My posting has kind of hit a lull lately which pretty much directly corresponds to being more lax in my eating habits as well. Somehow we ended up hosting house guests for 3 out of the 4 weeks this month, so in many cases my diet has been pretty much shot due to ordering pizzas, lasagna dinners, snack foods at parties, etc. Still, I have been losing and/or maintaining my weight, albeit slowly.

Saturday is the 15th and my deadline to hit 236 and beat my weight loss record from 3 years ago. From the looks of things currently, it's going to be close. I have been fluctuating a lot between 237-239. I would hope that if I ended up eating really well tomorrow, I might be able to pull it off, but I ate badly tonight (party with my brother in town). I would have liked to really crush my old record, but I'll be happy with just matching it considering that happened very quickly and was probably the "water weight" type loss considering how fast I put it back on.

I'm fitting well into my smaller pants, and I have even noticed that my wedding ring is loose when I am washing my hands. I know I am losing a lot of weight, but I didn't know that even my fingers were fat!

I had my first experience with some low-carb haters today. After posting a positive comment on Facebook about how much weight I am losing on low-carb, somebody replied with "Why should I do this if there is a risk of Kidney failure, High cholesterol, osteoporosis/ kidney stone or even cancer?" and posted this link: http://www.webmd.com/diet/high-protein-low-carbohydrate-diets

 Not only is this article just plain dumb and cites no sources or any evidence, it's actually not even about LCHF diets in the first place. It specifically references high-protein diets like Atkins, and all of the "risks" seem to be related to eating an excess of protein and not much else. A LCHF diet doesn't actually suggest replacing carb energy with protein, but with fats instead. Also a low carb diet is supposed to be close to 50% green vegetables. Linking it in response to a positive post about a low-carb diet basically shows the general ignorance and tendency to regurgitate rhetoric in response to anything that doesn't fit with the common popular opinion.

 It was kind of strange at first because I haven't actually heard anyone say anything but positive things about the LCHF diet. A couple other people joined the comment chain as well who were pro-low-fat. The discussion rambled on for a while and basically nobody ended up feeling any differently about their positions. Some people really firmly believe in calories-in, calories-out.

 Based on the success I have had (almost 30 pounds lost already) and the fact that I haven't exercised at all and eat as much as I want, I would say that I am pretty well convinced that the general ideas behind LCHF are true. It's just hard to convince people of that when everybody else in pop culture is telling them otherwise.

My pants don't fit! It has been happening gradually, but it's especially noticeable lately. I wear - well, I have worn - size 42 pants. Last summer I bought some size 40 shorts, and was never able to wear them because they were too small. Over the weekend, I was finally able to put them on, and it felt like kind of a big deal.

I know I have been losing weight because that's what the scale says, but it's hard to notice such gradual changes. However, the fact that I can fit into size 40 pants now is a pretty discrete milestone and I always enjoy hitting those. My "work pants" are starting to get too loose to keep wearing for much longer which is bittersweet. On the one hand, I'm excited to start wearing smaller sizes, but on the other, I can't really afford to be buying new outfits every other month.

I have been doing pretty bad in terms of carbs the last couple days - my brother and his girlfriend were in town and we spent a lot of time going out and eating badly. Still, I seem to be at least maintaining my weight or still going down slowly. It has been up and down a lot, but still more down and as long as it keeps going that way I should be on track.

Grace and I made "Oopsie Bread" tonight, which is a no-carb "bread" made out of eggs and cream cheese. It turned out well, although Grace was a little too freaked out to eat much. I could definitely see it becoming a good base for a burger or BLT.

It was pretty labor-intensive to make, but fairly straightforward. Whip the whites until they have clean "peaks" and fold it into the yolk/cream cheese mixture. Honestly separating the eggs was probably the hardest part. The end-result is a pretty tasty, nearly bread-like muffin that is similar in shape to a flat hamburger bun. It definitely gives me an option to snack on that isn't just meat or cheese.

I'm back at 244 now, so the race to lose 7 pounds before June 15 is on. I'm not too worried about my chances because I have been still losing 2 or more pounds per week. In 5 weeks I should have no trouble losing somewhere between 7-10 as long as I don't cheat.

I did cheat and have a donut yesterday. I said in the beginning that my one "hall pass" was going to be donuts. If somebody brought in donuts to the office in the morning, I would allow myself to indulge. I want to lose weight, but I don't want to be miserable after all. Still, even at almost 50 carbs for just one donut, I was able to keep the rest of my meals low enough to end up with a total of around 80 carbs for the day. Not bad for a "cheat" day.

I did resist a cookie cake somebody brought to the office today. No easy feat, but I find that I don't really have much trouble resisting bad food anymore.

245 today. I know it's annoying to constantly post my weight but I'm just excited because I'm reaching an important milestone here. Almost EXACTLY 3 years ago I weighed in at the start of our office Biggest Loser contest at 244. I have the spreadsheet open and this was recorded on 5/7/2010. How could would it be if on 5/7 this year, I could be down to the same weight I was 3 years ago? For somebody who has pretty much only ever gained weight his whole life, I think that would be pretty cool.

Another interesting fact I learned from looking up the old spreadsheet: I did actually lose "some" weight over the course of the competition (I was wrong in my original post saying I actually gained), down to 237 on 6/15/2010. This gives me a pretty clear-cut new goal: lose MORE than 7 pounds in the same amount of time. At my current rate, I really have no doubts that I could blow my old weight loss record out of the water, but who knows. My weight loss is slowing a bit and I could definitely plateau hard enough to not hit that goal.

In other exciting news, my wife Grace has started doing low carb with me too. Her work schedule makes it a little difficult at times, but yesterday she did hit the goal of less than 100 carbs for the day. I think she is encouraged by my progress and seeing how it's not actually that difficult overall, and I am definitely happy to have the love of my life and best friend collaborating on this with me.

Is it old fashioned to fill out post titles?

Down to 246 today. My weight loss seems to have gotten kind of "rocky." I will hover around the same number for a couple days, just to have a drop of a pound or two suddenly on another. Maybe it's just my crappy bathroom scale. Either way, things are still going down and I'm really not having trouble maintaining so all is good.

I spoke with my friend Rob, who has been doing low carb over a year, about plateaus and he said that getting stuck for a couple days or even weeks is not super uncommon, especially as you start to get closer to your target weight. I definitely didn't expect to keep up my "water weight" loss pace, but going from 200-400 carbs a day to 50-100, I figured I would be losing pretty consistently. Better temper my expectations I suppose.

Still, I'm at 20 pounds lost already and it's only been 2 months. Hitting 30 in 30 shouldn't be a problem at all.

Another Plateau

I hit another plateau *right* at 250, which was frustrating because I was actually really excited to break it. Milestones are fun and encouraging and I don't mind embracing them even if they are a little arbitrary. However, as you can see from the updated graph. I seemed stuck for a number of days before it finally dropped today down to 248 and some change. I am excited to be past 250, but I had a bad carb day today (wedding with a few too many allowances for beer, cake, etc), and I'm afraid I'm going to be back up over it when the dust settles. Still, it's all about the long-term progress, so a slip up here and there isn't a big deal as long as things keep going down overall.

I spoke with my sister-in-law at the wedding about it some today, who said she could tell I lost weight. She lost a bunch of weight a while back too and she said she did it using low carb too (actually using Atkins, but I'm not a big fan of Atkins). Still, it's always good to hear other success stories to help convince myself that I'm not crazy for doing this.

I'm closing in on a total of 20 pounds lost over the last month and a half, nearly two thirds of my goal done already. It's possible I may be hitting my goal of 30 pounds in just the first couple months. Then when am I going to call this blog??

The Holy Grail

Okay this post is going to be long, but I want to explain my motivating for trying this low carb diet. It wasn't just flavor of the week or randomly chosen; it is based on the real successes of some friends of mine, and it's something I have been watching and biding my time to try for myself for quite a while now.

The scale this morning wasn't any lower, which was a little disappointing actually. I had been so used to seeing lower numbers that I was ready to break below 250. All in good time I suppose. It's ok too because I have another reason to be excited; it seems that other people in my office are getting excited about my sudden and relatively effortless weight loss. It's not difficult to see why.

If there's one thing you learn very quickly as a software developer, it's the fact that sitting still for 8+ hours every day and eating whatever garbage is within arms reach will make you fat very quickly. Almost every programmer I have worked with has come to the same realization at some point, which is often followed by half-hearted attempts to lose weight/exercise/eat better/be more active. Most efforts are only marginally successful at best, leading us to either give up, or for the more motivated among us, to establish some kind of long term work-out routine.

Exercise was never enjoyable to me. Okay that is being generous... I HATE working out. Hate hate hate. Probably the most fun I ever had exercising is when our office established a small daily racquetball league. Playing was fun, but even at its most enjoyable, it still required losing an hour or more of sleep, driving to the gym before work, packing an extra set of clothes, etc. After a while even the fun exercising became a chore, players would start showing up late or skipping completely (I was probably the worst about this), and then when our gym with the courts closed, we stopped the work-out group altogether. Non-fun workouts like weights and treadmill had an even lower success/consistency rate.

My group of co-workers were always trying some scheme to get us all motivated to work out. Even at our most valiant of efforts, which required 30 minutes of workout 7-days a week, we still seemed to only maintain our weight. Sure we became "healthier" overall, capable of ever more impressive physical feats, but none of us ever seemed to lose more than 5 or 10 pounds before we all gave up and gained it all back with interest. Somehow, exercise was never the weight loss answer for anybody not willing to make it their lifestyle.

So it stands to reason that when one of our coworkers suddenly starts losing 10, 20, 30 pounds (over the course of some months), we take notice. I can't think of anybody who lost anywhere near 30 pounds with a traditional "eat less" diet or a couple hours at the gym per week. When somebody can achieve long-term, non-temporary weight loss without completely giving up eating or sacrificing all free time in the gym, we see it as some kind of holy grail.

Then, out of the blue, my friend Rob seemingly found that holy grail.

He works at a major healthcare software developer, and one day they brought some nutritional expert doctors in for a talk. They were preaching the word of the Low Carb High Fat diet. He was suspicious but he decided to look into it further. He watch the movie "Fathead." He read some books like "Good Carbs Bad Carbs." Rob is an extremely analytic person, doggedly convicted to find absolute truth in all matters whenever possible (occasionally to a fault). After conducting his research and absorbing as much material on the subject that he could, he decided that enough rang true to give this Low Carb High Fat diet a chance.

He had always been a little heavier than me, even though he was a few inches shorter. He also started his desk job about a year earlier than me, but once I was hired our weight followed a similar trajectory; up. He had been part of my workout groups, we had gone through mostly the same struggles with trying to stay in shape, and we both always continued to gain. I don't know if he ever got above 250 pounds, but he was definitely close. Now, after doing low carb for over a year, he told me he fluctuates between 202 and 205. And he achieved this gradual but major drop with no exercise. Another friend of mine, Patrick, tried the same diet and lost 40 pounds over the course of a year the same way.

Whoa, big deal.

Losing 40-50 pounds, keeping it off, and maintaining that weight without exercise and eating a normal (albeit tweaked) diet? That's the holy grail right there. In fact, that's venturing into "too good to be true" territory.

In some sense, I guess it is a little "too good to be true." You still have to sacrifice. Giving up soda altogether is a big deal, and cutting out almost all sweets, dessert, and breads is a pretty tough pill to swallow. That's probably why it took me so long to jump on board. Willpower is one of my weak areas, and those small private battles against the ice cream in the fridge or the brownies at the picnic are very easy to lose. However at a certain point I have to accept some reality: I am either going to have to work out like a maniac, start eating better, or just keep getting fatter until I die.

I chose to listen to my friends and give their method a try. It's backed up by numerous studies, doesn't seem to have negative effects, and even has proven results with some of my personal friends. I was initially skeptical, not so much of the diet's effectiveness but of my ability to stick to it, but so far the results have exceeded my expectations. Also it's been a lot easier to make healthy choices than I expected, which I plan to write more about later.

If I can keep up with this thing long term, I might be the one weighing close to 200 pounds next year. It's possible that this blog goes from losing "30 in 30" to nearly double that, and that's what I'm excited about: real, permanent change.

Encouraged

Monday marks the end of the first month of my experiment with eating low-carb, and while there have been some downsides, they haven't been so bad and so far they have been temporary. The good news is that my weight is still dropping steadily, and I'm down to 250 (give or take a pound or two daily fluctuation). That brings my grand total of weight loss to 15 or 16 pounds, and about 12-13 just since starting low-carb.

I started weighing myself in February, but didn't really start dropping weight until March.

People have started to notice and tell me I look like I have lost weight, although I haven't personally noticed it. Or at least I haven't noticed it visually, probably because I am looking at myself every day. I *feel* like I have lost weight, which is hard thing to know for sure because it's possible that it's just in my head. It sounds strange to say, but I feel like my skin is... more loose somehow. There were times when I was eating everything and gaining weight that my skin would feel "tight." Maybe that is just my imagination, but when you are gaining weight, your skin has to stretch right? As evidenced by my many stretch marks. So it would make sense that when losing weight, your skin would loosen up I guess. Also my clothes are feeling a little loose, but again it could all be my imagination. At some point it has to be reality though, and with 15 pounds down, there's no reason I couldn't be noticing changes already.

So I mentioned the downsides, I should probably go into more detail. Last week I wasn't feeling super positive about the whole thing. I mentioned feeling fatigued, and that feeling actually got a little worse as last week progressed. I started having just a persistent mini-headache behind my eyes, like you get when you go to bed too late and have to wake up too early. I was feeling tired and achy and if those feelings had continued I probably would have given up trying this. I'm not sure if I was just getting used to a lower amount of caffeine than normal, if my blood sugar was adjusting, or if my was body going through ketosis, but it wasn't a great feeling. I was expecting having a hard time in the second week, but I figured by the third week I should have been mostly adjusted so I was caught off guard. Combined with a relative weight plateau at the same time, things weren't looking great for the future of low-carb living.

The good news is this week has been completely different. My energy levels are up, the nagging ache is gone, and my weight loss actually picked up. Overall I feel healthy and thinner than I have in a long time. Perhaps the most encouraging factor is that this diet feels sustainable to me. I don't feel like I am starving myself - I eat until I am full and still sometimes stuff myself. I eat good food that I like, and more of it in some cases (for example: skip the pancakes and go for double bacon). Not eating bread sucks, and skipping out on sodas and desserts in hard but it gets easier over time. I don't really miss soda at all, and I will still occasionally indulge in a sweet snack on special occasions. For example, tonight was a family dinner with out-of-town relatives. I picked low-carb options for dinner, but I joined in when everybody else ate ice cream. For an otherwise low-carb day, a 50-60 carb bowl of ice cream isn't going to do much damage when my daily total is still at or under 100. These kinds of compromises help make this diet more of a lifestyle that I could see myself sticking to for a long time.

A New Low

I've been meaning to post something longer for a while now, but I keep getting sidetracked so quick updated tonight: yesterday the scale hit a new low of 253. I'm excited to see the weight still coming off after the whole "water weight" phase.

Changes

I haven't updated in a while because I have hit that first plateau after losing the "water weight." I won't try to say that it's not discouraging considering I lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks and haven't really lost much since, but I was expecting it. I have heard that once things level out, I should be looking to lose about 2-3 pounds per week.

One major change I have noticed is that I don't "crave" sweet foods anymore. For the first week or two, it was really difficult to turn down sodas at lunch and pastries/snacks throughout the day. Now when I see them, I don't really want them much at all. However, this seems to have carried over into all food. Nothing really appeals to me that much anymore, and I don't really have that "mmmm" feeling when I eat anything. It's really strange... it kind of seems to me how it would be for a smoker to quit smoking after they got over the addiction. They don't feel the "need' for nicotine anymore, but they do miss the relaxation of smoking at the end of long day. That's kind of how I feel about food now... I miss enjoying food as much as I used to. I miss stuffing my face with bread and ice cream until I was stuffed. I miss it, but I am at peace with not doing that anymore. I know full and well that this is why I weigh so much currently.

I'm still having trouble with snacks... I need something easy I can just grab and eat at night to be satisfied. Without it, I find myself doing little "cheats" throughout the day; a glass of juice here (about 30g carbs), a single cookie there (20g carbs or so). Peanut butter and celery works pretty well, but it's hard to keep enough celery for a frequent snack without going to the store every 2 days.

Side Effects

I'm still losing weight... down to 255 today. I am looking forward to breaking the 244 mark because I can remember the last time I weighed less than that. Early May 2010, almost 3 years ago, a couple people in my office organized a "Biggest Loser" competition, and at the initial weigh-in I weighed 244 pounds. If I can get below that, it will be the first time ever that my weight has actually trended downward.

I am starting to notice some changes, but not necessarily all positive. I have been feeling noticeably fatigued the last 2 days, so I looked it up and it turns out to be fairly common when switching from a high-carb diet to a very low-carb one. Apparently there is a transition period in the first couple weeks where the body runs out of glucose and has to start producing more ketones. Supposedly once my blood glucose and ketone levels balance out, I should be back to feeling normal (or better). I'm curious to see if this is true.

It's been...

One week since I started eating low-carb, and the results are pretty encouraging. The scale said 257 today, which is the first time I have seen a number under 260 in a while. Considering I was around 265 when I started, that is some real actual progress.

Being Easter, today was not a good low-carb day. Bread and sweets were everywhere, and unlike the rest of the week, I didn't turn everything down flat. I had (smaller than usual) portions of cake, Easter candy, and some bread with dinner. I figured special occasions are a good time to splurge a little bit, since they will be rare and keep my spirits up. It's not like I was giving in to drinking a soda in a moment of weakness, which would be a slippery slope. Holidays mark discrete events where I can bend the rules a little, while getting right back on track the next day.

It may seem silly to create these arbitrary rules for my diet, but I think in the long run it will help me maintain it. The clearer the rules are, the easier it will be for me to identify times where I break them.

Given the results of this week, and how relatively easy it seems to maintain this diet, I want to keep up with and see what kind of results I can get. So far I am doing absolutely no working out, so adding that to the mix at some point could help even more. For now, I am happy with losing weight just by changing my diet.

3 Days Down

I am 3 days into my new low-carb, no sugar lifestyle and I have to say it's going pretty well so far. It's definitely not as difficult as I thought it would be to give up sodas and between-meal snacks, and it's possible to make a semi-low-carb meal almost anywhere. Case in point, last night I needed a quick meal on the way to an event after work, so I grabbed two Whoppers (buy one get one free) and a salad from Burger King. I put the patties/internals together so I only ate 1 bun total, and ended up with a meal under 60 carbs and less than seven bucks. Obviously not ideal, but much better than the typical nearly-200 carb meals I would have been eating from fast food restaurants a week ago.

Some decisions are a little more painful than others, like walking into the break room this morning with big Cranberry Orange Muffins set out for anybody, and walking out without one. As a result of this decision (which weighed a little more heavily on me than I want to admit), I created a spreadsheet called "Crap I Didn't Eat." The idea is to keep track of all the junk food and soda I would have normally eaten, but decided to skip due to my new eating habits. I put each "pass" in the left column and the total carbs I avoided on the right, and add them all up. The result is pretty encouraging, and helps me get a "reward" instead for making smart choices, because each entry in the spreadsheet is a measurable "victory." The total carbs avoided is pretty eye-opening too. Adding up the total carbs from the donuts, muffins, candy, and soda that I didn't eat (but would have!), I resisted over 600 carbs in 3 days. For a low-carb diet that aims to eat less than or around 100 carbs a day, 600 carbs in 3 days is pretty huge by comparison. And that is mostly carbs that I would have eaten ON TOP OF pasta, bread, fried food, and other high-carb meal options that I have been avoiding as well. I haven't run the numbers on what I actually am eating yet, but I figure it's at least a third of the carbs I would usually eat, and way less than what I would eat on a "bad" day.

So why am I focusing so much on low-carb rather than calories or other diet options? I still haven't really gone into detail on that yet. I know there is a lot of controversy on the subject, but I have some inside sources that have encouraged me to at least give this a shot.

So far the results seem pretty good; I feel fine and other than making some difficult decisions to not eat total crap when it is available, eating this way seems easily sustainable. In addition, it seems a good deal cheaper since I am saving $2 or so on soda at every meal. Also, and perhaps more immediately relevant, is the fact that I seem to have lost about 3 pounds since weighing myself a few days ago. I'm curious to see what my total weight change is after the full week, but things are definitely headed in the right direction.

First Day Impressions

First day trying to cut out carbs wasn't so bad. I missed having soda with lunch but it wasn't really so bad (made lunch cheaper too!). The worst part for me was trying to resist late-night snacking. I had some string cheese to tide me over, but I will have to look into some low-carb snack options to maintain this kind of diet.

Of course I am hoping to see some weight loss in the next couple weeks assuming I stay diligent. We'll see how it goes - if it's not working, I may need to look into other options.

It Starts

The decision has been made, the "diet" inasmuch as it will be, starts tomorrow. That means no extra sweets, no sodas, and limited carbs from here on out. I will be posting about my progress and impressions here as I go.

I know I still haven't really posted my thoughts about what I am doing yet, but I will get to that soon. The year is young!

Searching for a Beginning

Ok so I have decided that I want to lose weight, and I have decided that the first step to take is to cut out sodas and sweets. Great. So why am I still drinking sodas and eating sweets? I feel like I am still waiting for a date to start this thing. I don't know why I need an explicit start date, but I imagine it's a pretty natural feeling for most people. It's the same driving force behind overflowing gyms in early January; the New Year is a great occasion for making lifestyle changes on an explicit date, a la resolutions.

I could have made my birthday my kickoff day, which would have felt significant and memorable, but we went out of town on a birthday trip and visited nice restaurants and I didn't want to miss out on those things. I wanted to indulge for my birthday - one last hurrah - and as a result I have a house full of cake and ice cream and soda. It seriously dilutes the strong mental association of beginning this on my 30th birthday and stifles my motivation.

So why not just stop eating the stuff now? Sure there is ice cream and soda in my fridge, but just don't eat it, right? That makes perfect sense and the only real reason I continue to eat the stuff (ignoring the fact that it is delicious) is due to silly mental games that I play. Today is a good example: we had a staff meeting at noon and lunch was provided - sandwich boxes from Jason's Deli, complete with chips and cookie. If I had begun my "sugar fast" and I was making a concerted effort to avoid these kinds of foods, I would have just eaten the sandwich and given the cookie and chips away. However, because there is no "real reason" for me to not eat the cookie since I haven't "started" my diet yet, into my belly they went. And then of course later when another cookie was available over dinner, hey, I already had a cookie today so obviously I am not dieting so why not have another? It's a vicious cycle, and it's purely mental.

This is why I think there is some value in otherwise insignificant constructs like resolutions and start dates - it's a mental tool to overcome a mental stumbling block. I think I am going to need one, and it's a conversation I want to have with my wife because we want to do this together. When we pick a date, I will post here and log my successes/failings sticking to it. Hopefully it will help hold me accountable.

In the meantime I continue to try to do better at least. Black coffee, unsweetened tea, and water with lunch - choices that can make a big difference in my daily sugar intake. I just have to hope that nobody brings in donuts to the office for a while.

The Little Things

While I still haven't really kicked off my trying to lose weight in earnest yet (birthday weekends tend to be pretty bad times for restraint), I have been making an effort to be more conscious of the things I eat. I notice a LOT of snacking; a piece of candy or two in the break room, a cookie from a plate somebody brought in from the office, chocolate powder in my coffee, etc. There are a lot of little indulgences throughout the day that I'm not really directly responsible for and kind of eat out of habit. It's natural to grab a cookie from a place when everybody else is, but being aware of these things will be the key to reducing overall calories/carbs throughout the day.

I'm going to post some things about my overall plan plus some details this week. I'm interested in trying Low Carb High Fat, which my friends have been raving to me about for months, so I will post my thoughts on that soon.

Kicking This Thing Off

Today I turn 30. While I am trying to handle the transition from being described as "late twenties" to "early thirties" with some degree of grace, I will admit that I am kinda freaked out about it. One thing late night soul searching has reinforced to me is that I can't keep living and eating like I don't care about my body or health. I am literally too old for that.

I haven't "struggled with my weight" in the traditional sense. People who say they have struggled with their weight were usually overweight when they were young, tried diet and exercise, and generally rode the weight roller coaster for years. My weight hasn't been a struggle - in fact for most of my life I have been very comfortable with. Maybe a little too comfortable, which has led to me steadily gaining about 8-10 pounds a year for the past 12 years.

This is a picture of my then-future-wife and I in high school circa 2001. She is wearing a shirt that says "Chicks dig scrawny pale guys" and I definitely fit the bill. 6 feet tall, rail thin, and dedicated gamer, I was scrawny and pale and I ate whatever I wanted. Early in college I can remember being around 175 when being measured weekly at the blood plasma clinic (gotta pay the bills somehow) and I ate whatever I wanted. I spent 7 years in college and  over time I started to notice some extra pounds as my metabolism started to slow, but I still ate whatever I wanted. Somewhere in there I passed the 200 pounds mark, but I didn't pay much attention so I don't remember exactly when, but it wasn't a big deal at the time. I had a little extra chunk than I wanted and my body was starting to gain definition (aka, a belly), but I didn't mind much.

After college I landed a desk job programming for NASA and the extra income combined with lack of movement really sent my BMI climbing. I had a group of friends who were a little older than me and trying to lose weight constantly, so I tried to get involved in some exercise programs with them but they never really went anywhere. One year I remember weighing in at 220. Another year I was in the mid 230's. By the time we started our office "Biggest Loser," I was pushing 250. I can tell you right now that I didn't win that competition; I ended up losing Biggest Loser by actually gaining weight over the course of it.

My lack of weight loss wasn't due to lack of trying (or at least, entirely due). Some of these competitions required 5 workouts a week, an hour at a time. 5 hours in the gym a week didn't help my weight, although I did feel generally better. Over time the lack of weight loss plus my weak willpower always led to discouragement and quitting the programs. And to be honest, I HATE going to the gym - it's just miserable and time consuming and often I feel like I would rather just be fat than have to put myself through that multiple times a week.

More recently I have all but given up on trying to live a healthy lifestyle. I can't remember the last time I was in the gym and my eating habits are even worse. Louis CK sums up my current state of affairs more eloquently than I could hope to:

"My doctor starts asking me about my eating habits, like there's habits, like there's a pattern. It's just chaos and awfulness."

I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. Lunch at work is usually fast food or a huge sit-down restaurant meal. Soda is a constant. Ice cream, candy, and snack cakes are always available. I know this is bad, but the alternative of dieting and eating less just always seemed miserable and unsustainable to me. Maybe I could lose a few pounds by going on a kale cleanse for a month, but once the diet was over and the binge started again, I would just gain the weight right back, I reasoned. And without steady exercise, I would never really lose weight anyway right?

This is all fine and dandy for a 20-something (not really), but I'm not a 20-something anymore and continuing this behavior as I trudge toward 40 is a death wish. I had something of a wake up call a few weeks ago when the scale told me I was nearly 270 pounds. I never really considered myself fat, but the mirror doesn't lie and 270 is way closer to 300 than I ever wanted to be; I'm getting fat, I am 30, and I decided I need to do something about it.

So this blog is a result of that decision. My goal is simple: Lose 30 pounds while I am still 30. A year from today when I turn 31, I want to be AT LEAST 30 pounds lighter, and hopefully a lot healthier than I am now. I have a couple ideas I want to try and some experiments to run, but I will save those for later posts. I haven't started anything yet in earnest, so this will be a learning and growing process for me and I want to record all of my experiences here. 30 pounds doesn't seem like a lot for a whole year, but considering than my weight has only ever gone up, I will be happy if I succeed.