Introduction

For those of you that don't know me from the rest of the faceless internet, let me start by saying that I am unhealthy. Unhealthy and fat. Everyone knows someone who has a few extra pounds on them and constantly complains how 'fat' they are. I want to assure you that is not me. Not at all. No, dear reader, I want you to understand that I have become very familiar with the term 'fat.'

I say all this because I had made a few tenth-hearted attempts at weight loss or even eating healthy before. These usually lasted less than a full 24 hours before dropping back to my normal habits. Every year, I would make a New Year's Resolution to eat healthy and lose weight, because I was fed up with the way I looked. They would sometimes go great for about two days or so. One year, I just made the resolution to work out every day. It happened for a few weeks and then abruptly stopped. Knowing me, I probably missed a day and said, "I'll try again next year."

Now, I want to make it clear that I am not setting up to sell you something. I am not going to share a tear-filled success story, because I haven't succeeded yet. I'm nowhere near my goal, but I know that there are hundreds of thousands of people out there that think that they cannot lose weight or make any sort of change. I'm starting this blog partly because I want to show people what is working for me, and to show people that there is always hope, partly because I know that this will force accountability on me, partly because I haven't fallen off this yet, and partly because I'm sure many of my friends are getting tired of my Facebook statuses about it.

So, some important things to share: I am not any sort of nutritionist or diet expert or exercise technician or anything. I AM a fat guy who has found some exercises that can be done his kneecap breaking in half and some options for food that allow me to stay within limits without wanting to kill myself (most of the time).

Right, so the weight loss stuff. I guess that's why you're reading this. I think it's working this time because I DIDN'T make a New Year's resolution to lose weight. I had a few days off from work, and when I came back in on a Thursday, the team I work with, who are pretty awesome, had apparently decided they were all going to be accountable with each other and lose weight and eat right and exercise and all that jazz. I told them good luck with that and promptly ham-fisted six or seven hamburgers into my mouth. Friday, I had the same attitude. Saturday, too.

That Sunday night, I had a dinner that stuck with me (but not for very long): four Taco Bell crunchy tacos, followed by two or three chocolate glazed donuts. Afterward, I felt about like you might imagine I did. The next day at work was January 7th, and a co-worker pointed out a smartphone app named 'Lose It!' And so, I began watching what I was putting into my body. And being more and more horrified.

I am a white American male that stands 5 feet, 9 inches tall. When I started, I was 260 pounds and had a stomach that measured 49 inches at the gut. It has been six weeks so far - as I type this, I'm heading into the start of the seventh - and while I'm nowhere near to my goal weight, I am down 15.3 pounds and 6.5 inches in my gut. No, there's no miracle diet food or low-carb or fad diet or secret exercise or drug or supplements involved. There's no expensive exercise equipment - in fact, I really only own one thing, which like the smartphone app mentioned above, will be covered in more detail in a later post.

I'm not going to say "If I can do it, YOU can do it," or the more popular, "If I can do it, ANYONE can do it!" I can't say that because I haven't done it. It's still happening. But dammit, I'm a quarter of the way to my first weight loss goal, and if I am doing it, YOU can am doing... wait, YOU can do it with me!"

No, that didn't sound right either. Hell, you know what I mean.