I’m on store shelves this week at your local supermarket.

(I’m featured right below Oprah trying to use the restroom.  Or something.)

The health editor for American Media, the company that owns a bunch of publications (Globe, Men’s Fitness, Star, etc) called me on my cell phone on the way out of town for Christmas.  She had heard that I had lost a lot of weight counting calories and wanted to schedule time for an interview after Christmas.  The interview would be part of a series of weight loss stories, each story representing a different way to lose weight.

I proudly represented counting calories and moderation.

One 30-minute phone interview, a professional photo shoot, and a month later, the magazine and interview is out on store shelves.  The Globe is a smaller magazine with about 900,000 readers, but it’s still good exposure for calorie counting. Counting calories is by far the best way to lose weight and can change a lot of lives, but it just doesn’t have the exposure (marketing) that fad diets and gimmicks do.

I’ll continue doing everything I can to turn that around.

New Year’s Resolutions have been underway for over a week, so get ready for these kind of comments from friends, family, and co-workers alike:

“I lost 15 pounds in my first week!  I’ll lose 100 pounds by March.  I’m so glad I signed up to Super Revolutionary Fad Diet Program on New Year’s Day!  It only costs $39.95 a week, and it’s so much better than anything else!”

No matter how the weight loss is achieved (counting calories, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, etc), it’s great that so many people start losing weight this time of year.  The first week normally brings big losses for most people: 3, 7, and even 10+ pounds are common figures.  Unfortunately, many people turn it into an expectation for the weeks that follow and that’s when the initial surge of motivation turns into confusion:

“I didn’t change anything, so why’d I stop losing weight?”

Over the first few weeks of losing weight, your body is going through huge changes.  It doesn’t matter what meal plan or program you’re following, your body went from eating a lot of excess calories one day to a much smaller number of calories the next day.  That initial transition causes you to lose weight very rapidly, as does the loss of water that was associated with those excess calories you were once consuming.

As you get past the first few weeks of your initial weight loss and really get into the grind, the weight will start to come off slowly.  Expect it.  You’ll probably only lose 1-3 pounds a week during the bulk of your weight loss journey.  And during some weeks you might even gain weight and not have any clue as to what you did wrong.

Expect it.  It happened to me.  It happens to everybody.  It will happen to you.

Take your initial weight loss of 5, 10, 15 pounds or whatever since New Year’s and keep it in perspective.  It’s absolutely wonderful that you’re on your way to reaching your goals, but don’t expect big weekly losses to continue.  Remember that you’re making lifestyle changes, not watching the clock and expecting to lose 100 pounds by March.

Understand that this is a long, drawn out fight, but it’s well worth it at the end.

I’m very appreciative of all of the support I’ve received from everyone over the last few years.  This month marks three fulls years and counting of this surreal transformation.

If you’ve been following my journey for even a short while you’ll know I love good workout music.  I’m constantly finding new songs to add to my iPod.  There isn’t a morning in the gym where I don’t have a pair of headphones in my ears.

I want to share the joy.

How to win the iPod Shuffle

All you need to do to have a chance to win is to subscribe to get new blog posts sent to your e-mail address.  That means that every time I post on the blog (3-5 times a week), you’ll get the blog post sent to you via e-mail automatically.  You won’t get spam, ads, offers, etc, just blog posts.  Click here to subscribe (it’s free and powered by Google).

Again, click here to subscribe and have a chance at winning.

And yes, this is obviously a way for me to stay in touch with you.  So what?  I get to stay in touch with you, you stay in touch with me and maybe win an iPod, too.

It’s a win/win.

The iPod giveaway ends this Friday in about 72 hours (6 PM Eastern).  I’ll e-mail the winner to get a mailing address, preferred color for the iPod, etc.  And don’t worry, if you’re already subscribed, you’re still eligible to win.

Good luck and thanks for the support, as always.

What I’ve done is not special or exclusive in any way.  Anybody can copy the success I’ve had losing weight.  If you think otherwise, you have something I call an excuse.

I had no previous experience losing weight, nor did I have a trainer or dietician.  I just decided one day a few years back to stop eating so much food and do something, anything, to burn calories on a regular basis.  That’s 90% of losing weight right there.

Your weight loss journey, like mine, will start fast.  Even if you pick a fad diet (which I obviously don’t recommend), you’ll lose a tremendous amount of weight more than likely the first few weeks.  The underlying factor of all fad diets that exclude certain food groups or force you to eat certain foods is that it’s essentially counting calories (eating less calories than you burn), they just don’t call it that.

If they called it that, they wouldn’t make any money selling you the lifestyle/program.

After the initial rapid weight loss you’ll feel great.  But that initial motivation and drastic weight loss will stop and you’ll get stuck in the trenches.  You might go from losing 5 pounds a week to 4, 3, 2, and then eventually 1 or even nothing.  You might even gain a pound or two one week and not understand it.  It happens — to everybody.

Why else do you think the gym is full in January and empty in March?

As you go along, you also might fall off the wagon a few times and take some time (or maybe even a lot of time) off from the gym and hit some Chinese buffets — count on it happening.  When this happens though, you realize that you’re not on a diet, you’re living a lifestyle, and that nothing is “over.”  You didn’t ruin a “diet,” you just ate more than you should have for a few days and those days are gone;  tomorrow is a new day.

Actually, the day after next is a new day and the start of a brand new lifestyle for most people:  January 1, 2012.  I wish everyone all the best, and I hope you come back to the blog in a few days for something kind of special.

I had a professional photo shoot last weekend.

No, I’m not a model, and no, my body isn’t anywhere near where I want it to be. A major magazine is publishing an interview with me in their January edition and they needed professional “after” shots.

Professional, the reporter said, meant not taken with a cell phone in a gym restroom like most of my before shots.

While it’s obviously fine for my before shots to be taken by an amateur (myself), they needed large, high resolution after pictures for the magazine.  That’s when I called on Chip Oglesby, a local freelance photographer who once worked for The State, our major newspaper in SC.

Chip introduced himself to me a while ago through e-mail and said he was trying to lose weight and run a triathlon in the process.  He started a blog (check it out!) like I did and wanted to get together sometime and talk. I thought a photo shoot was as good as a time as any.  The shoot was a blast (and I felt really silly!) and I left with a dozen really good pictures to send to the magazine.

Once the interview is out in January, I’ll let you know so you can take a look at all of the pictures we took.  The magazine should be available anywhere magazines are sold.