Week 74: down 0 pounds (-62 pounds total!)

Hey kids, top o’ the morning to ya!  How was everyone’s Halloween?  More treats than tricks, I hope.  And holy extra hour of sleep - can we do it again this weekend?!

A quick check-in before we proceed to our Hotter purpose.  Many of you have expressed concern over last week’s outburst.  My mother was so moved as to offer me a Match.com subscription for Christmas.  Whaa?!  (I was really looking forward to what has become my annual present as of late - a Target gift card.  I loves me some Target, kids!  There’s nothing better than walking out of a store with an iPod, a throw pillow, two Yoplait Light n’ Fits, a hot pink satin trench coat and some toilet paper…you gotta love it!)  Fear not, HMD’ers.  Last week was indeed a bad showing for Her Hotness, but I was wrong, wrong, WRONG to state that Hot Manspiration was failing me!  I could flog myself for spewing such idiocy!  The issues I am dealing with right now are entirely of my own doing.  And let me state for the record - I may be down, but I am most definitely NOT out.  I’m in a bit of a rough patch, but this too shall pass.  Talent, Ambition and I will prevail!  We will.  I’m too smart and they’re too deserving.  They’re too deserving!! 

Let’s take a look at today’s Manificence.  Quality, all of them, superior quality.  Talented up the ying yang.  Successful as all get out.  Hot as a mo fo, yo.  And they’re working it, kids, these boys are working their tails off, striving, thriving, improving, working it!  How dare I accuse them of Manspiration-lessness?!  Flog me, peeps!  I deserve it. 

Flog me, Josh Lucas, you tall ass drink of yummy, blue eyed water.  Flog me with the Southern charm you displayed in Sweet Home Alabama (though the movie itself was a bit of a disaster, save for the Hottie Hotness of Lucas and the BRILLIANT supporting performance of my good friend Michael Snow, who I am sure does indeed want to flog me right now for mentioning him in this context.  Whatever.  Michael Snow also happens to be mothertrucking HOT, mmkay!)  Aaaah, Josh Lucas.  Those eyes.  Those arms.  That rascally smile.  You’re here at the request of K. from LA.  So I guess that means you have to flog both of us.  Lucky you.

Rufus Sewell, you ridonkulously Hot Bloke.  How, HOW have I gone this long without mentioning you?  Flog me, I deserve it!  And now you’ve joined Operation Overload Leah With Television Hottie Hotness - between you, Simon Baker and Joshua Jackson I am unable to focus on little else!  They tell me on IMDb that you originated the role of Septimus Hodge in Arcadia.  Well Rufus, I have seen that show twice, once in London and once in Atlanta, and NEITHER time was I treated to your Manificence (or anything even approaching your Manificence).  I shall be writing to both theaters tonight to request my money back.  I mean, the play is fantastic and well written and was well acted (both times), but I had no idea of the Hotness I was being denied!  Cruel, too cruel.  Someone at those theaters needs to be flogged.  By the way, you’re here at the request of E. from Sacramento, my host last weekend and a fellow Brit addict.

This last one is a request BY ME and is dedicated TO ME.  Actually, it is my way of extending an olive branch to Major League Baseball.  I treated baseball horribly this year.  I did not give it the love it deserved, because I could not look past the Keystone Cops-esque performance of my once glorious Yankees to see that 2008 was a helluva good time.  The Tampa Bay Rays took the world by storm.  (Special Note from Her Hotness - look up Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria for a nice spot o’ Manjoyment.)  The Dodgers finally became the contenders they always shoulda been.  Chicago sent two teams to the playoffs, and Boston did NOT make it to the World Series.  Good times!  In the end the Phillies, the team that should be mine according to childhood geography, won it all for the first time since 1980.  And a Hot Man named Cole Hamels would lead them there…

Ah, Cole Hamels.  Flog me, I deserve it!  I deserve it for letting a season of the only pro sport I follow pass me by like so much tumbleweed.  While I was off not watching baseball, you were racking up some serious stats.  And in the post-season, man you were just on fire - 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA!  What the?!  No wonder, no wonder indeed that you were named World Series and NLCS MVP!  Cole Hamels, how, HOW could I be mad at baseball when it was overflowing with Manspiration of your ilk?!  Flog me, I deserve it.  And congratulations, you deserve it.  (Extra points for being limber enough to do this…makes a woman think some baaaad thoughts, ya know…) 

Dear baseball - I’m sorry!  Can you ever forgive me?!         

Week 75:  I have no idea!  I’m not home, ya’ll.  I’m helping out a friend by dog-sitting, so I am scale-less.  I did okay this week, perhaps had a bit too much nervous pre-election and elated post-election hooch…in any event, I’ll report in next week, come hell or high water.  I promise! 

HMD’ers, our world has changed.  Our world has changed!  Thank God for that change!  On Tuesday the impossible became possible.  The extraordinary upended itself and became, ever so quickly, something that seemed perfectly (wonderfully!) ordinary.  And, most importantly of all, we did it together, challenging old assumptions and past beliefs that seemed permanently fixed and hoping above all hope that Hope would prevail.  Prevail it did, and whatsoever will come of his actual term(s) in office, whatever President-Elect Barack Obama is able or unable to implement, this much we know is true: Yes.  We.  CAN!

I’ve spoken to ya’ll a gajillion times about change, haven’t I?  Change is the hardest thing in the world sometimes, isn’t it?  It can be terrifying.  It can be agonizing.  For some of us, it is the last thing on earth we’d voluntarily do, yet for so many of us, myself included, it is an absolute must.  Change is an absolute must!  We must change, we must move forward, we must keep trying, we must keep trying, we must keep trying.  And when it gets too hard, when it seems too much, we must remember flagship moments like last Tuesday night, and we must remind ourselves that change is good!

All this is based on the assumption that the change you seek is for the better.  My entire life right now seems to revolve around my quest to change for the better.  And while that oftentimes leaves me feeling a bit adrift and constantly in flux, I know there is no other option.  Not if I want my life’s true happiness.  I have changed a TON over the past year and a half and man, has it been worth it!  But I’m at the point where serious change needs to occur again…I need to buckle down and FOCUS, not only about diet and exercise but about everything: money, my job, my career, my apartment even!  (I’ve been in the middle of a Design on a Dime-esque decoration project for, like, ever!  I have pictures that have been waiting in the wings for months for their close-up, only to be gathering dust on the floor.  So sad!)  I’ve been resisting this change like a stubborn, scared lil’ mo fo…is it possible that I have no more change left in me?  Seriously, stick a fork in me and tell me if I’m done!

Yeah, yeah I know…I’m SO not done.  Rather than be frustrated by that fact, I’m gonna take a cue from our country’s soon-to-be Commander in Hotness and I’m going to EMBRACE CHANGE.  I’m going to open my arms, my eyes, my mind, my heart…I’m going to dig my heels in, roll up my sleeves, get my hands all nice and dirty with WORK…I’m going to do it, I must do it, I WANT to do it, I await with breathless anticipation the results of my doing it…the time for change has come!  The time for change is here!  This is when I change!  Yes I can!  Yes I must!  Yes I will!

I am the Hotness I have been waiting for!!!

Hot Manspiration of the Week:  Duh!  Like I’d pick anyone else!  What could be more Manspiring than being the first African American elected President of our great land?  Ya’ll, I broke down in my polling booth!  I saw his name on that ballot, and my heart did a double take.  Don’t get me wrong - I would have voted for him regardless of his color!  But talk about the whipped cream on top of an already rocking hot fudge sundae!  Hello!  Add on good looks and the fact that the man knows how to wear a suit and BAM!  The highest office in the land is also now the Hottest…God bless America!   

*** Original Trifecta of Hotness Alert ***  Daniel Craig as Bond!  Opening this Friday!  At least one shirtless scene!  Who’s with me?  Manjoyment thy name is Bond, James Bond. 

Hot Man Diet is on Facebook!  Are you?  Join the Hot Man Diet group and bask in the glow of Manificence…we’re, like, the Hottest group out there!

Week 76: up 1 pound (-61.0 pounds total!)

Hello everyone!  So good to see your lovely faces.  Kisses, smooches and hugs to you all…it’s a Monday morning lovefest!  Let’s start this week off right.

HMD’ers, I need to beg a moment of your time for some brutal honesty.  Got your coffee?  Ready?  Here goes.  This stuff that I’m doing, all this “changing my life” and “trying to become healthy” and “attempting to love myself” and “staying away from margaritas”, all this stuff is HARD!  Her Hotness is doing some hard stuff up in this piece!  Look at today’s results.  Seems pretty crappy, right?  Never a good thing to go up, right?  Well, a wise television theme song once said that you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have the facts of life.  Here are the facts of my life as I see ‘em: I’m only human.  (I think.  Freakish flexibility aside, I’m pretty sure I’m not descended from aliens.  I’m, like, 80% totally sure.)  I have strengths (again, freakish flexibility) and I have weaknesses (again, those blasted margaritas!).  Sometimes I will rock your world.  (Karaoke, anyone?)  Sometimes I will not.  (Drunken karaoke, anyone?)  With me you must take the good (60 pounds lost, woo hoo!), you must take the bad (60 pounds lost…like 3 freaking months ago!), you must take them both.  I must take them both.  This journey is an absolute must, for just as the show that spawned that wise theme song once enjoyed the company of one George Clooney, so too shall I!!!  (George, didya read the part about the freakish flexibility?  Didya?!?)

I tell you all this because I have been putting myself through the ringer lately, and I’ve been keeping it from you.  I have fibbed about my weigh-ins once or twice these past few months.  I have been punishing myself with must do’s and should do’s and have to do’s…I’ve become a musterbator.  I don’t want to be a musterbator!  No more musterbating for me!  Musterbation weighs too heavy on one’s soul and sucks the joy out of one’s life.  (Except for the fact that it is totally fun to say musterbation!)

I wanted to come clean in the off chance that a few of you were actually reading this as an inspirational weight loss journal and not just using it as an excuse to see Hot Pics of Gerard Butler.  Speaking of:

You’re welcome.

Anyhoo, now that I have that off my chest, now that Talent and Ambition are unburdened and free, I want to let you know that today is Good Times Monday!  Wooo hooooo!!!  Things have been too heavy lately, and I ain’t heavy, I’m Her Hotness!  I’ve been trying too hard to be perfect for you kids, perfect for the rest of the world, perfect for myself.  But I’ve realized that perfection is for Nadia Comeneci, not me.  I don’t need to be perfect.  I just need to be better.  Make better choices, think better thoughts…this should be fun.  I want this to be fun!  Hard work, yes, but not drudgery.  Not misery.  Not bleh bleh with an extra helping of bleh.  Kids, I am an improv comedian at heart.  I do things best when I approach them with a sense of play.  Play!  Just that word, how much joy, how much fun immediately springs to mind!  THIS is what I want to recapture, this is what I want to bring back, this is what I intend to bring to my workouts, to my writing, to my everyday existence…the sense of adventure, the wide open space that is my future, the thrill of the unknown me that is coming closer, ever closer, to the surface.  The bouyancy and lightness of play, even talking about it here takes the pressure off, and when the pressure comes off the weight comes off, literally AND figuratively.  Let’s have some FUN ya’ll!!  Who’s with me?!  Who’s ready for some good times, good times? 

Another wise television theme song once said that if we’re lucky we got ‘em - good times.  Well hell, luck - I’m you’re lady tonight, cause we do indeed got ‘em - GOOD TIMES, GOOD TIMES!  Now go and have yourselves one kickass good week!  I will!

Hot Manspiration of the Week:  Kids, last week America changed and this week the change train hits Hot Man Diet at full speed.  Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for an historic hit of Hotness.  Gracing these pages for the first time ever - a Hot Womanspiration of the Week!!!  HMD’ers, I now have an idol (besides Nadia Comeneci).  I now have someone that I want to be like when I grow up.  Tina Fey, if I could Single White Female my way into your life I totally would because I think everything you do is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!  Loved you on SNL.  (The show’s first female head writer, you go girl!)  Loved Mean Girls.  (LiLo owes any credibility she has as an actress to you.)  Love, love, love, can’t say love enough times to accurately convey how much I LOVE 30 Rock!!  Your Sarah Palin rocked my world, hell, it rocked everyone’s world!  And I’ve just spent a lovely afternoon enjoying Baby Mama, which was funnier than I expected and which featured the wonderfully Hot and woefully overlooked Greg Kinnear.  Greg, please do forgive me!  We shall meet again on these pages, you and I… 

Week 77: down 2.5 pounds (-63.5 pounds total!)

Hola people!  Did ya’ll follow my orders and have a kickass good week?  I did.  I got some major stuff done.  I finally booked my plane ticket home for Christmas.  Long-lingering task done, check one.  (You New Yorkers in the hizzy should start spreading the news…I’m coming to town for one night only!!!  Clear your calendars and prep your livers.  I’ll send all deets later today via actual email.  I can’t wait!)  I finally took a new round of headshots.  Seriously long-lingering task done, check two.  (They are fabulous!  If anyone in the LA area needs their pic taken I have just the person.  Thanks, Ang!)  And I finally listened to the voices in my head, the positive ones, and lived up to my new fave mantra - I don’t have to be perfect, I just have to be better.  And I was!  2.5 pounds is rocking my world right now.  Just gotta keep going…

So it is Thanksgiving week, kids.  Happy Thanksgiving!  I thought it only fitting to begin the holiday season with an attitude of gratitude.  Rather than worry or fret over the start of Season’s Eatings, I’m gonna take this time to reflect on all things Manspiring.  In Manticipation of the days and weeks ahead I bring you a veritable cornucopia of Manjoyment, a smorgasbord of Manificence…I did it last year in two parts.  This year I’m bringing it all in one shining package of Hotness.  The one catch?  She ain’t ready yet, kids.  I need more time to assemble such an epic work of effing brilliance.  So how’s about we do this - you guys head to work and have a fantastic day.  I’ll do the same.  We’ll meet back here this evening (or tomorrow morning for you East Coasters).  The good times, good times will then flow like so much holiday bubbly….see ya’ll later!    

I’m back!  Let’s get this party started.

The Second Annual Hot Man Diet Official List of Things We Are Thankful For:

1)  Baseball

Ah yes, the second olive branch I am extending to Major League Baseball in less than a month…I don’t like fighting with my friends, kids.  I don’t like drama with those I love.  I have a knot in my stomach still lingering from the tension betwixt myself and my fave sport.  I didn’t even - gasp!  - really pay attention to this year’s post-season!  Eeeck!  Baseball, baseball, come back…I hardly knew ye this year.  

Seriously baseball, can we talk?  Let’s get it all out in the open…I have a lot of mixed feelings about you right now.  I feel very hurt and a little vulnerable…do you know what it is like to be a Yankees fan living outside of the New York tri-state area?  It is not easy!  Apparently the rest of the world has “issues” with the fact that we like to “win champoinships” and they harass me to no end when we bump up on a “bit of a losing streak” that is only the natural offshoot of being an “unrivaled sports dynasty of legendary proportions” whose “idiot owners decided to trade the best coach they ever had” because they were “stupid, stupid, STUPID”…whatevs.  Nothing I can’t handle, but frankly I’m over it.  Baseball, enough is enough!  You and I both know that the Yanks are supposed to win the World Series at least every other year!  It is the natural order of things!  What the hell are you trying to screw up by letting the Bosox win not once but (ohmigod it pains me to SAY it!) twice in the past five years?  The Phillies?!!  Are you serious?!  Tampa Bay?!!?  Are you effing kidding me?!!?  COME ON!!  This is getting ridiculous.  Who the hell is it gonna be next year?  The Nationals take the Mariners in 6 games?  The Pirates sweep the Rangers?  Give me a break!  Baseball, fix this now.  NOW.  

Ummm…but I’m totally grateful for you, baseball.  I’m cereal.  You bring me SUCH Hotness!  There’s the Dodger’s Casey Blake, facial hair and all, looking all yummy and like he drinks milk and  knows how to fix shit and loves his mother and has set foot in a church once or twice.  Woo hoo!  And there’s AL Rookie of the Year Evan Longoria looking all sweet faced and innocent and ready to be a big fat star.  And there’s also my dearest Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina…ahh Moose, you’re retiring!  And yet, you shall never retire from the dugout in my heart…no, there you shall remain forever in pinstripes…you threw me a curveball of love and I caught her, oh yes I caught her…dear, dear Moose…I hope we shall meet again.  (ESPN - hire him!)

2)  Accents

If I had a dollar for every man with an accent who made my lady parts go all aquiver I’d be a rich, rich woman.  What is it about accents that sends me to my knees?  (Figuratively speaking, of course…Hi Mom!)  Ya’ll know me…you know I am weak willed and lily livered when it comes to these dashing foreign gents…when the accent is on the accent I am unhinged…I  lose control…all good choices and responsible thoughts go out the window and I just wonder what the accent might sound like in the morning…in my kitchen…making me espresso and those blueberry pancakes I’ve been craving for, like, a MONTH now…that accent reading me headlines from the Sunday edition of the NY Times…in bed…where we intend to spend all day…the accent and I…oh…dear…God…

And so it is that I must include the accent yet again in the list of things for which I am thankful.  And this brings us to today’s Tale of Two Hughs.  The first Hugh was recently crowned by the people at People as the World’s Sexiest Man.  They are correct, of course, though a bit behind in the times.  HMD has been singing this man’s praises since last August, when two astute Hot Man Dieteers requested the hell out of him.  Hugh Jackman is Australia’s finest export, bar none, and we fall at the feet of his exceptionally built person.  That accent AND that body…no fair! 

Our second Hugh is new.  He came into my life a few month’s ago via an incredibly charming turn in so-so movie version of the brilliant book that was/is The Jane Austen Book Club.  He’s Hugh Dancy, and he’s a dee-light!  British and floppy-haired in a third Hugh (Grant) kind of way, this second Hugh is probably also new to you but shant be for long.  He’s too good and the accent is too delicious.  Oh, the accent!

3)  Funny Guys

If a man can make you laugh he can almost make you forget that he doesn’t play baseball or have an accent…almost.  Just kidding!  A sense of humor is a sexy sense indeed…I myself am a sucker for a man who can tickle my funny bone.  I really am.  And I know some HILARIOUS men.  I did comedy improv for years alongside some of the best and brightest, so I know from whence I speak.  How many times have I raved about Jon Stewart?  Stephen Colbert?  Not enough!  I adore a man with a bright mind and a quick wit…a man like Paul Rudd, who is not at all new to HMD…Paul Rudd has kind of evolved into a really deft comedian, hasn’t he kids?  He’s all dreamy and sweet faced at first glance, but underneath lurks the sharp tongue and killer delivery that can keep a man on pace with the likes of Steve Carrell…very impressive, very Hot!  And then there’s Vince Vaughn…all seven feet of him…who has carved out a serious niche for himself as the go-to guy for obnoxious yet loveable and overbearing yet sensitive…this in spite of Fred Claus…seriously, Vince - Fred Claus?  I forgive you, don’t worry…I forgive anyone who is in Old School, one of my ABSOLUTE faves…Max, can you earmuff it for me?  MEN WHO MAKE ME LAUGH ARE EFFING HOT!  Okay, you can stop the earmuffs.

4)  After Photos

Kids, I’ve been doing Hot Man Diet for almost 18 months now.  During that time I have never, ever posted a pic of myself.  Why come?  I dunno.  Pride.  Privacy.  Pressure.  But the time has come, has it not?  The time has come for me to shed my anonymity.  This is MY site, this is MY baby, and this is MY first ”After” shot!  How’dya like it?  I wore those jeans when I began this endeavor…in fact, I recall them being a smidge snug.  Damn!  I can almost fit another person in there…terrifying, yet true.  That was me.  But this is me now!  Do you see my guns?!  Woo hoo!  And if you think I look Hot now, just you wait…I’ve still got a ways to go on this journey…don’t you want to see how it all ends?  (I do, I do!)

*** My Hot Man Diet t-shirt and other HMD merchandise is available for purchase.  Visit the Hot Man Diet store to get yours now!  All proceeds go to a worthy cause - ME! ***