Say baby, how YOU doin'?

Hunting season is about to get cranked up in a big way. The problem is, many of us aren't in the kind of shape serious hunting demands.

So, as a public service, here's my pre-season get-in-shape routine. And I must say, it's working pretty well for me so far...

Wake up one morning. Step on the bathroom scale. Yell at it. Call it a damn dirty liar. Check the batteries in scale. Tell yourself "that can't be right." Step on scale again. Weep.

Look in mirror. Recoil in terror. Accept the fact you're now officially 25 pounds over your formerly athletic high school weight. Mourn. Go eat a pan of brownies to ease the pain.

Wake up next morning. Suck in your gut. Tell your wife you're going on a diet. After she leaves, eat a pan of brownies.

Wake up next morning. Tell your wife "this is the day, it starts now!" After she leaves, eat a pan of brownies. Because you see, it's the last box of brownie mix and you're just "getting rid of them" because you can't just let them go to waste, right? And besides, how can you be expected to start a diet with a bunch of brownies lying around? Geez...

Wake up next morning. Don't bother stepping on scale. In fact, flip it off as you go by. Head straight to kitchen. No more brownies, so grab the kids' Pop-Tarts with one hand. Use other hand to grab a nearby spatula and start beating the hand holding the Pop-Tarts until said Pop-Tarts are released.

Spend the rest of the day munching on cauliflower while staring at the pantry full of delicious, individually-wrapped snack items. Fight back urge to gorge by grabbing your ample mid-section with both hands and doing your best Ned Beatty impersonation.

Go to bed with shooting pangs of hunger in your ample belly, tempered by the distant, haunting chords of "Dueling Banjos" in your head. Tell yourself you've got to get back in shape before bow season opens up or you'll have a heart attack trying to drag out a deer. Fall asleep and dream of sugar. Pure, beautiful, sugar.

Wake up the next morning. Rummage through your man-freezer (the one containing both wild game and other items (stinkbait, pelts, frozen carcasses, etc) your wife won't allow in the "normal" freezer) pull out one of the turkeys from last spring. Skin it, de-bone it and slow-cook it overnight.

Wake up the next morning. Walk into kitchen. Prepare a healthy, low-carb roast turkey wrap with healthy green, leafy vegetables while blankly staring at unhealthy Pop-Tarts and dreaming of unhealthy brownies and unhealthy pecan pie. Tell yourself that being healthy really sucks.

Eat a turkey-based meal for lunch. Eat a turkey-based meal for dinner. Go to bed. Wake up. Eat a turkey-based meal for breakfast. Eat a turkey-based meal for lunch. Eat a turkey-based meal for dinner. Go to bed. Wake up...

Repeat this pattern until you have consumed the flesh of an entire 20 lb. turkey and you've started dreaming in turkey, thinking turkey, speaking turkey, walking turkey, eyeing the hens in the back yard...

Chase hens in backyard, unsuccessfully. Rupture your larynx attempting to gobble. Frighten the neighbors. Come to your senses. Tell yourself the next turkey you consume is going to be deep-fat fried and served with a side of deep-fried Twinkies, deep-fried Snickers bars and pretty much anything else that's carbohydrate-based and can be deep-fried and consumed with beer. Lots of beer.

Wake up the next morning. Step on scale. Discover that your two weeks of strict adherence to the diet has resulted in a net weight loss of almost twelve ounces. Rejoice. Celebrate with a pan of brownies...

See? Piece of cake. Now you're ready for hunting season...