THOM DAUGHERTY

BUT WEIGHT… THERE’S MORE!

Strange week here. This Saturday will be The Elms’ final rehearsal. One more time to set our instruments up in a circle and bash it out. One more lunch/dinner to convince Chris that he’ll have to order Chicken Teriyaki because the rest of us are getting Sushi. One last time.

I’ve never really understood Escapism before, but the past two months, I’ve been all about it. Really poured myself into Hockey, World Cup, and now the Tour de France. I’ve not really wanted to think about what was approaching.

And that is… next week, Friday the 30th, will be our final show.

——————————-

We’d worked things out to record audio of the show and perhaps release it as a live album if everything turned out alright. But then some good friends of ours - who did the camera work for the “Back To Indiana” video - offered to film the evening as well. Why not go for it?

And the immediate thought here was, “Oh. Crap. This means I have 4 weeks to trim down as much as possible for the shoot.” If it was said a long time ago that “the camera adds 10 pounds”, then how many pounds does an HD camera add? As far as I know, nobody has yet to take up a definitive study.

——————————-

So in the past 2.5 weeks, I’ve dropped 9 pounds. I’m not celebrating just yet - the first few are the easiest. I’d love to fight off another 2-5 pounds before the night of the filming.

And you all are signing up to be my online accountability, right?

I know it sounds really bad, but basically all I’m doing is avoiding meat, avoiding carbs, and LOADING-UP on vegetables. Drinking plenty of water. And spending a lot of time on my exercise bike, El Toro (he looks like a bull - have we been through this before? Perhaps not.)

I love to put El Toro in front of the TV while the Tour de France is on every morning. And since Vs re-runs it desperately all throughout the afternoon and evening, I’ve got several opportunities to ride along with Lance Armstrong, Andy Schleck, and the Spaniard we shall not mention by name (because he’s a jerk who took the Yellow Jersey from Schleck unethically a few days ago.)

And though I’m not a big fan of “The Daily Line”, Jenn Sterger somehow always makes having to sit through it a little more tolerable.

Anyhow, this method seems to allow me to exercise for longer periods of time with more intensity. I’m becoming more and more hep to the idea that I need to save up for a legit bike and start doing this for real. There are several really nice bike trails throughout Indiana that I should be taking advantage of.

And making cycling a hobby is probably the only way for a guy like me to ensure that once the weight comes off, it stays off. If this works, I will have to thank Nathan W. Bennett for saving my life.

(He did 160 miles last Saturday for the R.A.I.N. ride. Averaged 20.2 MPH. It’s just sick, isn’t it.)

——————————-

Can I tell you one last thing? I’m ridiculously excited about the new scale I purchased recently. It’s a Weight Watchers WW78. Records your weight, body fat weight, body fat percentage, water composition, bone mass, BMI, and gives you your lucky lotto numbers for the day. I’ve really no need to ever walk into a Flying J again.

Something tells me that a good habit to develop would be to weigh oneself at the beginning of each week. Then you can keep tabs on whether you’ve been going off-the-rails or not, and if so, adjust accordingly, and reign things back in before it gets out of hand. Because you never know when your band is going to wind up filming a live concert in HD.

It could happen to you.

Thanks for reading! Hope everybody is doing well. Some of you will be traveling to Indiana next week, and I can’t freaking wait to see you guys. One last hurrah, ok? Let’s make the evening legendary.

XXXO,
Thom

p.s. The new M.I.A. record ”/\/\/\Y/\ rules if you don’t already have it. Been loving it this past week.