Nine Months

I weighed in this morning at 335.4 lbs for a total loss of 181.2 lbs. Woo-hoo! I've lost an adult male. I can't believe I was carrying that much weight around. It doesn't seem real.

I had a good conversation with Kim the other night which got me thinking about some of the things I have been doing lately, foodwise and my overall approach to my health and nutrition, etc. In short, I think I have been doing good. Spend any time on many of the DS boards and you will see that I certainly have been more vigilant and pay more attention to what I am doing and how I am eating than many, but she helped me realize that it's not good enough. It's not bad, but I could certainly do better. Dr. Marchesini wants me to get down to around 250 lbs and that would be a success in his eyes. That would be a 266.6 lbs weight loss and something like a loss of 75-80% of my excess weight assuming an ideal body weight of 175. That would be a great result especially considering where I started at. Who could be disappointed with that? Well....me. Truth be told, I do NOT want to end up at 250 lbs with the distant hope that after plastic surgery, I could maybe get down somewhere around 200-225 lbs. What is it that I really want? I want to get down to 175 lbs. At 5'11, that's a normal weight. I want to be normal. I see so many people on the DS boards who admittedly weren't as strict that they could have been and ended up 30-50 lbs away from their goals. They seem to be happy with where they ended up and hell, if they are happy, I'm happy for them, but for me, I think I'd rather bust my butt now for the next year, year and a half to get to my goal.

Even though I was only good, not great for the month of May, I still lost 17 lbs which tells me that if I am even more vigilant with what goes into my mouth and get more exercise, then I should be able to squeeze in several more months of 15-20 lbs of loss per month, hopefully through the end of the year. I would love to hit 225 at the end of 2007. That would give me 8 more months to lose the last 50 lbs by my two year anniversary. I have quite a bit of travelling to do this year and deviating from my routine is always problematic for me. I leave in about a week to go home and instead of indulging in a bunch of junk, I am going to stick to my way of eating as much as possible. It is going to be freakin' hard, but I think it will accomplish a couple of things. One, it will keep me focused and on track and I will definitely learn how to deal with my nutritional requirements when I'm out of my comfort zone (something I've always struggled with). Two, a lot of people will be watching what I will be putting in my mouth for those several days and I don't want to do myself or the DS a disservice by eating a bunch of crap. Even if I say 50 million times that this isn't the way I normally eat, I don't think it would matter, people don't listen to what you say, they listen to what you do. I don't want to perpetuate the myth that the DS is an easy fix, that you can eat what you want with wreckless abandon and still lose a lot of weight. I have a few family members that are super morbidly obese and should consider having weight loss surgery. They are older than me and have other health problems, even if they don't approach me for more information, I still want to be an example of what you should do.

I have to remind myself that when I get to goal and have lost all the weight I want, I will be able to eat a greater variety of foods. Nothing will be off limits, technically, however I will still be susceptible to any gastronomic consequences of consuming certain types of foods, but for the most part, this is true. I will be free, but for right now, I'm at the half way point of my journey, the middle, the hump. The middle, I think, is where success truly is defined. It's the boring, mundane part of the journey, all the excitement was in the first few months. There aren't as many drastic changes during this period, everything is pretty steady and it's much easier to become lax and complacent. There was a quote I came across some time ago: "Comfort is the enemy of achievement" and for me this is true. If I put my greatest effort during these middle months, I truly believe I can get to where I want to be. Every minute, hour, day will pass regardless if I do or not, so why not do better? Why not be better? I just don't want any more regrets and I have to remind myself of all of this every now and then. It's so easy to let it slip away. I will tell you this though, it seems like the only thing I will be able to eat with a great deal of frequency is barbecue, so watch out because I will be eating more than my fair share..... mmmm .... meat...

Anyway, 181.2 lbs loss is still pretty kick ass and I am happy. June is going to be tough, but I think I can hit the big 200 by the end of it. We'll see!