Should OK adopt the Ultraslimfast© Plan?

It is becoming increasingly apparent, even to neutral outside observers, that the quantity (if not quality) of food that members of the OK relay teams have consumed over the past year has crept steadily upwards. If you combine that effect with the gradual decrease in training distance and growing number of "rest" days taken by team members, you begin to appreciate the vast scope of this impending disaster.

Only two weeks ago Fritz wrote in saying that he was forced to buy a whole new wardrobe of size 45" pants to accommodate his expanding waistline. Yesterday, apparently, these new pants split wide open during work causing Fritz great embarrassment and Fritz found himself once again back at The Gap to purchase new clothing. It is costing money! Fritz isn't the only one with weight gain problems. Dan wrote in proudly announcing having taken a 2-mile run yesterday, his first in a week, but then admitted to a "hankering" for the corn dogs stored in his freezer. Dan wolfed down 5 of the puppies, gaining back all of the calories he had burned and more.

Fact: there comes a point of no return in the life of every fat person. Upon reaching a certain weight, the body becomes too fat and immobile to burn off significant calories and is fated to store them, becoming increasingly fat, more immobile, and so forth in a runaway process.

If we are not careful, OK relay members could find themselves in this most unfortunate of situations!

However, there is a solution. We can work as a team! A weight loss challenge: one shake for breakfast, another for lunch, then a sensible dinner. Day in and day out this simple and effective plan would mean big things come April. Anyone game enough to try?

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), January 18, 2000

Answers

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read every other letter or so

-- Dan (daniel.meenehan@umb.com), January 18, 2000.

I think it's clear why UMB's customers are starting to scratch their heads, and it's not because they're not sure which way to twist their compass'.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), January 19, 2000.

I tried this 'shake for breakfast, shake for lunch' thing. That's *why* the pants split. I was in the middle of shaking all that weight (which can burn a significant number of calories, I'm told) when the accident occurred. I had no choice, and was immediately asked to leave work as people were cracking up. Those folks at the GAP are ever so nice, but this *is* getting expensive. I hate to think of what size O' suit I'll need to order. The one silver lining to this I've heard is that to carry around all this weight on my 20 mile runs will have me so much stronger come April when I've gotten the weight back down. It's like carrying the gym with you 24 hours a day! Like that infomercial -- all you use is your own body weight for resistance. I have yet to figure out how this will help my map reading skills though. Just last week, I had to order new temples for my glasses as the distance to my ears seemed to be increasing. Fortunately I can still type... the weight increase has NOT yet affected my tyupoioning... uh oh.

-- Fritz Menninger (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), January 22, 2000.