The Fat Man’S Diet & Tales: A Comical Approach to Weight Loss

© 2012 by S.N. Bueti. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This publication is to provide informative information. Always consult with a physician about your health care needs before taking action based on the suggestions in this book.

Published by AuthorHouse   10/23/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3214-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3213-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012911813

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Contents

Prologue

The Beginning

The Diet

The Food Groups

The Fat Man’s Approved Menu

Exercise is Optional!

Doubting Spouse

Contemporary Challenges

Weight Loss Slows Down

The Experts Chime In

The Amateur’s Weigh-In

The Autumn Months

The Insults Keep Coming

The Bill Raemont Call

The View

5 Months in the Books

Spiritual Revelations

Thanksgiving Dinner

Mom Gets a Visit

A Trip to the Car Dealership

Six-Month Assessment

Weight Loss Chart

THE FAT MAN’S TALES

The Youthful Fit Years in Chappaqua

The College Admission Game

JC Christmas 1966

Fall of ’67

Four Years of Misery

Trending Water Years

Courting Nancy

THE NEXT 6 MONTHS

The Doctors

BMR

The Fat Industry

Christmas Holidays

Florida Winter Vacation

Happy New Year!

End of the Seventh Month

Diets-Everywhere

Friday The 13th

Eight Months

The Last Quarter

A Bueti Screw Up

Cousin Mo

Legendary Harry

Enter the F Man

10 Months Eclipsed

The Eleventh Month is History

Weight Loss Chart

The Wrap Up

Dedication

To Nancy "Little One", thanks for putting up with

my antics for the past thirty-six years.

Prologue

I became inspired to return to a healthy state after almost a decade of being nothing more than a slug, having eclipsed the three hundred pound milestone. Everyone was all over my case; I was a walking time bomb.

Ultimately, only I could make the decision to lose weight. Once I did, everything else fell into place. The hardest thing was simply to make the COMMITMENT TO DO SO.

I stayed true to three unconventional principles:

•   I was going to eat what I liked

•   I wasn’t going to exercise

•   I wasn’t going to pay for advice

My little digital scale validated my efforts. Now that everyone has witnessed the results, they all want to know my secret formula, as I have managed to lose 80 Pounds in One Year!

The word that best describes what I did was perseverance. I felt like throwing in the towel a bunch of times, but I kept going forward and the diet became easier by the day.

Dieting is a matter of being on a routine and chances are if you have read this far, yours is most likely unbalanced, just as mine was. Once you make up your mind, you too can do the same as I did, and lose the weight.

I have taken the Yo out of Yo-Yo Dieting—I continue to eat the same foods, so there is no transitioning into anything.

The Tales portion of this book covers topics unrelated to dieting: my large Italian family, schoolboy sports, girls, comical characters I have come across, psychic stories… I cover a smorgasbord of topics, and garnish all of them with a twist of lemon.

Come join me, have a few laughs, and hopefully you too will be inspired enough to start your own program!

Serafino

The Beginning

Something ‘Big’ Had To Happen To Change My Mindset

One Sunday evening back in March of 1998, I received a phone call from a friend and coworker Bill O’Fara, Sammy, is you sitting down? I’ve got some bad news—Whip died this morning!

I had just run in from the driveway to answer the phone. Dusk was approaching, and I was finishing washing the family car with a cheap Tampa Cigar glued to my lips.

At the time, I was 48 years old and the horrendous news was the trigger that resulted in a good thing for me. I did not know it at the time, but I had just finished my last smoke.

I liked smoking, started out with cigars when I was 16 years old, it was the Autumn of 1965; I glommed a canister of Dutch Masters that one of my father’s clients had given him. I kept the inexpensive cigars in the glove box of Ace’s outdated ’59 Chevy BelAir, the iconic car that had Chinese eyes and wings. I thought it was cool to stoke up as I cruised down the road not having a care in the world as the radio was mono-toning from one speaker, manually tuned to 77 AM, a radio station based in New York City.

At that time, in 1998, I had smoked for 33 years and that is not counting all the second hand smoke I had inhaled as a child. Of course, I had not any idea that the morbid habit had persisted for so long. In fact, I was not even aware of the number of years until just calculating it.

Everybody smoked back in 50’s and 60’s; Celebrities promoted their brands on television, and ads in magazines and on billboards littered the landscape. Once my mother bummed a cigarette off my Aunt Ollie, a heavy smoker who was born near Liverpool England, and adoringly turned to my father and said, I’m going to learn how to smoke! Lucky for her it ended right there as my father angrily swiped it out of her mouth stating, What are you stupid?

Smoking helped contribute to Whip’s demise although what put him ‘in the hole’ was the big one. I can remember a conversation we had a few months before his passing I approached him as he was enjoying a cigarette outside of the shape up room at the telephone company and said, How did it go at the doctors Whip?

Not bad, he responded, he had nothing much to say. Whip did not look ill; he rather looked like the Marlboro Man…

It dawned on me it was time to stop the lunacy of destroying my health or I could be the next one on the ‘Grim Reaper’s’ list.

That was it, Mind over Matter. Although I sometimes still crave the whiff of a lit cigar, I never tried smoking again. Thirteen years later, in 2011, I would have another similar realization that prompted a major change in my life.

Fast forward to June 7, 2011

Unexpectedly that morning I decided I wanted to go see the Yankees play the Boston Red Sox at the Stadium in the Bronx. Both teams were neck and neck in the standings; it was shaping up to be an exciting pennant race.

I did not know it at the time, but by the end of the evening, I was going to embark on another personal crusade against another deadly ‘killer,’ Morbid Obesity. I had avoided this fight for a quarter of a century. It was going to be a brutal battle, much harder than the smoking I defeated thirteen years before. Smoking is an addictive habit but food is a necessity, and you need to eat three or more times a day. It was obvious that I had not mastered how to control my eating habits; the one thing you can tell about everyone is their dietary routine. You cannot hide it under clothes; you are out of the closet the moment you step out into public view.

The Fat Man’s Denial

My father, who was approaching 91 years of age, affectionately known as ‘Ace’ from his card playing days, always belittled me about my weight, increasingly so in recent years. Mr. Sam, I see tough guys like you every time I go to dialysis—they walk around, fatsos, the next thing you know they’re sitting next to me in the chair! Ace would become acutely agitated, I guess he was aware of the hazardous road I was traveling down; one where heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and kidney failures claim their victims.

My mother, all four feet ten inches of her would chirp in—she used a more diplomatic approach; in her heavy Italian accent she would blurt out, Sam-O… what junk food do you eat—cake, ice cream, McDonalds?—I’ll tell you, don’t eat those stupid things!

I have been hearing it loud and clear for years. Even more so since retired and packed on additional weight, cracking the three hundred mark. The little bit of activity I use to exert working had been reduced to lying on the sofa as I watched Mike Francesca stir the pot about the Yankees on the YES channel for countless hours. The only exercise I got was making a trip to the refrigerator. I heard the criticism, the insults, and the worry in my parent’s voices, but I felt okay. I would laugh it off and dismiss it all; I will get to the problem later, maybe next week or maybe it would be a New Year’s resolution! I did not want to go on another diet. Flashbacks of hunger pains and food restrictions were personal reminders that diets were not fun.

My parents suggested that I go to a nutritionist; they witnessed how a four hundred pound cousin of ours had lost one hundred and fifty pounds using the professional’s program.

Back To June 7, 2011

Without consulting with my two sons, I purchased three tickets from Stub Hub for that evening’s game, grabbing them before they were gone. In the sixties we would walk up to the small ticket booth outside the stadium the day of the game and hold up a five-dollar bill; the ticket agent would instantaneously notice he had a stake in where we sat. The seats for tonight’s game were located in the upper tier grandstand: Section 424 Row 7 Seats 7, 8, and 9 a little left of center, and a bargain at only $35 each.

To my amazement, my older son Michael was pissed off because I had not consulted with him first. Michael had plans to attend a going away party for a friend who was leaving his company. I said, Mike, people will come and go. Besides, the celebration would most likely still be going on after the game. I knew that was all bullshit but it was the best I could come up with.

My other son Robert had a more pragmatic approach. Bob’s only concern was that he did not have a change of clothes since he would be coming straight from his accounting firm in midtown. ‘The Bean Counter’ does not like to mix business with pleasure.

Angrily, I told them if they did not want to attend I would find someone else to take their spots, and they both reluctantly agreed to go. Good thing, because I did not want to be the person hawking tickets outside the stadium, as none of my contemporaries would waste their time going there unless they were sitting in great seats. Ace recently told me that he sat near the Yankee dugout back in the 40’s. The seats belonged to Bonwit Teller, an upscale clothing store where he once worked.

Mike is spoiled; he sometimes attends games as a guest of his clients, where the corporate expense accounts pay for everything. The new Yankee Stadium has changed the culture of the fans. The corporate types do not even sit in the field seats, they hang out in the exclusive club areas such as the Delta Suites, drinking and eating. Old time fans like me have to dip in our own pockets and get hosed every step of the way while we sit in the ‘Wings of the Stadium’.

Ever since the kids moved to the city I would bring sandwiches to the game. I figured eating heroes was better than hot dogs at seven dollars a pop. I knew the young men would show up morte di fame in the early evening hours.

I went to the A&S Pork Store right after getting off the phone with them. I picked up a variety of cold cuts and several Italian breads. After returning home, I loaded the heroes with roast beef, ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese. I put a healthy dose of Hellman’s Mayonnaise on some, Boars Head Honey Mustard on the others. I learned from previous years that eating a foot and a half monster was difficult at the stadium, so I cut them into manageable sizes, about a foot. I thought the crowd would be impressed and envious as they chewed on their dogs.

The temperature soared into the 90’s that afternoon. I left early in order to avoid rush hour traffic at the George Washington Bridge and I wanted to park under the Major Deegan, the highway that goes by Yankee Stadium. The strategic location was important as I planned to drive the kid’s home after the game. Bobby lives in a small two-bedroom dump infested with roaches just over the RFK Bridge in Astoria Queens. I would then go back over the bridge, pay another $6.50 and enter Manhattan where Mike resides. The city never sleeps it cannot afford to; it has to stay up and frisk its citizens all night long.

I arrived at the parking lot at approximately 4:30 pm and dropped $35 dollars at the gate. Whoever owns the lot figured it out so the amount is an exact dollar figure $32.39 plus tax. The regular tailgaters were arriving with their grills, beer, footballs, and girlfriends. After a few minutes, I decided to make my move, feeling the intensity of the heat as I exited the car. I