If there’s one piece of apparel I’ve never subscribed to, it’s the belt. It always seemed so useless to me, so foolish. Either buy the right sized pants to begin with or don’t bother. And if it’s just for fashion? To say “Hey, I’m a professional-lookin’ guy,”? Ferget it. I’ll earn your respect some other way than how I dress (or don’t dress… as the case may be for some suitemates of mine back at JBU.)

So in my youthful days I used to throw endless jibes at those who wore belts. And moustaches. In fact, I often said if you ever saw me with a moustache or a belt, you should kill me, because it’s an evil Kevin impersonator and the real Kevin is probably locked in a basement somewhere.

Well, I’m here to make an official plea not to be killed.

No, I’m not sporting a fancy handlebar moustache for the world to see (you can still kill me for that, FYI). But I AM wearing a belt these days.

I’ll give you a moment to catch your breath.

Yes, Kevin Mills wears belts now (and T-shirts, I should add). And all for the same reason: I done got skinny. Shed the pounds. (Like a second skin…) “But wait,” you’re saying, “He wasn’t even fat! What did he have to lose? Besides hair….” I can see your point (especially about the hair…), but the fact of the matter is, I lost about 15-20 pounds within the first two weeks of my depression. (I was going to add “Bam! Just like that!” but it was neither “like that” nor with any kind of an exclamatory quip…)

The secret? Stop eating.

Christian Bale said as much when he prepared for his role as a chronic insomniac in the utterly-boring-yet-fascinating movie, The Machinist. The six-foot-something guy lost who knows how many pounds and became absolutely unrecognizable. You’d never guess it was the same guy who played Bruce Wayne in the new Batman Begins, yet it is. And when people asked him how he lost so much weight, he simply shrugged and said he stopped eating.

So when I first fell into the depressive pit, I found my appetite just wasn’t what it used to be. Everything tasted like sawdust (isn’t that in the Bible somewhere?), chalk, styrofoam, etc. I was just sick of eating. So I survived on nibbles and bites, just enough to choke it down and wash it with water. Sometimes the PowerBar would keep me going (still does, to be honest), but you can only handle a few of those before you long for something more… organic. Anyhow, two weeks later I’m putting on my slacks with the 32 inch waist and they fall off me. Boom. Down to my ankles. I kind of stared at ‘em in disbelief. Betrayed by my beloved Plugg slacks. Whodathunkit?

But no, t’was not my pants that had changed, but my gut itself. Actually, my entire body. My face, stomach, hips and butt all melted by a few inches. After swimming for nearly an hour a day for 3 months, I lost the most amount of flab (and muscle, I suppose) when my mind petered out. Only serves to bolster the mind-body arguments you hear people making, I guess. (You know, how the mind affects the body, etc…)

So this is all to say please don’t clean my clock with your glock just yet. I’m still me, I’m just a leaner, cleaner Kevin (inside and out). But again, if you see me with a moustache some day, please dispatch me as soon as possible. (Isn’t there a joke out there? “Friends don’t let friends wear moustaches”?)

Well, there is now…

Kevin