resources to the ensuing litigation. I will, however, tell you that the restaurant has over 30,000 locations in some 87 countries and was named the #1 Franchise in 2009 by a really fat fast food connoisseur. I'll also tell you that the company has ads featuring "Jared" who dropped a bunch of weight by "eating fresh." Oh, what the heck, you have it figured out by now. It's Subway. So go ahead and sue us Fred DeLuca. I read about your innovative business strategy in my economics class, but Fortune 400 members don't scare me. Well, most of them don't. These two guys (here and here) look a tad scary. But Fred, go ahead and try to take us down!
So there I was - at Subway - about to order the least healthy thing on the menu. Subway puts unhealthy things on the menu so that we guys can go there for lunch, scarf down a thousand or so quick calories and show our moms the partially redacted receipt so they will be proud of our health-conscious decision. Meanwhile our moms don't understand when we try to make health-conscious decisions at In-N-Out.

But whatever. This post is about neither our moms nor Fred DeLuca. It's about two middle aged women who entered the subway after me looking disheveled - as if they just returned from promenade. There is no polite way of saying this. These women were overweight. They were fat. They looked like contestants in the first week of "Biggest Loser." Okay, maybe the third week. They were corpulent, fleshy, obese, overblown, procine, portly and stout. They suffered from gut overflow, they overstocked the adipose tissue, they were ready for winter, they were running a surplus, they were a nightmare in a 2-piece, they were oleaginous and unctuous in the storage area. And I do mean that with all respect, because there is no nice way of saying it. None at all.

We'll call them Rosalie and Carol, for no particular reason.

Rosalie told Carol that she had eaten a burrito and a donut (or is it a doughnut?) for breakfast and that she wasn't that hungry. Carol confied in Rosalie that she had eaten a box of oreo cookies and a whole box of taquitos for breakfast and that she didn't have a big appetite either. I had eaten a burrito, donut, and a box of taquitos that day, but I didn't say anything.

Both entered the store complaining about the walk across the parking lot, a complaint I found dumbfounding given the gorgeous day outside. In fact, I was planning on eating my sandwich outdoors in order to take advantage of the sunlight and catch some unprotected ultraviolet rays. I know, I live dangerously.

When Rosalie and Carol ordered my distracted interest turned into focused attentiveness. They both commanded footlong sandwiches with everything. And they sat down in the store to eat their caloric feast. Carol told Rosalie that she would "just work it off tonight" a promise that rang hollow.

It rang hollow because she didn't like walking across a parking lot on a gorgeous day. It rang hollow because she couldn't possibly work off all the food she'd eaten that day unless the "work" was done by a licensed plastic surgeon. It rang hollow because health is a lifestyle and habit - it isn't a twenty minute decision before dinner. Dang, that was painful to type.

Anyway, in case you think we're picking on those who lack self control just for the heck of it, know that the only thing separating us from Rosalie and Carol is a few years. We'll get there eventually...and when we do, we'll be ready to confess.

Flaunt Those Curves, part one

Fitness clubs are scary places. They're advertised as the place to go to lose weight or "get in shape," but the truth is that everyone at a gym is already in shape and ready to look askance at those who dare arrive with an unhealthy body. Every time I step foot in one of those places, I feel intimidated by the lean, mean, muscle machine men, not to mention the women doing reps with 20-lb barbells.

I can hear them mentally sizing me up: "Look at that dweeb; I bet he can't even walk a mile without getting out of breath and I could snap him in two in one try. What's a guy like that doing here?"

Between the men who look down on me for my excess insulation and puny muscles and the women with whom I know I don't have a dream of ever having a chance, I feel that gyms are a hostile environment for people like me. Unfortunately, people like me also need to exercise in order to become like people like them. Also, I've heard that being physically fit helps to attract the opposite sex, something I need a lot of help with.

This in mind, I wracked my brain trying to think of a solution. A few weeks ago, I found one. "Aha!" my brain said, "I will join Curves; I can burn 500 calories in 30 minutes and the women there aren't terribly fit. Plus, they have low self-esteem, evidenced by the fact that they go to a place that caters to women, enabling them to get fit without damaging their image with men who go to real gyms."

I knew this would work great. I could become a lean, mean, muscle machine man while picking up women at the same time. The next day, I happily drove to the local Curves, which was only about a block away. I parked my car and walked through the open door.

Am imposing looking woman who might have had an elephant for an uncle sat at a desk and eyed me warily. "What are you doing here, young man?" she asked in a none-too-gentle tone, giving me the impression that she didn't want my business. I considered backing away and coming up with a plan "B," but I had thought too long to give up so easily. I opened my mouth to begin to speak.

To be continued...

An hour in the weight room

Eight hours at General Mills is longer than twelve hours in most other places. The time drags worse than a Spike Lee movie and when the shift ends, I need to find relief. Yesterday afternoon, I sought that relief in the weight room at my local gym.

Weight rooms, in case you've never been properly introduced, are large, spacious areas with resistance-creating exercise equipment littering a padded floor. Cables and simple machines join free weights in giving wannabes and muscled posers a chance to "pump some iron." I trotted into the room with a pretty clear idea of how I was going to work out: I would watch someone else and do what they did at a lighter weight.

I found an octogenarian who looked familiar with the weight room ways and mores and followed his lead through a lengthy, if simple, routine. But the real show was watching everyone else labor through their workouts.

A male who couldn't have been older than my father's car, but looked about as heavy as said vehicle waddled into the room with determination. Everyone already working out paused to watch him make his way toward the lat machine (a rig that works your "wings"). The big guy set it at the highest level of resistance and then shifted his weight back and forth to bring down the bar. He broke a sweat doing this. Then he picked up his car keys and left.

A middle aged gentlemen entered the room wearing a long sleeved jacket and the short black shorts you'd see on a track coach from the 1980s. He was muscled, but not trim. This fact didn't keep him from removing the jacket and flexing for the multitude of mirrors that formed the room's only decoration. His display of fibrous firepower was impressive, but not captivating. Everyone soon returned to their workouts.

A middle-aged woman entered the weight room. Nobody looked up but everyone started a set. Even Bobby, a body builder with a Mr. Universe physique, who always takes two minutes between sets went back to his flies (a free weight exercise that works the pectoral muscles), started a set even though he had only completed his last one a half minute earlier. When I'd completed my set, I looked at the newcomer. She wasn't that attractive - in fact she was altogether comely homely - but she was the first woman in the weight room in some time and she was invading a man's domain.

A young woman entered the room. She was really attractive and wore the kind of workout gear that let everyone know. If the first gal created a stir, she caused a firestorm. The guys had no idea what to do with themselves. Most of us wanted to go over and say "hi," maybe try and get a date, but none of us had the nerve. Plus such forwardness would break one of the unwritten rules of the weight room: Only ask a girl out after she's turned down Bobby. Perhaps sensing our discomfort, she didn't stay long.

A young man who looked to be my age walked in. He was shorter than me and exceptionally thin. I figured I would be able to out-lift him and was anxious to see by how much. After meandering a bit, he grabbed the chin up bar and pumped out twenty legal chin ups (from full arm extension to chin over the bar). I was dumbfounded. The octogenarian tapped me on the arm: "don't encourage him, lad." Apparently, I wasn't the only one put out of sorts by his physical prowess.

A boy who couldn't be much older than the insurance-mandated age cutoff for the weight room entered and claimed a bench by throwing his towel down. He retrieved a bar from a rack in the back of the room and put a couple of weights on each end. A couple of the veterans joined me in watching. I think they knew what was going to happen next. The boy began to lift, but had forgotten to attach the moorings to secure the weight in place. One side of the bar went up faster than the other and the weights went clattering to the ground. I caught a smile from the man in the coach's shorts.

A small family (husband, wife and son) entered the room, although the mother was wearing baggy clothing and a bandanna that allowed her to enter as a man might. The father quietly gave directions to his son on how to lift using a cable pull. Then he performed a few reps while his son looked on. When Junior tried his hand at the exercise, it was apparent that the resistance was set too high. He hawed and heaved, losing all form and rendering the effect of the set negligible. If anything he risked injury. Dad looked on approvingly, but the family didn't stay longer than the time it took to complete that one set. I knew Junior would feel it in the morning.

Yes sir; another hour in the weight room...

Caffeinated Pyramid

Starbucks coffee shops are always bustling with activity during the morning rush. Upper to middle class Americans and the college students who are consumption smoothing on little or no income and hope to someday be upper class Americans run in and out of the store picking up their wake-up Joe.

Generally you can predict a patron's beverage choice before they order. The older woman in the Christmas sweater gets a cappuccino and the too-thin tech geek grabs a tea with an oriental name. A young woman in modest but zippy attire gets a skinny latte and a burly man with rough hands orders his mug refilled with black or "unleaded" coffee.

The other day I was one of those people. Life was moving along a little too quickly and Starbucks seemed like just the thing to slow it down. I left home a few minutes early and stopped in at the Java stop that never stops.

I found my place in line in front of an overeducated and overworked Latina woman and behind a slightly overweight gentlemen who wore too tight pants and an orange leather jacket that could best be described as foppish. The Latina woman would get an iced doubleshot and a scone; the fop was a wildcard since he never ordered the same drink twice. The day's "suggestion" - a cranberry mocha beverage that was blood read in its menu representation - was a likely bet.

My turn came and I placed my order. If you've ever been to Starbucks with me you probably know what it was since my coffee tastes have changed little in two years of regular consumption. Feel free to guess in the comment section if that toots your flute.

Receipt in hand, I marched over to a second line to await my drink. That's when I noticed The Pyramid.

I've heard mention of different body types. In one of the not-to-recently passed decades, it was in vogue to debate and label people's shapes: she's a pear; she's an apple. We've probably at least heard that before, even if we didn't understand it or approve. The woman in front of me in the to-receive line broke all of those stereotypes. She was not a pear...and she was certainly not an apple. Tall, triangular and a giant three-dimensional arrow, I think she could best be described as a pyramid.

But what would this monster of a woman drink? My eyes searched the menu quickly, looking for any Mrs. size drinks or a taste that would appeal to the plus size. Starbucks prides itself on a svelte and posh appearance and none of the drink titles seemed to appeal to "bigger" appetites.

That's just another of the many differences between Starbucks and Burger King.

When the drink arrived and was announced by the green-aproned employee, a shocked quiet came over the hustle of blenders and quiet chatting of busy people. Even the music seemed more hushed. Her order: A venti (no surprise) Java Chip Frappuccino (okay...) with six shots.

Six shots.

Mille milliards de mille sabords! That would keep me up 'till Christmas, but it was her morning fix? How had she acquired such a resistance? What did she do when she needed to stay awake at night?

The Pyramid shuffled over to the drink table and picked up her order. Then she took a sip. As the liquid demise poured through her being, her imposing figure palpitated and I could actually see her heart beating more quickly beneath her stylish blouse. Her poor heart!

Then it hit me like those Gatorade showers players give their coach after a championship: that would be me in a few years. Sure, I could maintain some semblance of expected human form for a little while, but my poor alimentary and physical habits will eventually catch up to me and I will be the sniveling intellectual waiting in line to treat my addiction. I might even be a pyramid. For a moment I was worried. Then my drink was called and all thoughts of the line were erased by the cool refreshing taste of my favorite beverage.

The Obese and Bulimic are Responsible for the Food Shortages

Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced earlier this week that our world is suffering from a food shortage. Ki-Moon, himself a perfect stranger to want with a figure that challenges the svelte Asian stereotype, announced a plan to begin searching for a committee to start thinking of a way to develop a method to find a solution to this problem. When asked about implementation, Ki-Moon responded that it is too soon to be talking about such final details. With the average cost of food soaring and some Malthusian experts predicting immense food shortages in the future, Ki-Moon is trying to bring attention to a problem that he claims will eventually rival oil price shocks and Al Sharpton in severity.

Perhaps, some experts intone, the problem is that we send too many of our food stuffs to our engines and not enough to our tummies. When oil prices started their meteoric rise a few years ago, some government leaders panicked and intervened in the market to redirect agriculture products like corn and soybeans to the world's gas tanks. Maybe now we are paying the price.

Other political watchdogs say the culprit is the weather and that harvests have declined substantially due to changes in meteorology.

Others blame George W. Bush.

Here at FCN we were dissatisfied with all of these mainstream diagnoses, so we put our crack(ed) staff to work researching the real cause of the world's food shortages. What we discovered will make you want to lose weight the natural way, even if you are 6'2" and 145 pounds.

The obese and bulimic are responsible for today's food shortages. I know, that's a lot to swallow if you've already chomped down on the pre-chewed answers the media are feeding us. If you can keep it down for a couple of minutes, maybe I can add enough spice to make this proposition palatable.

So sorry.

Without exception, fat people weigh more than skinny people. That's a position you can take to the bank and earn interest on forever. In order to maintain their immense bulk, they have to eat more of the scarce products that could prevent starvation in the third world or keep the afternoon growls away in the first world. That's right, when an obese person reaches for another donut, someone dies in a poor country and a white collar American goes without. Further, all the fat guy or girl has to show for it is another wrinkle in his or her fanny.

A good way to redistribute wasted calories and reduce the obesity problem at the same time is to steal food from the hands of fat people. If you see a big guy reaching for another donut, run in front of him and grab it first. Then find a white cardboard box, write "Africa" on the top in a black Sharpie and drop it in the mail. Your postman will either find an emaciated Kenyan to feed or scarf down the donut himself; either way, you will be helping to third world or preventing a decent human being from going postal.

A more insidious threat to global food security is found in the bulimic population. People who eat food, but don't digest it waste the caloric value of their diet entirely and so deprive billions of stable nutrition. Bulimics are especially dangerous because they are so hard to spot. A chronic binge eater may consume two to three times the amount of food an obese person will, but generally looks relatively fit. Without outward signs to warn the rest of us of a bulimic's selfishness, society has no way of knowing who is wasting food and who is using it the way the farmer intended.

If you find a bulimic, get a large white cardboard box, put the bulimic in the box and label "Africa" on the top. Your postman will deliver item to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Finally, start drinking ethanol from the pump. In many states, gasoline is 85% from corn, which is the same thing they make sugar out of. In other words, drinking gasoline is paramount to drinking corn syrup or eating donuts. Just don't smoke afterward.

That's FCN's solution to the problem. It's too bad the Secretary General didn't ask our advice before he...well, wait, he hasn't done anything yet. Mr. Ki-Moon...?

If I Were A Fat Man

An FCN reader sent us the following rendition of the lyrics to Harnick and Bock's If I Were A Rich Man. If you are unfamiliar with the classic from Fiddler on the Roof, please listen to this audio clip before continuing.

Dear God, you made many, many slim people.
I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be slim.
But it's no great honor either!
So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small gut eh?"

If I were a fat man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd eat and eat and eat.
If I were a fatter man.
I'd look like a mountain.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy fat,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

I'd build a big tall house to room my circumfrance,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with thick wooden floors below.
There would be one strong staircase just going up,
And one even stronger coming down,
And one great kitchen set up for my food.

I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For me to roast and eat
And each loud "cheep" and "swaqwk" and "honk" and "quack"
Would land like a trumpet on the ear,
As if to say "Here lives a fatty man."

If I were a fat man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd eat and eat and eat.
If I were a fatter man.
I'd look like a mountain.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy fat,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

I see my wife, my Golde, looking like a fat man's wife
With a proper double-chin.
Supervising meals to her heart's delight.
I see her putting on airs and strutting like a peacock.
Oy, what a happy mood she's in.
Screaming at the servants, day and night.

The most important men in town would come to help feed me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like Ted Kennedy the Fat.
"If you please, Reb Tevye..."
"Which food, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a cook's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong.
When you're fat, they think you really know!

If I were fat, I'd have the gut that I lack
To sit in the fast food place and eat.
And maybe have a booth in an In-N-Out.
And I'd discuss the cooking books with the learned men, several hours every day.
That would be the sweetest thing of all.

If I were a fat man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd eat and eat and eat.
If I were a fatter man.
I'd look like a mountain.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy fat,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

Unhealthy Campaign

I am starting a new campaign. Over the next few days, I plan to call every phone number in the residence listings and knock on a few hundred doors in my vicinity to pass out the four color fliers I recently had printed up. The campaign's scope will be local and grassroots based at first, but I have a plan to expand it to include national political candidates, talk shows and television ads (keep your eyes open during the Super Bowl).

My issue: Health. Americans are just too healthy. They walk around like Muscle and Fitness models sporting unnaturally large biceps and thighs that would raise steroid suspicions if sported by professional athletes. They spend excessive amounts of time pumping iron and burning fat in their gyms, country clubs and golf resorts and it shows. Americans look better today than they have in years and no one feels worse about the situation than me.

When I pass good looking people on the street, I feel self conscious about my own soft folds, soda gut, limp arms and balloon tush. I don't look like Ryan Seacrest, in fact I don't look anything like Ryan Seacrest, so when I pass the square jawed, tight bodied specimens, I feel woefully inadequate. I could grow a beard to cover the double chin, wear baggy clothing to hide by belly bulge or slip shoulder pads under my T-shirt to make my shoulders look stronger, but all of these solutions are temporary and superficial fixes that do little to solve the health problem. They're also really tacky.

There are probably a handful of people who feel just like me; social outcasts who can't make it into the “beautiful people” clubs or start hyperventilating after five seconds on the Stair Master. We are human beings too and deserve the respect of healthy people. It's not our fault were fat, slovenly, scurrilous (yes, scurrilous) pigs who rusticate our days away watching reruns of inappropriate (yes, inappropriate) TV shows.

My campaign hits the heart of the health concern. The problem is, after all, health and not clothing or some other aesthetic element. People are just too healthy and that makes us insalubrious folks feel terrible. We're not flagitious, but we are fat. And we want respect.

By bringing everyone to the same physical and health level we can ensure than no one succeeds based on looks alone. We know that God looks at the heart while man looks on the outside. After my campaign, everyone will have to look at the heart for any beauty. The arrogant buff folks who currently populate our country will be reduced to crying over the scales and watching their bodies loosen. Can you imagine a more vindicating feeling?

If you want to join the unhealthy campaign, call your local politicians and radio stations to argue against the creation of new public swimming pools, parks, tracks, hospitals or anything that could conceivably promote health. Consider asking your city counsel to create tax incentives for fatty foods and high carb beverages. Have soda machines installed in your elementary school and host Twinkie sales for pre-schoolers. The younger we can hook kids on unhealthiness, the more likely they will end up looking like personified GoodYear blimps.

Finally, believe in this campaign. We can promote unhealthy lifestyles and encourage obesity across this great land. This strategy can work. You and I don't have to feel self conscious at the public pool or worry about the snide comments our neighbors will make when we go for a walk (or waddle as the case may be). We can beat this health epidemic and, with your help, bring all America's bodies to the lowest common denominator.

“What goes in, must come out.”

This note was posted from a laptop in a moving car by searching for wireless networks to hack along the freeway. The publish button was pushed during a blink of a connection. Enjoy.

There was some significant news from South Africa earlier this week, that you may have missed while watching replays of the Fiesta Bowl and studying statistics for your NFL playoff office pool (not that any of us partake of the illegal office pool joys; you know who you are). Anyway, here's the story, just in case:

An overweight woman who got stuck in a South African cave trapped 22 fellow tourists for more than 10 hours and had to be prised free with liquid paraffin.

The woman became trapped in the Tunnel of Love obstacle in the Cango Caves in Western Cape on New Year's Day.

The caves' manager said the woman had been warned she might not be suitable but she insisted on trying...

The rescue operation involved several ambulance teams and a helicopter...

The ordeal began when the woman became stuck just after noon on New Year's Day.

Mr Gerstner said the woman was “told at the ticket office that she was too big to take part in the specific section.”

He said she was again warned by the guide but that it was “very difficult to discriminate.”

Mr Gerstner said: “The obstacle has a narrow base. She lost her footing and went down in a splits position. There was no way she could get her body weight up.”

But he said she was young and remained mentally strong throughout and the other tourists took the ordeal “exceptionally well.”

The tourists, including two asthmatic children, were given blankets, water and chocolate bars as the rescue proceeded.

One rescuer was able to climb over the woman to deliver insulin to the diabetic.

No drilling equipment was needed and the woman was eventually freed with a pulley and paraffin used to grease the surface at about 2320...

Mr Gerstner said: “We believe what goes in, must come out again. People get stuck all the time - that's one of the unfortunate things that happen, it's part of the adventure.”

The article doesn't say how heavy she was.

We could be very mean right now and say some insensitive things about this woman and the way she put her adipose before the other tourists, but in light of the valiant courage she demonstrated in that cave (Who would want to do the splits for 10 straight hours? How many really heavy women would want to do the splits for 10 straight hours?) such humor seems out of place.

We would, however, like to ask a few general questions about the situation. If you, the faithful FCN few, can enlighten us in the comment section, we'd be obliged:

Can you picture a cave exit so small or a woman so large that no one can get through? Was the stoppage due to the physical impossibility of passage or the impropriety of an attempt? Why, with 10 people inside the cave, was a rescue crew required? How did the rescue crew get in? How is someone “prised free?” Will this woman ever go spelunking again? If so, who will she go with?

If you read this story and became worried about a similar situation ever happening to you, take heed; if you follow the following basic steps, you too can avoid corpulent blocks on your next outing or be so prepared as to be immune to their impact. Listen up boys and girls; this may come in handy the next time you have a fat woman corking the exit.

Whenever entering a high risk area (caves, hallways, closets, bathrooms, cars, etc) keep the following handy:

1. WD-40, to ease the fatso out.

2. A crowbar, to force the fatso out.

3. Trimspa pills, to allow the fatso to become all she ever envied and make her thin enough to get out.

4. A good book, to read while others get the fatso out.

Epilogue (a.k.a. the ending the article didn't mention): The fat tourist was an American. When she got back to the states, she called her lawyer and sued over the “physical and emotional trauma of the incident.” She named one defendant: the diabetic.