More On Weight Loss...

To expand a little further on yesterday's quick post...

I've always been a heavy guy. I started out as a "husky" kid (G-d, did I ever hate that term!) - always had to shop in that "loser" section of the clothing store, you know the one, where all the butterballs shopped. I could never wear the "in" clothes, partially because we didn't have the money for them but more because they didn't make them in "fat kid" size - apparently it's bad for brand image to have a bunch of lardbutts in your apparel. Go figure.

As I grew up, my weight issues dogged me my entire life. I was chubby in high school, which excluded me from sports (well, that and a complete and utter lack of anything even remotely resembling coordination). I started lifting weights in college, which helped to lose some of the fat and add some muscle, but I was still on the heavy side. After college I took a year off to "find myself" (read: Work a McJob and go out drinking with my buddies every night), which undid all the working out I did in short order.

Graduate school was high stress, which led to stress eating (comfort food). Add to that getting engaged, then married, which I will be the first to admit took some of the pressure off me as far as getting fit. No reason to worry too much about gaining 10 pounds if you're not hitting the dating scene, right? Yeah. Well...

The next step was to move onto {cue ominous music} "real life" - my first real (professional) job. Almost immediately we began building a house and planning a future together. Started thinking about kids. That sort of thing. Changed jobs after a layoff (mondo stress, especially with a shiny new house and shinier mortgage). New job was also straight desk time - no more working in the lab, which meant even less physical activity.

Then my wife got pregnant - MAJOR "sympathy" weight gain. The dads out there are nodding their heads (and possibly staring at their midsections) - basically, you want to be a good husband, right? So when your wife gets the hungry horrors at 2AM and sends you out for late-night take-out, you get yourself a snack or two "so she doesn't have to eat alone"... Or you do things like deliver a super-extra-deluxe chocolate milkshake to her at work (to the extreme envy of her co-workers) and, naturally, have one (or two) for yourself...

Then I quit smoking. More weight gain as I replaced the oral fixation of smoking with whatever yummies I could cram in my gullet. Wanted to make sure I was off the butts before my son was born. A year or so later I was diagnosed with borderline high blood pressure. With a family history of heart disease, my doctor (an extra-cautious type to begin with) put me on Lisinopril to control my blood pressure. This was the start of my journey to present. Going on a daily medication for something that had never been a problem but was clearly exacerbated by my porkitude...

Then another pregnancy. And then...

I came within a hair of 300 pounds. That was my second major wake-up call. I'd always been heavy, but this was getting into the realm of not simple obesity, but morbid obesity. This was serious. I started making some small changes to my diet; I started riding my bike more often and taking the kids for walks more. The weight dropped down about 20 pounds and then stayed put.

And two and a half years ago I made the decision to get serious about losing weight.

It started off as a group exercise - I, my wife, her two sisters, one brother-in-law, and her mom were all going to lose weight together, posting our cumulative weight loss in supportive e-mails. We had friendly competitions to see who could lose the most in a given month, that sort of thing. I started it off as the "Pound-A-Week Club" - my goal was to lose a pound every week.

And in the first four months I lost 10 pounds. Made of fail...

But something happened while I was losing those 10 pounds. I started getting into the diet thing. I had opted for permanent diet modification rather than a crash diet, as I'd been on, and off, diets all my life. I'd go on rice cakes and grapefruits for six to eight weeks, lose 20 pounds; then I'd go off the diet and back to eating like I always had and gained it right back. So this time, I wanted to change the way I approached eating, rather than simply what I was shoveling down my gullet at a given time.

When asked, by a close friend who was looking to emulate my success, what my secret was, I replied, "I'm being militant about what I put in my piehole".

Lost 70 pounds the first year. My (edit: former) sidebar picture was taken in January 2007, when I dropped below 200 pounds for the first time in my adult life and shaved off the goatee that had been hiding my double (and triple) chins for 13 years.

I started exercising at the start of last year, in a push to get off the blood pressure meds and to start toning up my still-flabby body. Apparently, when you lose nearly 100 pounds, the fat is gone, but the skin is still stretched. Yeah, it's as nasty as it sounds. Started doing sit-ups every night to work the mid-section (and yes, I am aware there's a big debate as to the effectiveness of sit-ups. I like my routine, thankyouverymuch). Also started some light freeweights to lose the turkey wattle under my arms...

All this leading up to yesterday's post. I've been at the same weight for over a year. I've been off the blood pressure meds for nearly a year and a half, and at my last doctor's appointment my blood pressure was actually lower than it had been when I was on the lisinopril. I'm starting to think that this might have taken.

But it does mean that I need to remain vigilant about "being militant about what I put in my piehole". If I start backsliding, going to McDonald's for lunch every Friday or stop skipping the "office cake" (it seems like there's at least three or four birthdays every week around here!), I'll quickly fall back to my old ways, and the weight will come back. So I skip going out to lunch more often. I pass on the cake. I'll have the grilled chicken entrée when we go out to eat. It's a whole lot of little things that add up.

And I like where I am now. I like being able to take my shirt off at the beach and not feel like everyone's starting at the walrus that bellied up to the (sand)bar. I like hearing my son talk about daddy "not being fat any more". I like being able to shop for clothes outside of the "Big & Tall" section - interestingly enough, I'm hitting the other end of the clothing line now, where I sometimes can't find anything in my size. Because everything's too big... That is the weirdest feeling in the fucking world for me, to be rifling through a pile of pants and not be able to get a pair because they don't have them small enough. So much better than, oh, the sizes only go up to 42...

The overwhelming concern for me in losing weight, and for pretty much everything else that I do, is to set a good example for my kids. I don't want them to see daddy as a 300 pound couch potato and think that's what they have to look forward to. I wanted to be able to run alongside my son when he learned to ride a two-wheeler, rather than watching him fall (which he didn't, but it's the thought). I wanted my daughter, who shares my body type (we have no idea where my string-bean son comes from, as there is no one on either side of the family that's rail-thin like he is...) to know that genetics do not mean she's doomed to being heavy.

And I don't want to have a heart attack in my early 50s like my dad.

Along the way, I've inspired a few people with my weight loss. My closest friend in the world, my son's godfather and the father of my only godchild, has lost over 60 pounds. Buck over at Tete-a-tete-tete has lost a bunch of weight as well. Ambulance Driver has been on a quest to reduce his carbon footprint, if you catch my meaning. Several people at work have come to me for tips and hints on losing weight, eating more healthy, and exercise. Hell, I've thought about writing a diet book called "How I Did It" to capitalize on this...

Being healthier for my kids makes it all worthwhile. Knowing I'll most likely live longer, and in better shape, to be there for them makes me pass on that piece of chocolate cake. Helping others along the way is why I post it here.

That is all.