Cake loses in showdown

For those of you keeping score at home, I've now lost weight 23 consecutive weeks in a row.

If later this morning you hear a loud cheer (by me) and an even louder plea (by my official weigher) to loosen up on the bear hug grip, you'll know I've hit 24.

An outburst of weeping and wailing (from me and the scale) will signify an end to my streak of being a loser. But considering how I came out victorious in a recent Jody vs. Big Piece of Costco Chocolate Cake showdown, that scale had better be merciful.

My wife was to blame for this epic face-off. She went to a baby shower for a neighbor and brought home a massive chunk of a tantalizing, gooey, scrumptious-looking, cocoa-cream concoction loaded with more calories than I've eaten this year.

I'm thinking this was one of those silly shower games women play, with the object being to keep your husband's belly bigger than yours during pregnancy. (Not that my wife needs to worry about that ... yet!) I'm also thinking Costco's head pastry chef is named Beelzebub.

So for a few days this piece of devilish dessert sat on our kitchen counter tempting and taunting me. I was nearly seduced a few times to take one tiny bite, but I resisted and taught this mouth-watering morsel a serious lesson: No food can tempt me!

(Except for the second servings of pasta and bread at a family party earlier in the month. And the ice cream last week. And the Dutch Oven peach cobbler on Sunday. OK ... nobody's perfect.)

But the point is: I resisted devouring my favorite food, and I worked all of those other indulgences into my nutritional program.

Non-scale victories such as this have helped me drop 50 pounds since April 23 and 76 pounds since Jan. 1.

I've had a few other NSVs — non-scale victories to cool dieters — since this weight-loss streak began. For instance:

• I'm no longer classified as "Morbidly Obese." My body mass index — which once was as high as 56.4 — has dipped to 38.3, which is below the morbid of 40. That puts me in the much-nicer-sounding "Class II Obesity" range and a step closer to reaching the much-desired "Formerly Obese" category.

• I've gone from being able to do zero-zilch-nada push-ups in May to being able to drop and give you 18 military-style ones, Sir, yes, Sir!