Maybe by June 3rd even. Just maybe not June 3rd, 2010.

A major workout event went down on Wednesday, when I mounted my third elliptical machine for the normal final 30 minutes of my morning cardio assault and I stumbled into a McLardo TV jackpot: not only was it “Skinny Wednesday” on The 700 Club, but just three channels north, Oprah sat chatting with the author of Women, Food & God.

Again: yes, this is former Selwyn Harris writing these words. Publisher of HAPPYLAND. Entertainment Editor at HUSTLER. Berserk, angry addict of any number of substances and sensations that defined my maniacal existence for 41 years.

Same volcanic a-hole. Only now I’m on an elliptical machine, absolutely tickled to be able switch back and forth between Pat Robertson and Oprah. Non-ironically.

Way non-ironically.

The 700 Club has been a personal passion ever since it stopped annoying me by preempting Channel 11 cartoons and started amusing/amazing me as I developed boundless appreciation for outrageous hucksterism and an innate drag queen’s sense of camp.

This dramatic change happened when I was about five.

The absolute pinnacle of The 700 Club, for me, was a sci-fi serial they ran in the early ’90s dramatizing what Life in God’s Country would be like When the Liberals Take Over.

The hilarious re-education posters plastered everywhere in this showpiece ceased being hilarious to me when Mayor David Dinkins funneled tax dollars to “art”-fraud Jenny Holzer so she could vandalize the sacred marquees of the collapsing grindhouse palaces on 42nd Street.

She called the “truisms” and where the true poetry of movie titles such as I Spit on Your Grave, Make Them Die Slowly, and Mad Money Kung Fu once radiated, Holzer polluted the cityscape with repugnantly trite nonsense like: “All Surplus Is Evil”, “Everyone’s Work Is Equally Important”, and “It Is in Your Best Interest to Find a Way to Be Tender.”

When I read one that declared, “Raise Boys and Girls the Same Way,” I thought: “Yeah. Republican.”

Well, that was quite a McBeardo-style diversion, eh? See. Told you it was still me here.

Anyway, Pat got off two instant gems in the course of the single broadcast last Wednesday.

The first was on the connection between working too much overtime and developing heart complications. Advised Pat: “I think everybody needs to CHILL OUT!”

Then, when speaking on the disease gout, he instructed: “You have GOT to get off meat!”

As Lady McBeardo observed: “What a hippie!”

I also loved Jenny Ryan’s take: “Zen master!”

Since I knew my DVR was recording The 700 Club, as it does every “Skinny Wednesday”, I spent a lot of time watching Geneen Roth, the Women, Food & God lady, yammer with the Big O.

From a certain angle, one might boil down every issue in my life thus far to be a struggle with (and often against) women, food, and God.

I liked where that broad was coming from.

I also liked that she (and Pat) kept me on that machine for a full hour, upping my cardio workout that day to 123 minutes, peppered with arms and chest iron-pumping between sets. A first.

My lone indulgence remains Breyer’s Carb Smart ice cream pops, which, indeed, I publicly swore off right here on this blog a few weeks back. I wasn’t lying. I just failed.

As Jimmy Swaggart wept: I haff SIHHHHNED ag-inst you!”

So what good stuff do I eat?

Pre-workout, I gulp down an Atkins Shake, which is pure joy in its pre-made drink-box form, pure powdered misery if you try to make them yourself from a mix.

Breakfast is two Morningstar Farms meatless sausage patties and a generous (meaning: Mount Olympian) spoonful of some kind of nut butter, preferably containing flax seeds.

Lunch consists of two vegan Grillers patties. Snacks throughout the day are almonds and, again, nut butter scoops.

Dinner is an all-out orgy of delish rendered by Lady McBeardo, made up most often of mesclun greens, quinoa, barley, vegetable stock, sweet potato, mushrooms, and ground turkey, gorgeously dolloped into a bowl, thereby making it The Glop of the Gods.

Dessert is another Atkins Shake or, a few times per week, a Carb Smart pop or two. Okay, it’s always two.

On several of the 85 different fat people television shows I consume relentlessly, hot sauce has been recommended as a metabolism stimulant, and I most infernally recommend the Tabasco Smoked Chipotle variation.  

I am the Wuss of All Wussery when it comes to psycho-spicy foodstuffs, but this smoldery brew brings the heat but doesn’t reduce the inside of your mouth to a bouillabaisse of melted meat.

A lot of vitamins and other supplements get tossed into the mix as well, the most important—and most fun—of which is Wal-Mucil, Walgreen’s genetic take on Metamucil. Three capsules in the morning, three at night. Pure bliss on the bowl, twice a day.

See you next week. Actually, I won’t. But you’ll see me. Wheeee!

(Today is also the 34th anniversary of my First Holy Communion. If only I had stuck to solely consuming the Body of Christ since then.)

The shirt I must fit into by June 3 is starting to fit … almost. Which is another way of saying, of course, that it still doesn’t.

Yet I remain confident that it will. Which is another way of saying, of course, that I fear it won’t.

Next week, when I hit the one-moth-ish mark, I’ll put up side-by-side photos from the maiden post next to wherever I am at that point.

Until then, simply gaze upon these latest editions in drooling rapture.

Right now, I stand (none too) firmly between XXL and XL, shirt size-wise, and I should remind myself that I was maniacally stretching out 3XLs as recently as late March just to fit into them, so … Whoop. Pee.

In the course of my life, I can’t fathom how much weight I’ve lost and then gained back. It’s got to be one of those numbers that, if converted into fuel-burning energy, could propel a can of chimpanzees to the moon and back 400 times a day for 4,000 years.

As I’ve noted, over the past decade, I’ve shed boatloads of blubber by fitfully Atkins dieting. 

The truth is that exclusively eating butter sandwiches on bread made of steak for a healthy (?) spell will, indeed, diminish your girth but, even when that happens, something doesn’t feel right about it.

I always knew Atkins-enabled reduction was a temporary state of faux fitness. And, sure enough post-Atkins, passing contact with mere fumes emanating from a bagel shop would invariably result in volcanic reinflation of my fatty deposits, sizable blubber bags that stretched across approximately two yards of my six-foot frame.

The oddest aspect of this Incredible Melting McLardo effort, then, is that as I am losing fat, I am gaining what I think might be stomach muscles.

That, or there’s some kind of muffin-baking pan buried under a few inches of the results of ongoing orgiastic muffin consumption.

Regardless, this is a first.

In 1986, I starved off 100 pounds, but never followed up with anything resembling exercise. And even in the early ’90s, when my all-alcohol/all-narcotics all-the-time diet kept my waist below 30 inches, my naked torso remained a gloppy horror fitless show.

But now there’s, like … hard stuff coming in.

And it’s FREAKIN’ ME OUT, man!

I must thank the divinely gracious Lady McBeardo and her quinoa magic, plus the addition of two Target-brand exercise balls to our home, upon which I perform crunches and dumbbell flyes each night while pretending I can smell Jillian Michaels’ American Spirits Light breath being barked in my grimacing kisser.

There’s also the gym. After working up to 90 minute elliptical sessions three times a week, I cut back to 60 minutes for a while, but then I missed the giddy adrenaline delirium after three half-hours on three different machines.

That’s all I get wasted-wise anymore so you can be “s”-sure I’m going to take it.

Plus there are the music videos, which is what got me to join the Logan Square Xsport.

In fact, Everything I Know about Modern Music Comes From the Gym. And that’s the exact title of a piece I wrote on this topic over at McBeardo.com.

One learning experience came this week on the Dance Channel when I heard the opening strains of what I thought was just a supremely agreeable Coca-Cola commercial jingle.

It turned out to be an effervescent concoction called “Starry Eyed Surprise” by DJ Paul Oakenfold and hamster-happy VH1 Celebrity Rehab perennial Shifty (best known previously for the irresistible idiocy of “Come Muh Lady, come come muh lady…” by Crazytown).

The song itself made for a top-notch running soundtrack, but G-damn it to H-E-2-Sticks, it made me ache immediately for a Coke Zero—something that hasn’t happened since I put down the carbonated death a couple of months ago.

The lesson: Pavlov rules. Just be aware of it.  Then act as an educated consumer. Make Sy and Marcy Syms proud.

That stated, and acknowledging that, in any context, “Bad Romance” and “Pokerface” are, respectively, my #1 and #2 jams of all time, here are my top five (other) cardio jams in the Xsport video channel rotation (although, in high irritato fashion, I can’t embed a couple of the official flippin’ videos here, but, whatevs…):

1. “Hung Up” by Madonna

2. “Everybody Wants You” by Billy Squier

3. “Bulletproof” by La Roux

4. “Maneater” by Nelly Furtata

5. “Dreams” by Van Hagar

Brothers and Sisters of the Workout Jam Persuasion, what are yours?

I’ll give you a minute to wipe up whatever fluids just exploded out of you in excitement over that announcement.

Since I require a couple of pairs for the duration of Chicago’s predictably unpredictable spring-esque period as it teeters toward short-pants weather, I stopped into the Old Navy near my shrink’s office to make that very purchase.

They only had one pair that I liked there, so I hopped on my bike and headed to work, happy to have only spent $20 (really, it’s a good sale). And then I pedaled by a Gap storefront announcing 30% off on shorts.

So I locked the bike up, grabbed a pair of snazzy plaid cargos for just over $20 and subsequently sped Mr. Skin-ward, pleased as a poo-inducing punch that I stayed within my allotted pantaloon budget and that both garments measure 38 inches in the gutty/love-handely area.

But now there’s no more purchasing to be done until I hit a 36.

Rabid shopping with my brain disconnected from my wallet, especially for clothing (after all, I am quite the fashion plate), has cropped up in the past decade as a another maniacal compulsion for me so this, too, must be forcibly governed.

Yes. This is what I write about now. This. Yes.

And, yes, if my penis-and-testicles hadn’t gotten me into so much trouble my whole life I, too, would swear I was a woman.

But I’m not, and I’m ecstatic to have the one that I do, the one that takes these photos each week, and sustains me with lean protein, soy formations, and gardeny treats.

I have eliminated any form of frozen dairy dessert from my chow roster, and have hit upon sugar-free Arizona Iced Tea mixes as the ideal compliment to my Morningstar meatlessness, ground turkey, sweet potatoes, mixed greens, and various nut-and-seed butters.

These alterations are paying off. Not that you can necessarily tell from these pictures (yet), but I’m steadily getting closer to getting that XL t-shirt comfortably further removed from my corporeal massness.

And I have stopped snoring.

But not farting.

If you saw it, I hoped you enjoyed it. If not, you never will. Your loss.

Actually, the loss was all mine, and not in the form that I aim for here.

Your hero here is blessed/cursed with near lethally severe mind-body connection mechanics.

When I knowingly engage in behavior I know does not serve me right and proper, my system reacts in any one of a hundred horrificisms.

It’s like I’m all penis and my conscience functions as a built-in Lorena Bobbit.

I’d like to say that this is a post-sobriety development, but I was covered, scalp-to-toenails, in chronic cystic acne from age 14 until I first attempted to quit boozing at 24 in L.A.

An alleviation of suicidal self-loathing had much to do with that particular mass un-blemishing, although it certainly received a boost from my Beverly Hills dermatologist (when I saw Tori Spelling exiting the office on my way in, I knew I found the proper physician).

So last Saturday ended with an all-points intestinal clampdown and nothing loosened up until Monday afternoon.

And then, upon that explosive gear reversal, I had to chug a half-bottle of cherry-flavored Smooth (Walgreen’s charmingly monikered Pepto-Bismol generic).

Still, the gut-based misery didn’t fully relent until Wednesday.

So all this is to own up to the fact that I didn’t hit the gym until Thursday and, even then, I took it easy.

It really was a simple, two-pronged fact of bound guts followed by volcanic diarrhea.

However, my food intake remained admirable and, at this moment, I’m continuing to sweat like a Beast of 1000 Faucets following a killer gym session just prior to typing this up.

The only stuff that counts as monkeying around for me is Breyer’s Carb Smart ice cream. It gets dished out in reasonable portions, but I know that’s got to go.

There’s still a bit in the freezer but let me now publicly add that, once that’s gone, I’ll consume no more ice cream variations until my Brooklyn trip in June.

In that, dairy dessert material joins pizza, which I have forsworn until I’m sitting at L&B Spumoni Gardens, bellying up for a couple of squares to be washed down with, fittingly, rainbow spumoni.

I’ve also come to realize that I need a personal trainer, and that will figure as priority one upon immediate return from Brooklyn.

Cripes, he’s going to make me get on a scale.

I continue to soldier on free of Diet Coke.

Here’s the second round of me modeling the XL shirt I need to fit into comfortably by June 3.

Week 2: under the belt.

******************************************

My name is William Michael Selwyn Harris Mickey St. Pee McBeardo McLardo McPadden.

I am now and have been, for the majority of my 41 years amongst ye, a Fat Bastard.

But I wasn’t always.

In 1986, at age 17, I lost 100 pounds in the course of about six months.

That March (while employed at the Kings Plaza Baskin-Robbins), I stepped on a scale, saw the needle whiz past 260, and hurled myself off it in abject horror.

College loomed that fall and, with it, the prospect of transitioning from mere chronic masturbator to chronic masturbator who might also possibly get laid once in a while

So I created a somewhat sensible food plan, got into a state of unstoppable determination and, by September, I clocked in at an impressive 163 lbs.

For most of the next decade, I kept almost all of  that bulk off (although I never actually toned up) but, in time, my strategy evolved into reducing my daily food intake to near zero while supplanting the absent calories with alcohol and narcotics.

It worked for a while, too. Until absolutely nothing else worked in my life and the specifics of that diet plan had to be properly assaulted, contained, and kept under constant surveillance.

That took years of trying.

Alas, for me, arresting one or, indeed, several dozen specific addictions, seems to prompt some new compulsion to automatically erupt all over every aspect of my being.

Thus I began 1995 tucking shirts into 32-inch waistband jeans and by February ’96, I was perusing Gap shelves in shame for 40-waist cargo pants, which most of their  outlets didn’t even carry at that point (unfortunately, most such easy-access chain retailers  have since adjusted to America’s following my horribly expansive example).

The second half of the ’90s consisted of my battling boozey-druggy demons until I indulged in what I hope will be my last-ever Jägermeister-and-Coca-Cola-cocktail/stolen-cocaine binge at decade’s end.

The ten-plus years since then have seen me ease into being sober, which is cool, but I also came to “accept” my fate as a Fat Bastard as a simple fact of what it means to live without forever getting loaded.

And that’s not only NOT cool, it’s hog wash (pun completely intended).

At times, I’ve dropped buckets of Dunlop via the Atkins Diet, only to then chew on half a bagel and have it instantaneously reappear, bigger and blubberier and harder to shed with each successive attempt.

(Also, I’m sorry, dear dead Dr. Atkins, but using salami as bread on a salami-pepperoni-prosciutto-mozzarella-and-more-salami sandwich any time your stomach rumbles, day or night, simply cannot sustain happy, long-term, high-functioning vitality.)

What it comes down to is that I lost 100 pounds once by eating small portions of healthy food throughout the day, and trying to squeeze in a bit of exercise (tougher to do in 1986 than in today’s 24-hour-gym-next-to-every-Starbuck’s world).

However, I also drank a case of Diet Coke each and every day.

That’s six 6-packs—36 cans!—every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year (leap years meant 24 extra hours and, therefore, 36 extra cans of Diet Coke).

I sucked down Diet Coke first thing in the morning, continually while I was awake, and as the last thing before I went to bed each night. I’d even get up mid-slumber just to gulp more.

And I did this for 24 years.

For real.

Ask anyone who’s been around me.

I drank that much Diet Coke before my active alcoholic/druggo period, after it, and I drank that much Diet Coke every day until about two months ago when, miraculously, I just stopped.

Make no mistake, it took a few weeks of hardship, but I put it down and it’s stayed down.

Yet it’s not like the all-or-nothing absolute banishment of beer—I’ve had a Diet Coke with my popcorn at the movies a few times but, after the initial sips, I don’t even really enjoy it.

What happens is that the carbonation hurts my throat, which makes sense, because Diet Coke eroded an ulcer in my esophagus.

Read that again, please, and fully comprehend this madness.

I drank so much Diet Coke that it burned a hole in my throat—a hole that food would get trapped in and severely choke me, prompting several hospital visits and even, one time, the surgical removal of Cornish Game Hen.

And, despite that, I kept drinking Diet Coke anyway.

But I don’t now.

These days, I also exercise like a maniac. Well, like a sane maniac in his 40s. I do what I can, but I do it consistently and I strive always to improve how I sweat.

So I began this year determined to not just lose weight but to actually attain strong, health-exuding awesomeness.

In January, I wore 40-waist pants and had to stretch out XXXL shirts to fit into them (that’s three X’s, if you don’t feel like counting).

I don’t know what I weigh, because I live in girlish terror of a discouraging number.

In addition, my doctor told me that it’s not weight that matters as much as does waist size, particularly when genetics have graced one with a Perfect Heart Attack Physique, as have mine.

Still, he told me that given my ape-like frame, I should weigh 188 pounds and sport a 32-inch waist.

So those two figures serve as goals for my overall figure in this Year of Our Lard 2010.

At present, after months now of intense work, I wear 38-inch pants and can slip easily into XXL shirts.

My immediate aim, before returning to Brooklyn for a visit in June, is to comfortably fit into an XL shirt (that’s just one X), with no slop that Dunlop over my belt.

The photos accompanying these words showcase me wearing a freshly-purchased, straight-outta-Target XL shirt (you can even see where the tag is still attached).

So these are the “Before” shots (note the requisite “frownie” face).

Each Saturday, I’ll post photographic evidence of how I’m filling out this magically delicious XL garment.

This blog will chronicle my efforts to make that thing loosen up and hang properly and complement my emerging gorgeousness.

And then I’ll write about wherever this Incredible Melting McLardo ambition takes me from there.

Please be my witness en route to the victory whoop:

“FAT BASTARD NO MORE!”