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Eat Your Low-Carb Heart Out, Dr. Atkins!

Well, back to the drawing board, I guess. I really thought I was onto something for a while, there.

See, if you recall, I wrote earlier in the week about pulling a muscle in my back. I haven't mentioned it again until now, but I've really been struggling with it ever since.

It's not really the muscle that I pulled, per se. But whatever I hurt is way deep down in there, just south of my left shoulder blade, but way in there among my chesty innards.

(That's 'chesty' as in 'of the chest', of course. I'm not suggesting that my internal organs have their own boobs. That's silly, not to mention just wrong, and a little confusing. Plus, I've gotta believe that all those nipples rubbing up against the inside of my rib cage would be awfully distracting.

All right. Maybe I'm thinking just a little too hard about this. Let's circle back to the point, shall we?)

Anyway, yankin' this muscle (and no, there, chumpchange, I didn't say 'loooooove muscle') was just the intro to this little slice of hell. Sure, it hurt when I... well, when I more or less did anything, really. Like yanking other muscles, for instance. Just for instance. But I could handle that -- it was just a pulled muscle, and it wasn't all that excruciating. That was the first day.

On the second day, though, things got complicated. Throbbing in my chest, burning in my arm, pain in my ass... oh, wait, that was different. That was the guy at work hassling me all goddamned day. And he's always a pain in the ass. I got a muscle he can pull right. Fricking. Here.

But back to me and my pitifulness. I found that with all of these other pains, apparently brought on by other muscles trying to compensate for one suddenly out-of-commission body part, I couldn't do anything. Walking hurt. Sitting hurt. Whistling hurt. But the most excruciating, exquisite pain came from something I usually enjoy quite a bit more -- namely, eating.

I don't know why, exactly. Maybe my esophagus rubs right up against that tender little muscle, or my tooth bones are connected to my back bones in ways that my teeny little brain cannot comprehend. All I know is that forcing food down my gullet resulted in the kind of hurties usually brought on by swallowing snow globes whole and playing bongoes on my chest with a jackhammer.

(Well, from what I remember, anyway. I have to admit that I only did the snowglobe thing a couple of times, and the details are pretty tough to recall. I've really gotta stop drinking eggnog at Christmas parties, you know?)

And to add to the fun, all of those persistent aches and pains masked any intermittent ouchies that I might have felt, like heartburn or hunger pangs. And that's when it hit me -- no telling when you're hungry, searing pain when you eat, constant aching keeping your energy low... why, this is the greatest thing that could happen to anyone! It's all natural, cheap, and nearly marginally safe. With the power of negative reinforcement and just a touch of eye-watering, crippling pain, this could be the best diet plan to come onto the market since... well, ever, probably. It's the best since snow globes, for sure.

And for a couple of days, I think it worked that way, too. I didn't feel like moving, or eating, or doing much of anything at all. And when I did eat -- look out! So I kept meals short, few, and far between. Forget snacking between meals, too -- with all of the groaning and wincing, there was simply no time. I was just starting to look into finding a way to pull other peoples' back muscles, so I could patent the process and make millions off the idea.

Until dinner tonight, that is. See, today, I started to feel a little bit better. I still have a few nagging pains, but I'm improving. I decided to have a regular dinner. So I ate. And I ate, and I ate, and I ate some more. I ate and ate, and finally, it struck me -- in my current condition, I can't feel when I'm full, either. My dreams of being the Mack Daddy Diet King went circling down the toilet, as I realized that I'd just shoveled twelve pounds of food down my gullet because I can't feel the feedback coming from my stomach any more. Bitches. Overstuffed, nauseous, bad-backed bitches.

(Sounds like a Wilson Phillips reunion tour, dunnit? Ooh, snap!)

Anyway, all of that is a really long, drawn-out way of saying that I was in a lot of pain for a couple of days there, but I think I'm finally on the rebound. Now all I've got to worry about is being careful with my back for a couple of more weeks. Well, that, and the six plates of fried rice I just crammed in my mouth. Yeah, that's gonna be a concern soon, too. Um, very soon, as a matter of fact. Oh, man. This might be worse coming out than those damned snowglobes. Somebody get me some Bactine, would you?