As much as I liked the application of The Expeditions, each series of six-weeks their own entities in competition with each other, I'm retiring that construct.

It was too time dependent—not that time doesn't play an integral role. But, I ultimately didn't want to manifest time as a character; rather, I'm more interested as how contributes as an attribute; instead of playing a supporting role, I'd value time far greater as the atmosphere.

Instead of divisions of time, I've adopted being.

It's the entire package I'm trying to achieve, isn't it? It's not merely weightloss—yes, it has a huge impact, but not as a direct player; rather, it is the passive result of the soul's fundamental shift. It results from a course correction, adjusting life's approach. When I see obesity, I see that there is a reason for that...in a very few situations, there are those whose athletic lifestyle requires copious amounts of calories, but I am not an NFL offensive lineman—I love this recent weightloss tip from the 50-lb lighter and counting, ex-Browns great, Joe Thomas:

You just don't eat until you feel like you're gonna throw up at every meal and all of a sudden the weight falls right off.

No, I didn't stuff my face with food on somebody else's dime, I did it for no other reason but to fail to satiate my soul's longings. Am I too out of line to view food as meth?

Meth warps people's bodies. It is a condition of the soul that is an unholy potter, twisting pain into the sculpture—you've seen the time-lapsed mug shots. Flip open a high school yearbook to the seniors and then fire up Facebook for a little comparison/contrast...even after taking in account for 23 years of aging, what conclusion are we left? Perhaps the meth analogy isn't hanging out in left field. So what's really going on here?

Now in practice, perhaps I'm unfair. I haven't even seen my high school yearbook in years as I tossed it and my diploma into the trash. There's this great lyric from Paul Simon's Kodachrome:

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
My sweet imagination
Everything looks worse in black and white

It hasn't been an entirely bad 2018 for me; halfway into it, I have loss 53 lbs with the majority of it starting in April, but it's far below what should have happened if I didn't get derailed a few weeks back.

I'm fortunate: I don't adopt a false perception of my physical appearance. When I calculate my BMI and its far past the overweight category and deep into obesity, I recognize that I'm not jacked—I don't have an 8-pack and don't have towering, bowling ball delts. I'm not going to say how healthy I look when the numbers aren't there to support it. There are those who do just that and I don't get it: is there a belief that they are some sort of mage and just one well-placed, cleanly-articulated incantation can just whip their doughy-middle fantasy to a rock-hard reality? It seems to me that they are more like a used car salesman singing a John Mayer derivative, Your Body is a Lemonade Stand.

No, your fitness fantasies are just that. And if I may misappropriate a Demon Hunter song and apply those eating habits in context to your heart, both as a metaphor for your soul and the pump of your cardiovascular system, your heart...

...will fail you
Of that I'm sure (Your heart) will remind you of the pain forevermore
And when (your) sins are just a memory
Faith restored
(Your heart) will fail you
To the core

We should reject aggressively the slippery slope of apathy. Frankly Stuart, you are not good enough, not smart enough, and people don't like you enough for you to just sit there and bask in these daydream illusions of fitness. Like a car, how does your body respond to your driving it?

And after taking an honest look at the numbers, is there any other conclusion that can be reached? If fashion was a fix, then we would all just run around with a paper bag equivalent over our heads. But weightloss is like time: it is the atmosphere. Where is the heart of a methhead? What is the driver of obesity-causing behavior?