Salem man Mike Finnegan surprised acquaintances with his recent, modest weight loss, which has reportedly altered his silhouette from one resembling the late auteur Alfred Hitchcock, to a somewhat less rotund visage reminiscent of acclaimed character actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
“Mike is looking slightly better these days”, proclaimed friend of a friend Karen Grimes. “I hadn’t seen him since a Fourth of July party last year, and he’s definitely lost a few pounds. He’s no longer viscerally repulsive, now he’s just garden-variety unattractive. No, I take that back, he’s actually elevated himself to barely presentable. He might just make some desperately lonely, unattractive woman less unhappy”, Grimes offered.
Finnegan attributed his startling metamorphosis to simple lifestyle alterations. “It’s a total cliché, you know, but all it took was a little diet and exercise”, the somewhat svelte swain explained. “Basically, I increased my level of activity to some from none. I started slowly, doing stuff like going upstairs, and walking (instead of driving) to the mailbox. Now I’m walking around the entire apartment complex twice a week.
“And for me, it was all about portion control”, Finnegan continued. “No more than one deep-fried entrée per day, no exceptions. And, instead of sitting down in front of the TV with my sugar bag and a tablespoon, I found that if I laid out, say 25 individual packets of sugar, and just ate those (the sugar only), I was satisfied.
“And today, after only six months, I’m down to 19 packets per day”, Finnegan added proudly.