Incredible Shrinking Man

I'd had weight issues since high school senior year, if not before, but in 1989 I participated in a weight loss contest at Burnham Hospital in Champaign, IL, and was on the team that lost the most weight and thus won the contest.

Though I'd officially lost 15 pounds during the contest time period (I'm guessing a month), I was so embarassed at how big I got during that preceding first year of working there that I actually started my own weight loss process a week before the contest began (losing 8 pounds before the first weigh-in), and then continued on after we won and the contest was over.

All told, I lost 35 pounds that year. For the most part, this was done the right way: increased exercise (primarily long and fast walks), eating less, eating only the right foods. And I kept it off for the next few years, through the transition back to Evansville and then on to my new life in Louisville (the first time around).

Eventually, though, increased social life in Louisville and then Indianapolis decreased my self-discipline and I lost it. From about 1995 through this year, I've pretty much been growing and growing with no end in sight.

But a month ago, without much antagonizing or forethought per previous attempts, my wife and I casually decided to start new diets. I decided to eat only low carb foods, basically doing a version of the Atkins diet with which I'd had temporary success in 2003, but gave up on too soon. We shopped together the day after deciding to do this, and I announced that my last high-carb food would be a yummy Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie, my usual reward treat for taking the time to do smart bargain shopping during supermarket trips. This was on May 15.

And I've stuck with it, with very little cheating (a recent facebook entry reveals my extreme guilt at eating a few bites of carrot cake). I've lost weight; I can feel it and the notches on my belt prove it. I don't know how much, though. We didn't weigh before we began our diets! I hadn't weighed myself in a long time anyway, and didn't want a big negative blow at the start that might have made the whole thing seem as hopeless as usual.

Note that on a massive person like my current self, it is going to take a long time for people to realize that I've lost any weight. To someone seeing me for the first time in one or two years, I'm probably not going to look any different because I'd kept gaining weight since our last time together.

I still have a long way to go. It would take many months or years to get back down to what I weighed even before that 1989 contest began, and realistically I probably never will. Especially since the exercise portion of my regime is extremely lacking, but I'll work on it.

The point is, though, that I'm finally doing something. Like trying to tackle that other major problem I have (massive credit card debt), the main thing was to "stop the bleeding", i.e. halt it from getting any worse, and then slowly work on doing things the right way in order to permanently fix the problem.

Luckily I still don't miss any of that high-carb processed food... I can tell I'm in it for the long haul this time, my first serious weight loss attempt in 20 years. Wish me luck!