Five pounds is a bag of sugar

Well, five and a half pounds.  That's what has disappeared since We started this.  Bought a scale, and Thursday night is the weigh-in time.  And I am now at 261 lbs.

This gratifies me very deeply, and makes me want to keep going.

The Beginning

July 19, 2012

This is the day I turned 49, and a book which Shauna found confirmed what I have been seeing in the mirror, feeling in my joints, and trying to deny or halfheartedly chip away at for the past two years.  I am too fat.

1. I need a CPAP machine to sleep.  A major contributing factor to snoring and sleep apnea is being overweight.  My doctor says it, the sleep guy confirmed it, and all the literature proves it.  Lose weight, and the snoring and stopping breathing, and the attendant terrible nightmares will stop.
2. My passport/firearms acquisition permit/Brazil visa photos lined up on my whiteboard show a gradual progression over the past two years.  My jowls are saggier, my eyes droopier, my double chin fuller....  Even more disturbing, when I tilt my head to the side, everything moves over and dangles down - I feel my mouth being pulled to the side by the shift in my face.
3. I have man boobs.  I have lost the ability to make farting noises with my hand in my armpit, which I could do in my youth.  Small thing, and childish, but there's so much extra meat in there than I can't get a good grip.  My gut sticks out so far that I look like I should tip forward on my face.  I see myself in dressing room mirrors at the mall, and instinctively dislike the fat guy I see there.
4. When I get up in the morning, I can hardly walk because my feet and ankles are sore.  I look at my ankles at the end of the day, and they're puffy.  I know enough from watching Dad in consultations at the hospital that swollen ankles are not good - they signal heart failure and kidney problems, etc  My hands are starting to look like babies' hands..
5. My family has a history of diabetes.  Every checkup I get at the doctor's office produces a sigh of relief from me when there is no sign of diabetes - yet.  But with every Baby Ruth, Caramilk, Lic's Ice Cream Cone, and White Rabbit chinese candy I put into my mouth without so much as a second thought, that monster comes closer.  In other news, my colonoscopies are clear, or at least, they get the polyps before they grow.  But too many cancers start with the words - "exacerbated by obesity".  Sometimes I wonder if this terrible lack of energy is due to cancer.  That's pretty extreme, especially when I know the truth - it comes from dragging around at least 50 pounds of excess weight, all day, every day.  My low-grade headache is pretty well there all the time - not enough to make me reach for analgesics, but enough for me to know that I just don't feel good anymore.
6. My heart beats way too hard when I walk up stairs.  I feel so good after I walk for exercise, but I cannot muster the motivation anymore.  It seems too much like work.
7. My testosterone is down.  I know it, because I don't feel like I am 16 anymore - a feeling which lasted well into my forties, believe it or not.  I don't like this at all.
8. My clothes are now tentlike.  My XXL shirts don't fit - the manboobs are stubbornly pronounced in my polo shirts, and hang down over my pendulous gut.  My 38 pants have at last given up and I am in a 40 now, and everything looks like it's either squeezed into a sausage casing or draped like a tarp over a VW beetle, no matter how well tailored.
9. I love, love, love good food.  But I will eat anything if good food isn't around.  And even when it is around, I resolutely convince myself that eating a lot of it is OK.
10. I harbor the secret resentment against anyone, even my inner voice, telling me that I will miss out if I start to control the way I eat, for the express purpose of getting thin and healthy again.
11. Making food for my family is a joy of my life, but some days it is just too easy to load up on the easy carbs - because they taste good.  And the tasty sauces - same reason.  And the fat - oh, man, the fat - it makes everything taste good....

Is there possibly any list of reasons more compelling than this one, for me to decide enough is enough, and become the man I used to be?

I have this milestone.  Today, I start my 50th year on the planet.  By the time I finish it, and celebrate my 50th birthday on July 19, 2013, I will lose 50 pounds.

There - there it is in writing.  I will do what it takes, starting today.  I will chronicle my progress here, and whenever I am tempted, I will look at that list above.  I will die whenever I die - that's not what scares me.  What scares me is how I am crumbling away before whatever day that is - tired, sick, tired, tired, tired, sick, and tired.  And eating because I hope it will make me feel better.

I do not know what my starting weight is.  I will find out today, when I find a scale to step on.  And I will buy a scale, so that I can keep weighing myself.  Look for that update HERE.

I will also post a picture of me today, front and side views, to remind me where I came from one year from today.  HERE it is:



50 pounds by 50 years old.  Here I go.