-june 7 .2QQ2 -
HUMOR
..... V.....
Bulk male
Don’t let your feet walk all over you.
Debra K. Lvnch, DPM
Treating all diseases
& surgery of the foot
including:
Physician ana Surgeon
How I lost 60 pounds
W
ell, I finally did it. I lost 60 pounds.
Actually, 1 lost it last year but haven’t
mentioned it in print for fear those,
pounds might come back and find me,
like homing pigeons. Big, chubby homing
pigeons.
People ask me all the time how 1 managed
to lose nearly 30 percent of my body weight,
and 1 can’t resist screwing with their minds.
“I’m doing the Bhutan Death March Work
out," I’ll say. “It’s the new Taeho!” Or, “I’m
sticking to a balanced regimen of Bingeing and
Purging.” Freaks ’em out every time.
I lie to them because no one wants to hear
the truth: I simply ate less. I got this radical
advice from my neighbor, Carrie Peacock, who
is a personal chef, dietitian and all-around
smart cookie, pardon the pun. “Losing weight
is actually very simple,” she said to me. “It’s just
like following a budget.”
Now we all know how easy that is. Obvi
ously, I’d been living beyond my seams.
For me, it wasn’t even a matter of needing
to exercise more. I already worked out several
times a week, but my muscles were well insu
lated by a protective fat coating, sort of the
biological equivalent of bubble wrap.
Carrie suggested I look at what factors trig
ger my overeating. For the most part, I was a
stress eater, but I also knew I
ate when I was depressed.
Or happy. Or bored.
Or because it was a
day of the week
that ended in "y."
Something
had to change.
(ow, a waist is a terri
ble thing to mind,
but to do it I had to use
something I never thought I’d need
as an adult: algebra. Keeping track
of my calories was just like all
those high school word prob
lems— you know, the kind about
two trains leaving Detroit— but
instead they’re about food:
“If Gayboy A eats less
than 10 grams of fat
daily, but his only
upper-body
workout
consists of
blow-drying
his hair, and
Gayboy B works
out every day, but
the only vegetables
he eats are the
olives in martinis,
which one is more
likely to get laidT’
Answer: The one
with the bigger dick.
Duh.
(Incidentally, one of
the major advantages of
dropping inches from
your waist is the percep
tion of adding inches else
where, if you get what I
mean.)
Me, I lost 8 inches off my
waist slowly and sensibly dur
ing the course of a year, and I
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
TO MARC
by M arc Acito
Bunions * Neuromas
Hammertoes • Bone Spun
Heel/Arch Pain • Fractures
Cysts • Fibromas
Ingrown Toenails • Warts
Hospital & Office
Based Surgery
Prescription Orthotics
Sports Medicine
Integral Health 503-23S-3767
545 NE 47th Ave., Suite 325 • Portland
didn’t complain once. That’s right. I com
plained about 6,000 times. (And that was just
the first day.)
I might look and feel better now, but I have
not become one of those irritating types who
say, “Oh, I’d rather eat an apple than a cook
ie!” Yeah, if the apple were in the mouth of a
roasted pig, perhaps. And my sensible meals
still look like kiddy portions to me.
So 1 completely understand those of you out
there who have rejected the Do or Diet men
tality and accept your bodies as they are. My
favorites are those Hispanic guys who roll their
T-shirts up over their bellies on hot days. They
might look like they’re in their ninth month,
but that doesn’t stop them. You gotta love that.
But I simply can’t operate that way. I’ve
always believed that achievement, not accep
tance, builds self-esteem. I think that’s one of
the reasons why we have trouble as a commu
nity deciding what Gay Pride should be about.
(That, and the fact that the girls want it to be
Lilith Fair and the boys want it to be the
White Party.)
As far as I can see there’s nothing about
being gay in and of itself to be proud of. It’s
what we do as gay people that matters (and
not just in the bedroom).
Certainly, there are real-life heroes
among us, like Portland’s own Steve
Lofton and Roger Croteau, the cou
ple fighting the state of Florida’s
ban on gay adoption. And
then there are people like
me, whose major
accomplishment is
managing to look
cute in a tank
top. It’s not
much of an
achievement, I
admit, but it’s my
own little personal
victory, and I’m pleased
with it nonetheless.
So ¿s you march and wave a
rainbow flag at Pride this year, I ask
you to think about the words of Oseo-
la McCarthy, the functionally illiter
ate washerwoman who gave her life’s
savings of $625,000 to Southern Mis
sissippi University back in 1995.
When asked about her astonishing
act of generosity, the 87-year-old sim
ply said, “Well, if you want to feel
proud of yourself, then do something to
be proud of.”
And that, my friends, is The
Gospel According to Marc. JH
Write M arc A cito at rmrcacito@attbi.com
or meet him live and in person at the Just
Out booth during Portland Pride 2002 from
3 to 5 p.m. June 15 and 16. For contribu -
lions to the Georgem Moran fund, he will
autograph body parts (not that one ) , and
for really big donations, lucky visitors
can "kiss the columnist."
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