Listen to “Diet Diary” on Spreaker.

As I’ve written, the worst people are the ones who can’t stop talking about how much weight they’ve lost with the latest diet fad. In a way, it’s like bragging about your body-mass index measurement or your “good” cholesterol. Really, when did the subject of normal health maintenance become a “thing”? This is why I refuse to write about the recent success I’ve had with the diet I’ve been on. It’s not like you’ve scaled Everest or swam the English Channel, though both would indicate you’re in pretty good shape already.

“But you are increasingly aware that a full-grown, adult human being is capable of emerging from your relentless girth if you don’t do something, and you decide to bite the bullet against all odds of hanging with it.”

Usually, these people who have lost what amounts to the weight of a three-year-old, are ostensibly shy about their weight loss, which only forces you to ask them, because seeing them suddenly makes you feel like the seven-year-old you have to lose may, in fact, be doable. Then they tell you how they’ve done it, and it’s the suburban equivalent of being washed up on a deserted island.

But you are increasingly aware that a full-grown, adult human being is capable of emerging from your relentless girth if you don’t do something, and you decide to bite the bullet against all odds of hanging with it. Fortunately, you’re married to a woman with the steely discipline you’ve only dreamed of possessing, who will help you through the rough early stages, which begin promptly the morning of day two. (The first day was easy, filled as it is with the zeal of a Road to Damascus conversion, the gnawing, mind-numbing hunger trailing you throughout the day resembling a kind of redemptive grace, like the sweet agony of martyrdom.)

You don’t realize how much you miss actual food until you start a healthy diet. It begins to dawn on you just how dull life in the animal kingdom must be, as you pass each day grazing, rather than eating. You remind yourself it’s only for a week, and that you can then return to “regular food” in “moderate portions.” It’s a little discouraging when your mate points out that “regular food” and “Popeyes” are not synonymous, and “moderate portions” shrink dramatically from the “unlimited vegetables” your diet permitted.

Then comes that first weight check. You knew it would be modest, and in this, you were not disappointed. You realize a couple of things. The adult you’ve been growing will disappear at the pace of Benjamin Button. And that three- or seven-year-old is likely to be a lifetime companion, as they are when you bear them in real life. And that as far as Popeyes is concerned, you’re not getting past the spinach anytime soon.

It’s for all these reasons that I choose not to write about my experiences with dieting. There’s certainly nothing noble or heroic about a story of struggle and triumph over something that slothful living was responsible for in the first place. It’s the person – woman – man – camera – TV of life’s struggles or accomplishments.

Instead, I want to write about all these new clothes I found in my closet that seem to be fitting me perfectly.