This is My Brain on 1200 Calories

For the past week I have been on an amazing writing spree. My mind has been sharp, alert, crisp, engaged and excited about being my brain. My brain has been telling the rest of my body to carry on and ignore the hunger pains and the intense training regimen I have set for myself as I "get down" to a lithe and dense 200 pounds (or less).

There is something about getting into top condition physically that sets me to writing energetically early each morning at 5 a.m., before I go to the gym and hoist massive weights to the point of fainting and then burn extra calories afterwards on the elliptical trainer. Or perhaps it is the coffee . . . or the extra-sensory sharpness attained by eating less. (Isn't that part of the blessing of fasting that people attempt to experience during Lent?)

At any rate, as Yogi Berra once said, "I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in."

As I near my 50th birthday, I have every confidence that I am going to exceed the top condition I attained on my 40th birthday. My pectorals, back, deltoids, calves and arms are rounding out nicely, and in a few more days, I will once more have stellar abdominals--that elusive six-pack that few men can achieve in their twenties, much less at the age of 50.

When I was forty, I achieved this condition and competed in a bodybuilding competition. At fifty, I'm going to surpass my 40-year-old condition, but I'm not going to compete (though Becky thinks I should).

And, if anyone is interested in seeing proof-positive that this old man can still run circles around the young punks . . . I'll be taking photos on or near my birthday which I can post on facebook.

If anyone is interested.

Are you?

In the meantime . . . I'm up early and to bed late, always writing. And every page I write burns 10 calories!