:: crapweasel ::
the official blog of
Dave Tompkins

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I usually try to avoid just posting random YouTube links, but this one is just so good I couldn't help myself: Baby Got Back - Gilbert and Sullivan Style.

I've always heard about those cheezy time share scams where you get a cheap vacation but then you have to sit through a boring sales pitch to buy a time share property. An episode of South Park did a great take on them -- it was the episode where they spoof Better Off Dead... and 80's movies in general and they have that awesome montage song that they later recycled in the Team America movie, but I digress... So call me lame but I've always wanted to go to one of those time share scams and I just got sent an invitation through Aeroplan. I love the fine print: It is intended for couples whose household income exceeds $75,000 who are between thirty (30) to sixty (60) years of age, and own their own home or condominium. I qualify for only one of those three but I'll leave it up to the reader to guess which one. I still really would like to try it, so if anyone wants to take a 3-day Whistler vacation with me this spring and sit through a cheezy 90 minute sales pitch -- please let me know.

The internet is full of online personality tests from the traditional Meyers Briggs [I'm an ENTJ] to the absurd Muppet Personality Quiz [I'm a Gonzo]. I just tried the PersonalDNA test -- although I don't like the name, I thought it was an interesting test. According to the test, I'm an Animated Leader. Sweet... I guess that makes me Optimus Prime.

I have to admit that I feel kind of disquieted about the Black Donnellys being cancelled. I never watched the show, but when I saw the previews and a couple of clips I thought "That looks like a show I would enjoy", but then I thought "I watch too much TV already and I don't need another show to watch" and then I thought "I hope it gets cancelled, because if it becomes a success I'll want to rent the DVDs and go back and watch the first season". So after it was cancelled, I felt kind of guilty about hoping a (seemingly) good show would get the axe, but I also felt glad that I didn't get too invested in a show that was cancelled so soon. I guess I'm just feeling some TV Schadenfreude.

It's been 9 months since I've started to lose my weight, and after my post last month I've been getting a lot of responses from people: "How did you do it?" "What tips do you have for me?" and so on. I have a feeling that the truth will surprise a lot of you so I thought I'd wait another month before I'd explain. All I ask is that you keep your mind open when you read my story (sorry about the length).

First a little background: I've tried all sorts of diets from the popular best-sellers (Atkins, Zone, South Beach...) to the quirky and strange fads (Grapefruit, Raw Food, Popcorn...) and there was no change in my weight -- even when I stuck with them for 6 weeks or more. I tried exercising more, but I found that the more I exercised the hungrier I would get, and I was stuck in a frustrating weight equilibrium.

Then one day last summer I bumped into someone (they want to be anonymous, so let's call them "Pat") in the diet book area at Chapters. It's always a little weird when strangers approach you in a store, but Pat was pretty friendly. Pat showed me a picture and I could hardly recognize them: easily over 150 pounds heavier than they were right now. I talked to Pat for a while, and I won't bore you with the details, but Pat convinced me to go to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting with them.

I had always been skeptical of 12-step programs: the whole "Acceptance of a Higher Power" thing seemed to be a little too religious for my tastes, but I was trying to keep an open mind (as you should be too). First of all, at 290 pounds I felt skinny next to some of the people at the OA meeting. Second of all: Man were these people emotional! It wasn't long into the meeting (which wasn't exactly like the AA meetings you see in movies/TV, but also not that different either) before people were becoming teary eyed and breaking down and sharing stories of how they ate two entire boxes of Oreo cookies as a snack. They wanted me to say something, so I just talked for just a bit about how I was skeptical of OA, but that I had tried other diets and nothing was working, so why not try OA?

Afterwards Pat took me to dinner. I was feeling all guilty after the OA meeting, and ordered a chicken caesar salad, but to my surprise, Pat ordered an appetizer, a burger, fries and a milkshake. When I started to question the food order Pat gave me the speech that I will never forget for the rest of my life. I'm obviously paraphrasing, but it went something like this:

I only brought you to the OA meeting so you can see how some "losers" can come so close to understanding, but still miss it completely. They are all focused on feeding their body but none of them are really feeding their souls. They all want Jesus to help them, but you can't just snap your fingers and have Jesus help you like that. You have to truly believe that both Jesus and the Universe are your partners in life and that they have a plan for you. All your life you've been receiving their instructions but you've been either oblivious or ignoring them. Jesus and the Universe have big plans for you and know you're going to need lots of energy, so that's why they've given you a large appetite. However, you haven't been living up to your potential and so you've been stockpiling all this energy without knowing what to do with it. I am going to show you how to harness your spiritual energy and how through prayer and meditation you can make the world a better place and reach your full potential.

I believe the next words out of my mouth were "Cheque Please!". I was afraid Pat was going to try and convince me to join a cult and drink the killer Kool-Aid. But for some reason, and I now realize that it was Jesus talking to me through Pat, the sincerity and power of their words came through -- and an hour later Pat was teaching me how to properly meditate.

If I had to distill what I learned next into a simple lesson it is this: the difference between meditation and prayer. To oversimplify, meditation is when you become partners with the Universe so that you can receive the messages and signals from the Universe. Prayer, on the other hand, is when you become partners with Jesus and direct energy outward through your thoughts. In geeky computer terms that Pat would never approve of, meditation is like "querying" and prayer is like "dispatching". The beauty of this system is that both meditation and prayer require and consume energy. Because I wasn't praying or meditating, I wasn't using the energy properly and I was gaining weight.

After that initial meditation and prayer session I felt so spent that I could barely stand: I felt like I had run a marathon or something, and was I hungry. Pat and I then pigged out on some nachos. Pat and I talked for what seemed like hours. Pat explained to me more of the philosophy and it all just seemed to make so much sense. So much of my life I had spent just ignoring the Universe and not spending time with Jesus. While it is important to meditate for a good hour a day to "query" the Universe, prayer should be done constantly throughout the day and I'm constantly praying for my friends, loved ones and strangers that I encounter. It's almost like being on a spiritual treadmill all day long.

I've been inundated with requests on how I lost the weight, so I thought I'd finally share my system with you. I've only scratched the surface here, but I've already made this entry too long. I have been trying to convince Pat to write a book with me on our experiences, and perhaps some day we will bring our message to the world. I'll answer and post a few of the my most frequently asked questions here, and I'll eventually create a separate FAQ somewhere else on my website:

Frequently Asked Questions:

Are there any books you recommend to read? There is no book out there that gets it all right, but there are some that can start to point you in the right direction: I'd recommend Jesus Diet, Prayer Diet and Tao of Eating.

How should I start? If you are truly serious about starting down this path that I have chosen, I simply recommend contacting me and I will be happy to take you under my wing like Pat has with me. All I ask is that you start with an open mind.

How do you know what to eat? The simple answer is that I eat whatever I feel like, but I listen to the Universe. The Universe will make us crave foods to help us keep our energy balance: when I'm low in calcium I'll crave cheese or a milkshake, and if I'm low in iron I'll just naturally order a steak. If you are tuned to the natural frequencies of the Universe, you'll just naturally crave and eat the right things.

How much do you exercise? I don't physically "work out"... all my exercise is mental exercise: I do about one hour of meditation in the morning, and I'm constantly making small prayers in everything I do throughout the day.

What's your target weight? My ideal weight will be decided by Jesus and the Universe. I'm still constantly losing weight, but eventually I expect to reach an equilibrium.

Do you expect me to believe this? Of course not. This is completely a work of fiction that I have posted on the first of April. Not a single thing I have posted is true. There is no Pat, and I've neither meditated nor prayed. My weight loss has been completely scientific: I am a man of science, not faith and I do not believe in God, the supernatural, or that the Universe has any "plans" for any of us... although like with good fiction, sometimes it can be fun to pretend.