The Beginning

My first blog post was made on Jan 16, 2009.  In it, I talked about the steps I was taking to begin my new lifestyle, but neglected to share how it actually got started.

I’m going to do that today.

While my first blog post was made on Jan 16, 2009, I began my new lifestyle the previous day, a Thursday, January 15th.  I had gone to work on the morning of the 15th as normal, with absolutely no intention of becoming healthy, starting a diet, new healthy lifestyle, or anything of the sort.

As a matter of fact, I had stopped at the Burger King located near my office on the 15th and ordered the usual: a french toast sticks meal with large hashbrowns and a large coke.  I normally skipped breakfast altogether, but if I did decide to have breakfast it was a deep fried feast from Burger King.

As I was close to finishing my breakfast, I stopped.  I had a few hashbrowns left and lost all interest in them..  I put them back in the bag, balled the bag up, and threw it away.  I got up, went to the bathroom, then stared at myself in the mirror for what seemed like an hour.  I wasn’t happy with myself.  While I was happy with my job, my wife, my friends, my future… I just wasn’t happy with myself.  It wasn’t depression or anything psychological.  But, it was still very serious — life or death, actually.  The morning of the 15th, in my office, I looked straight into the mirror at the 350 pound, disease-ridden body I created and asked myself:

What did your body ever do to deserve this?
Why don’t you care about the others you’ll affect when you die?
Why don’t you love yourself and at least try to lose this weight?

So, I did.  I went back to the my desk and went to work.  I looked up a good multi-vitamin (knowing I’d never have a perfect diet), found a BMI chart (I was extremely obese, who knew?), and looked up how many calories I needed to eat in a day to lose weight.  It wasn’t scientific or well thought out, I probably made/make tons of mistakes.  In fact, I’m sure I do — I get e-mails all the time letting me know.  I started with no medical supervision or advice (not recommend), no physical trainers, nor did I have a background in physical education or nutrition.

I still don’t have physical trainers, a background in physical education or nutrition, nor do I have any medical advice per se (supervision, yes).  All I do is eat smaller portions, move around more, and drink water all day.  So far, this plan has lost 64 pounds in 13 weeks and I don’t think I’ll be changing it anytime soon.

It all started by throwing away those hashbrowns on January 15th, 2009.