Diello wrote:
Eat less.
Eat better.
Exercise.
I started gaining weight as soon as I stopped playing high school sports. It was a weird journey... every 5 years or so, I'd gain 10 pounds. It wasn't gradual though, I'd gain that 10 pounds over the course of a month or so, after maintaining my previous weight for years. The weight gain process was the same way every time: for a couple of weeks it would seem that no matter how little I ate, I'd feel super bloated and uncomfortable. I'd notice I was gaining weight and try to diet a bit, but it was impossible to hold off the inevitable. Very frustrating. I'd see the numbers on the scale and tell myself "okay man, 200 lbs is ridiculous... don't let it get any worse than that." Then 210 came, 220, 230... at my heaviest I weighed in at 252 lbs! I'm 5' 7"... that is too goddam heavy for anyone, much less someone of my stature. It was uncomfortable. My feet hurt. My back hurt. I had difficulty breathing when I would lay in bed, and then I looked like a turtle on its back when I tried to get up every morning. Getting out of a camping chair became difficult. I couldn't bend over and tie my shoes. I'd have to sit and cross my legs to clip my toenails. Hell, just getting my pants on was proving to be challenging.
At my athletic peak in high school I weighed 150-155 lbs. My sports were cross country, tennis and basketball. Since I was too small to play football, I never focused on getting swole. I worked out in the gym, but concentrated on toning rather than on bulking up. I could eat whatever I wanted and never gain an ounce. When I hear the phrase "high school skinny", that version of me is what I see in my head.
So going from that to +~ 100 lbs. I was pretty much classified as "morbidly obese". Every day I looked in the mirror and wonder how the hell I let myself go this far. Photos of me were of this fat-headed fat-ass that I didn't recognize.
Sometime around May something in my head finally clicked that I've been a fat-ass long enough. I went to my doc for my bi-annual checkup. He noticed I had gained more weight (though I was a bit under from my heaviest) and yelled at me (again). My blood pressure had been steadily rising to the hyper-tension range for a few years. He's been wanted to put me on HBP medicine for a while, and since I was turning 50 this year, he ordered me to go to a cardiologist and get a stress test.
Now, I didn't have an epiphany or anything like when I quite smoking. I didn't put the fork down after eating a big hunk of cake and say "no more!". There wasn't a day that I woke up and told myself, "Okay, today is the day you stop this nonsense." But for a while now I have been trying to convince myself that being so fucking fat is not a viable condition for the long term. How common are 60 year old fat-asses? 70 year old? The old heart just can't take all of that. Eventually it will succumb to the pressure (literally). I think the combination of the years I've been yelling at myself in the mirror, plus hitting the big 5-0 finally sank in and convinced me that fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.
So I started eating better and eating less. I'm not on any specific diet. Diets by nature are temporary. I've changed the way I eat. I've cut most of the carbs but I'm not following Atkins or Keto. I eat a healthy portion of food and don't go back for seconds (which was traditionally BIGGER than the first plate). I don't go out to lunch every day now, I stay in and eat a salad or a bowl of fruit. I don't eat a half a bag of spicy doritos or a large tub of popcorn when I'm watching tv. I've cut out the 10:30pm bowl of cereal. No more BoBs from Whataburger. No more sodas (or cut way back). I'm not religous about it, though. Once a month we have cake day at the office and I absolutely partake. If someone brings donuts I'll have one (I just won't have 3 like I used to). Several people around my office keep candy dishes and I'm not shy about eating it. I've really put the focus on how much I'm eating, not so much WHAT I'm eating.
So today I got on the scale and for the 4th day in a row it read 220. That's more than 30 flippin pounds from my heaviest. What's cool is now I don't have to step off the scale to read it. Moving around is a helluva lot easier now. So are all the things I mentioned above. I'm able to wear shirts that I haven't put on in a couple of years. I can see and feel how much thinner I am now and it's a good feeling.
I'm gonna keep going down this road and see where it takes me. I have personal weight goals set at 5 lbs every 2 months. I wanted to be at 220 by Halloween, so there's that. I guess I'll change my 215 goal to 11/30 instead of New Year's. My ultimate goal is to be able to run again. Between the smoking for 25 years and the weight I just can't run for more than a minute at a time. The smoking was too hard on the lungs, and the weight is too hard on my ankles and shins. I think if I can get down to 200 then maybe my body can take it. Maybe VBF will let me join him on one of his runs if I can keep up. For now I try to walk a few miles everyday, spread out over breaks and my lunch.
My weight goal? I think everyone ultimately wants to be "high school skinny". Getting down to 155 would be an accomplishment, but who knows if that's even possible as a working adult. I think 160-165 is doable, though. And it may take a year or 2, but that's what I intend to get to.
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Now back to the gym.. 
