The Skinny Kingdom Denied

When it comes to convincing your healthcare plan to cover GLP-1 drugs like Mounjaro or Ozempic, prepare to enter the bureaucratic Twilight Zone. You might think being thirty or forty pounds overweight with blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides inching toward DEFCON 2 would qualify you for a pharmaceutical lifeline. But no—your semi-morbid condition isn’t morbid enough. You’re not quite in the “Skinny Kingdom” yet. You’re stuck in the purgatory of “almost sick,” where the medical advice is to do what 80% of people can’t manage long-term: lose weight the old-fashioned way. Cue the eye-roll and the salad.

This is where I live—too metabolically misaligned for comfort, but too “not dying fast enough” for insurance. So without the aid of GLP-1 wonder-drugs, I’ve been forced to build my own survival kit. Enter: the diet blog. Yes, that hackneyed relic of the internet. One evolutionary rung above the YouTube weight-loss vlog, and about one click away from a Pinterest board full of quinoa regret. But here’s my defense: writing this thing keeps me sane. First, let’s acknowledge the stakes. I’m attempting to succeed at something with an 80% failure rate. If journaling helps me thread the needle between health and hoagies, I deserve at least a participation trophy. Second, maybe—just maybe—my hard-earned insights might help someone else. Third, I need a breadcrumb trail for myself. Because when the binge fog clears, I need a record of how I got out of the woods.

But let’s get this straight: if I’m going to write a diet blog, it comes with rules.
Rule #1: No hawking miracle powders or gut-cleansing teas. This isn’t a supplement commercial. It’s a field report from the front lines of temptation.
Rule #2: No ab selfies. No one asked, and no one wants to see the cinematic arc of my belly fat.
Rule #3: No sanctimonious “one-size-fits-all” advice. What works for me may not work for you. I’m here to offer humility, not doctrine.
Rule #4: Keep it funny. We live in a world where 2,000-calorie muffins are marketed as breakfast. If you can’t laugh at that, you’re doomed.
Rule #5: No performative pity. Yes, self-discipline is hard. But I’m not marching across Antarctica—I’m just saying no to a Costco cheesecake. Keep perspective.

If there’s a unifying thesis to this blog, it’s this: self-indulgence is a false god. The man who eats without limits is not happier—he’s just momentarily sedated. True satisfaction comes from self-possession, not pastry. This isn’t about vanity or some fantasy of being a low-body-fat Spartan. It’s about dignity. The mature eater is the happier eater. And if I have to claw my way there without the help of Ozempic, so be it. I’ll blog my way through the absurdity. One disciplined bite at a time.