I have made the decision to acquire a beer gut.

This decision was not come by lightly. I am supposed to be doing P90X this season, but with starting a new business, selling all my worldly possessions, and preparing for a move across the continent, devoting an hour or two every day to my fitness hasn’t been working out.

Plus, there’s my ankle.

Twelve weeks, and it’s still not completely healed. I can do most things, but I can’t hit full stride in a run, which means no parkour.

Soon, I will be living in Costa Rica, doing yoga all the time in the sunshine.

Right now, I live in Portland, one of the microbrewery meccas of the world.

I plan on indulging in my love of beer for the next 48 days, six pack be damned!

When I came to this decision, I noticed something peculiar. Potentially minor, or major.

I stopped holding tension in my abdomen.

This ever-present tension, holding in my gut all the time, could be a factor in preventing me from allowing easy success into my life; because, let’s face it. A lot of financially successful men have big, round beer bellies, and they don’t hold a tense constriction in their center whenever they go out into public.

Even the Hindu god Ganesha, the patron of new beginnings and successful ventures, has the East Indian mark of beauty and abundance: a huge, round, beautiful belly.

Every time my wife has been pregnant before, I put on a few sympathy pounds, to cheer her on. (The big meals and strange concoctions help plenty, too.) It feels biologically comfortable to accumulate a big layer of fat for the hibernation period thats coming up, when we will be up all hours with a newborn.

It is strangely freeing, to decide to let yourself go. I have spent so long combating against my inclinations and my vices, striving to find a balance between intoxication and sobriety. Now I want to lavishly indulge my favorite Portland vices while I still can.

If you see me on the street, and I look a little rotund, feel free to cheer me on. I won’t have this belly forever, so I want to really experience a big one while the time is right.