There remains exactly 3 six-weeks left in the year. After a few rebuffs of my soul, I'm using the next 18 weeks for transformation. While I had previously put The Weight-in for the morning of December 31—that year later date—the original intent of the 2017 weigh-in was toward the new year, not a backward gaze. In like manner, my upcoming weigh-in will welcome the new year and will be forward-looking. Thus, on New Year Day 2019, I'll check my status to see how it will enable the development of 2019. 2019 will be instrumental in the formation of 2020, but that's for another time.

I remain in 2018 with a lot of work to do.

All that aside, I'm now taking back what I began in 2004 and into 2005: I'm a vegan. Oh, I've toyed around with it this year, but was never exclusive with it. There was a disconnect between practice and logic. Eating vegan is the superior approach to health—I've known that for a long time. If we want to avoid dietary deficiencies, no one ever tells us to make sure we get enough pork ribs and lard into our day.

I've always had a certain queasiness about handling meat products. I have a hard time working with raw meat and wash my hands several time during the process. I experience anxiety when liquefied flesh / meat grease is on my hands. I just don't do well with it. Over time, I developed some hesitation about ripping flesh off bones with my teeth. Some folks wouldn't bat at eye at picking up a firearm and shooting between his or her eyes, but that's not me if there are alternatives available. But, there's something very fundamental about "destroy(ing) something beautiful" (Fight Club).

Would I watch a video that follows along the specific process of how a soybean winds up into my breakfast blend? Absolutely. Would I watch one about ground beef? I can only skim through the cartoon writeup on WikiHow. I point this article because of this line,

Try not to slaughter an animal in front of other cattle, as this may cause unnecessary panic and excitement.

Same things applies to people, too!

But, how can I account for all the animals I've eaten over time? I think it is easy to do with today's preparation. Like pepperoni, a cute name with a cute circular shape. It's scarcely animal-like. And with the conformity of fast food burgers, how can that actually come from animals? Isn't it just from a factory somewhere from inorganic materials?

Ok, so no meat, but what's the deal with dairy? No animals die, right? I don't have any core issues with the idea of dairy, other than generalized animal suffering idea and its creepiness overall. I'm no dog person, but I'm against them being kicked. Though I think of the image of a cow being milked by hand by a farmer before dawn, I know the milk we buy at the store leans more toward something out of The Matrix.

For the sake of argument, let's just say that factory farms never existed, now, how about that dairy?! It's weird, right? Am I the only one that thinks that? I mean, if I saw a dog lapping up the milk from a human mom, I'd have the heebie-jeebies straight away. And honestly, if I saw man latched onto a cow's teat, again, there's some more of those heebie-jeebies. But, we don't give it a second thought if someone does the work for us. We would be freaked out at the supermarket if we found human milk in the dairy cooler—though that would be logical for us to drink the milk of own species. Hey, it would be pasteurized and homogenized!

But again, there is a lot of distance and culinary creativity that keeps us in a state of passive unawareness. Clearly, cheesecake is synthesized in a Star Trek replicator, right?

And eggs...well, I've done a lot of handwashing from eggs. And again with reality, do I really want to eat the results of a menstrual cycle? And we make omelets out of that? And if I were to walk inside an IHOP and there's a roomful of people eating the aftermath of a menstrual cycle, isn't this idea...horrific?

And honey...I've never had a conceptual problem with what bees spit up any more than I do with a cockroach. This animated gif of a bee reminds me of college.

But, we never think in terms of what is really going on here, do we? It's so commonplace, so readily accepted, so hygienically packaged that we don't take a step back and consider them.

And if someone wants to take a bite out of an arm, they can. If someone walks their dog for milk-on-the-go, they can. If someone likes the packaged convenience of a Denver Tampax, well...whew...they can. Good luck with all of that. The meat, the milk, and the muck just isn't for me.

When on a diet, it's more than just a diet, isn't it? On the surface, it's straight-forward: A) reduce calorie intake beyond daily usage; B) add workouts to increase energy expenditure (optional); and C) mitigate and eliminate risks like appetite: -A + -B + C.

Pretty simple right?

We grab that answer and apply it against the total calories held in the energy reserves. At 3500 a pound of fat, with 100 lbs, we're talking a colossal 350,000 calories in the bank! Whoo boy howdy—dieting is like goin' on an all-night shoppin' spree down at the Walmart, right?!

If only.

No, dieting isn't that simple, is it? Nothing about we as people is simple. We say one thing and mean another, do one thing and intend to do something else. Forevermore, there's this tension between who we are and where we want to be. I don't necessarily think we intend for this grand Machiavellian scheme of subterfuge of exploitation of power acquisition. Some do, of course, others are oblivious, and still others are disinterested in the attainment of power...but, that is the subject of a lengthy treatise...

Dial it back: dieting is complicated. We're not just resisting the Talladegan exuberance of a "bountiful harvest of Domino's, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell." I wish it was as simple as declining the majestic, black-light-ablaze Twinkie.

Dieting is also about managing our expectations and reactions, whether it is involves milestone progress or more fundamentally: changing the way we think. At its core, dieting is about changing the type of person we are: we either lean more toward solving problems or we are a whirlwind departing a now decimated concourse dripping of Krispy Kreme.

In what ways do we respond when we are...

• Subjected to conflict or just conflicted;
• Stressed;
• Worried;
• Tired;
• Hurt;
• Bored;
• Locked into a routine;
• Lazy;
• ...and so forth and so on ad nauseam.

Over years of unrealized development, I became someone who answers all of that with food. And not with spinach. As much as I'd like to blame marketing departments and food laboratories, in the final analysis, it is ME who chose a poor solution for whatever problem I was experiencing at the time. Did that food resolve that issue? No, but I'm sure it gave me that zing where I felt good in the moment—yeah, because THAT resolves everything, right?

So, dieting is really not dieting by definition. Diet is really change through resolving emotional turbulence by effective problem resolution....or at the very least, maintaining a mindfulness of what is going on and why our quick trigger response is what it is.

I mean, c'mon, if my car has a flat, I wouldn't hurl a burrito at it. Why have I chosen to do that in other areas of my life?

And I don't care how much spinach Popeye can grapple with those formidable forearms, it ain't gonna fix that broken washer!

The Black Gate opens; here I go again. More than a feeling...again. Take a look around, listen to the music—this is your life! Can't feel my face—extreme ways!

—Bill 25K

I saw that I was about 50 songs out from hitting a big milestone, so I set Spotify to play randomly with songs from the playlists listed on this site. It worked, culminating with a personal favorite that evokes good memories for me: