(Welcome back to another installment of my multi-part series, “The Culprit”, wherein I blame various individuals and societal sectors for my lack of fitness. After all, blaming others to assuage one’s own personal guilt is the American Way)
Just when I thought I was safe in my own home… naively assuming I had a wonderful, beautiful, supportive wife who is a constant source of reassurance and encouragement, having my best interest at heart… or at least, so it seemed………. (duh duh duhhhhhh)
Did you know that men who marry in their 20s gain an average of 30 pounds in the first 5 years of marriage?
Allow this anecdotal evidence to be a microcosm of that larger meta-narrative. The other day, Kelly sweetly says, “I think I’ll make you some home made granola bars”.
Awesome. I love granola bars.
And home-made ones will certainly be better than any of the other alternatives. So she gets some ingredients, mixes ’em up, and bakes a pan of golden brown scrumptious granola bars which she then cuts into uniform rectangular size and even takes the time to lovingly wrap each individual bar. Sounds great, right? She’s the best, right? Yes, I thought so too… and that’s just what she wants us to think……. …….. (duh duh duhhhhh)
So I try a granola bar. It’s seriously delicious. Just the right amount of crumbliness and crispness, sweet and savory. It’s perfectly balanced, and it doesn’t have anything stupid in it like raisins. (I hate to be the one to break it to you if you were unaware, but raisins suck). She even put extra healthy stuff in there, like flax seed. It was so good that I wanted to eat several more.
…. her plan was unfolding perfectly………………. (duh duh duhhhhhhhh)
Until, a sudden hitch, “Hey Kel, what’s in these?” She starts to list ingredients, and there are a few in there that are red flags to the wimpy dieter in me. I’m not a nutritionist, but I hear “butter”, “honey”, “peanut butter”, “sugar”, and “corn syrup”… and I start to wonder… hey, wait a second, there might be some fat and sugar in this delicious tasting food item. So I get the full recipe and enter it into fitday.com, a handy nutritional calculator I use from time to time. Here are the results for the whole batch: 
- Calories: 5,766
- Fat: 396g
- Carbs: 469g
- Protein: 166g
Well a couple things might stand out here, but because this is for the whole batch we don’t really know anything until we consider what a serving size is. One bar. How many bars did this batch make?
12.
That’s right, twelve. Quick math: One serving size (a bar a little smaller than a deck of cards), carries the following nutritional sledgehammers:
- Calories: 480
- Fat: 33g
- Carbs: 39g
FitDay doesn’t track sugars, which is unfortunate because that’s something I’m specifically keeping an eye out for. I can only estimate the sugar content as “high”. Now we have some nutrition information, and it doesn’t seem “great”… but how bad is it? What can we compare it to? How about something that is viewed universally across the world as “an unhealthy meal”. A McDonald’s Big Mac:
- Calories: 590
- Fat: 34g
- Carbs: 47g
So essentially, the plan is for me to consume a big mac ever morning (in a much more compact package)…
SHE’S TRYING TO KILL ME!
The best case scenario is that this is a long-standing, complex, diabolical plan to get me to fail, and somehow break my will. The worse case scenario, of course, is that she tries to kill me to capitalize on my lucrative life insurance policy. Or fakes my death, gets a light conviction, only to escape and ACTUALLY kill me in some sort of elaborate Double Jeopardy scenario… I can’t really remember the details of that movie very well. At any rate, if it’s a battle of wills she’s looking for, then she’s come to the right place:
“in the warrior’s code, there’s no surrender…”
Rest day today. Distance: 0
Food was good so far, little cereal for breakfast, veggies for lunch. Food: B (pending)
Weight: 229.6 lbs. A significant and inexplicable rise. Not sure why… but I’m sure it’s Kelly’s fault somehow…
dan vs fat 
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Why didn’t you tell me about this blog (I mean, when I was in front of a computer and might actually remember)? No offense to Kelly, but granola bars that delicious and absolutely terrible are, at best, a little inconsiderate and, at worst, downright insidious. For the record, I think you should get them as far away from you as possible (like Colorado).
Anyway, I enjoy the blog, and it’ll probably help me eat healthier (even though I weigh what I did as a senior…in high school).
ouch.
It’s okay. I’m unaffected by these attempted barbs.
What you might not know, or even suspect, about Gabe is that (despite his perfectly constant weight) his body has changed drastically from the sculpted, yet slightly diminutive, adonis we remember from college… his arms and legs have atrophied at an alarming rate in his time in Colorado (a time he’s referred to as “the summer of Gabe”). The weight has remained constant, but now resides entirely in his belly. That’s right… his arms and legs have been reduced to mere twigs, barely able (in their feeble state) to hold up his massive, almost otherworldly belly. It’s strange. And I’m sure rather embarrassing.
This is why I hadn’t chosen to respond to this post earlier. It wasn’t because I simply had not retort. It was pity.
Only last week, Brooke confided to me that Gabe lost an arm wrestling match to little Ellis… his 2(ish?) year old daughter. (although, to be fair, we’re still trying to ascertain whether Ellis has been blessed with some sort of Samsonian super strength).
Poor Gabe… and his silly, almost cartoonish looking body. Almost a perfect real-life rendition of how I used to (still?) draw stick figures… pretty much a big circle with stick arms and legs. And weirdly numbered fingers and toes. It’s all true.
But way to keep the same weight, buddy… that’s important.
Sounds like Gabe might just be returning to his natural shape:
Sounds like Gabe is just returning to his natural shape:
I bring good tidings, Dan and Kelly. I recently found this granola bar recipe and have made it a couple times: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/09/granola-bars/
I fudged it a little: instead of almonds, pecans (had them); instead of wheat germ, ground flax seed; and you don’t have to put raisins – that’s the beauty of a granola bar! it’s a playground for any sorts of dried fruits!
So seriously: these are SO GOOD. And look at the ingreeds: the only sweetness is some honey. oh man. you will love. i hopes.
How about: I make y’all some granola bars, and y’all make US some homemade pretzels!!!! YUM.
deal.
The recipe he’s referring to from this post is also from smitten kitchen. Although it’s for Thick, Chewy Granola bars (http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/02/thick-chewy-granola-bars/), hence the addition of peanut butter, corn syrup, and more sugar.
Also where I got our pretzels recipe (http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/02/knotted-and-stacked-disappearing-acts/). I love that site!
ha! I saw both recipes on there, but only ever looked at the regular granola bars. Isn’t it the best food blog??
Really, Dan should be blaming Danielle What’s-her-name for this unfortunate binge. Also himself.
Also, why did my name automatically just start appearing as sarah smurf?
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