It's been a long time coming. This year has been full of more pondering than any other so far in my life. Some would say, due to my age, that it's a quarter-life crisis. They could be right. But quite frankly, I don't care what the label is. There is one thing that has plagued me my entire life (at least as long as I can remember) and that is my weight.
No matter how you try to sugar-coat it, I'm fat. By today's standards, I'm obese. I'm a statistic that is being talked about more and more in the US and I'd imagine the same is true for most of the world. The American Obesity Association states that currently in the US alone, approximately 127 million adults are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese. The AOA provides a nice Obesity Fact Sheet along with a BMI calculator to help you figure out where exactly you fall.
So it's a matter of what has brought me here. As I said, I have been overweight for as long as I can remember. As much as people would like to say "For the love of God, just put the candy bar down!!" I don't even like candy! I truly don't feel I eat that much more than the average sized person. Granted, I don't keep a healthy lifestyle, the point is I'm not a pig. I've got fat friends and I've got skinny friends, and to be honest, my eating habits are closer to that of my thinner friends. I equate most of my weight problem to a few issues: I am lazy, not active and not watching what I eat. Combine that with a slower than most metabolism and you have a 60-70 lb weight problem. A BMI of 34. Obesity.
I never bothered trying to take the weight off until a little bit after high-school. At that time, I was fortunate enough to get to experience an average sized body for about 2 years. I lost 62 lbs. in just under 4 months by exercising 4 times a week and eating extremely healthy. I was drinking a gallon of water a day. To this day I firmly believe I took a healthy approach to the weight loss. I felt better than ever before regardless of how fast the weight came off. I wasn't starving myself by any means. But there is truth in the fact that the weight came off fast and I feel that the new habits I created were not strong enough by the time new life experiences came about. It was easier to go back to the 'easier' way of doing things. 2 years later, most of the weight was back and I was purchasing big clothes again.
Since then it's been a roller-coaster ride. I'm 220 lbs. as I write this. When I lost all the weight I was 158 lbs. Over the course of the last 6 years I've bounced time and time again, anywhere from 190 to 240 lbs. 240 lbs was my absolute worst. I had never weighed that much before and when I realized I was wearing size 40" waist jeans I immediately worked to get that back down to 220. It seems that 220 has been the magic number. I have no problem keeping that weight. But I'm still fat. Fat enough that I'm 5'8" and wearing size 38" jeans.
So I'm on a mission to obliterate this weight once and for all. I would like to try multiple methods including a lot of what I used originally so that over the course of 1 year, I will be somewhere in the range of 150 to 160 lbs. That means I need to lose 60 to 70 lbs. Now I know what some of you are saying, the number doesn't matter - but I've done this before, I know where my weight SHOULD be and I know that the numbers are what helps the motivation. My goal is in site, and that is step one.
I've decided to catalog the process. The way I see it, what better way to motivate yourself than to be able to see it happening from day one? Especially if other people are reading it and (hopefully) being motivated as well. When I lost the weight in 1998 I wished time and time again, and I still do, that I had kept a journal of it, how I felt, what was going through my mind, what I changed in the process and why I changed it, weekly pictures documenting the physical aspect and changes as well as what I found helped and what didn't help. Everyday at that time was a learning process, but how easily it can be forgotten. I'd like to rekindle the motivation and determination as well as take advantage of the opportunities of doing it a second time - taking care of what I didn't take care of the first time.
Tomorrow marks day one. August 1st, 2006 marks the grand finale. 369 days cataloging every facet of a life-change that comes up. What happens from now until then will be historical!
Comments