About two months ago, I began a dieting experiment in an attempt to once and for all to lose weight and change my dieting habits for the best.  See, while I eat a vegan diet, a vegan diet still can contain junk food.  My vice were chips, both potato and tortilla style.  For some reason, I couldn’t kick the chip habit.  I would be fine for a few weeks, but then I’d suddenly just have to buy a family sized bag of chips and eat it all in the car ride from or to work.  It was pathetic.  I hid the habit from everyone, though I suspect my fiancee Kelly knew I was sneaking snacks.  Some days, I would actually eat two full size bag of Tostitos, at the same time downing a 64 ounce drink of diet Coke.  Why diet Coke?  I don’t know, maybe I just didn’t wanna be a total pig.

When I decided to go to TAM4 back in November of 2005, I promised Kelly that I would lose twenty pounds.  It only seemed fair.  She was totally understandably concerned about my weight.  It was out of hand and my habits were horrible.  On top of that, Kelly a couple years ago decided to get into good shape, and surpassed that, and is now in awesome shape.  She works incredibly hard at it and it was not fair to her that my health was threatened by my bad habits.

For the first five weeks of my attempt to lose twenty pounds, I lost exactly no pounds.  I still had the chip habit and it was killing me.  On top of that, I added Triscuits into the mix.  Nothing like the greasy goodness of a wheat cracker.  Finally, after one particular night, when I woke up with amazingly painful heartburn, a bloated stomach, and asthma so bad I felt like I needed a respirator, I came up with a loose plan to conquer my snack habit.

I took it head on.  I decided to revel in the snack habit.  The first Monday, i bought two bags of chips, and ate everyone before I got home.  The next day, I bought one bag, and finished it.  The next day, I bought a smaller bag, and finished it.  And finally, the next day, I bought a small snack sized bag, finished it, and never looked back.  I dropped my calories per day to 1,000 for a week, to shock my system a bit, and slowly increased the number of calories.  I overcame a week of hunger pangs, as my body adjusted to the lack of huge meals.

I started eating more salads and whole grained breads.  Portions were smaller, and I increased my intake of water.  I love ice water.  Nothing truly refreshes you better than a nice glass of ice water.  The first week, I lost about five pounds, all water weight I’m sure.  But since then, the weight has come off pretty regularly.  I made it through Xmas unscathed, and trips to Vegas and the Superbowl did nothing to stop my progress.

I now have very few clothes that fit me, as most every pair of pants I own are too big.  Most of my shirts are too big, and some shirts that seemed too short on me before, are plenty long now that I don’t have a big gut.  I’ve gone through three belts in the last two months.  I feel so much better, people are noticing, and I think I notice a different way people look at you when you look thin.  That’s right, at this point, even though I know I have more weight to lose, I’ve lost enough weight that most people would look at me and think, he’s on the thin side.

The reason I am writing this today, is that today marks the two month mark, and my total weight loss to date is…forty pounds.  I’ve lost forty pounds in two months, the most weight I’ve ever lost in a two month period.  I shouldn’t even say I’m on a “diet” too.  I’ve really changed my lifestyle.  I think differently about food and health.  I’m obsessed with reading labels and calorie counts.  I’ve learned to make some new kinds of food.  I experiment a lot with spices.  Most importantly, though, after two months, I think it’s fair to say I’ve broken out of my bad habits and routines with food.

I know Kelly won’t be thrilled to hear I probably spent $200.00 on chips in the last eighteen months, but today I had to come clean about it.  I’ve lost too much weight to try and say I wasn’t snacking before.   I had to get this all off my chest.  When she reads this today, I hope she accepts my apology for lying about snacking to her (and myself really), because she was my inspiration for losing the weight.

I love you Kelly, and I hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 at 9:10 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.