Have you seen this man?

If you’ve only known me during my professional life, the picture at right probably makes no sense to you. It is clipped from a recent Facebook post of a group picture during my senior year in high school. I look scrawny, bordering on gaunt. I was prolly around a buck-sixty.

As the years have gone on, I’ve, um, blossomed to a robust 285. While the first twenty were muscle packed on as a collegiate swimmer, the rest are … not. I recently found out that’s ten pounds more than the apex my father hit– and I’ve always considered him fat.

While I’ve gone on diets before, a couple weeks ago, with April’s help and support, I hit a tipping point and embarked on some major lifestyle changes that I believe may well stick. For that reason, I’m contemplative about how I got here, and anyone who is a glutton for detail or who might be in a similar position can get the full story after the jump.

At least I can say I came by my bad behavior vis-a-vis food honestly. Both my parents were overweight when I was growing up and could trace their issues at least partly to parental behaviors. My mom’s parents would berate her over her weight, even as they equated food with love, responding with hurt feelings if she refused to eat seconds of whatever calorie-packed treat they presented her. During my childhood, we ate out at least five nights a week, blaming my busy schedule. We hosed down regular Coca-Cola like it was water, often drinking 32 ounces apiece right before bed.

A compounding factor that didn’t manifest itself until much later was my career as a swimmer. From the age of ten until college graduation, I was a serious swimmer, training year-round and going to meets all over the region. While that sounds healthy, a ten-mile-a-day training regime means you can pretty much eat anything you want and not maintain, much less gain weight.

Take my collegiate diet: On an average day, I’d get up at 5:30 AM for early workout and slug down a large glass of orange juice, plus some sort of granola bar. After practice came breakfast proper, with two fried ; two biscuits; grits, four pieces of bacon; a bowl of cereal; a banana;  pancakes or a cinnamon  roll plus milk, juice and a 44 oz Coke. For lunch, either pasta or nachos, plus a hearty salad and another Coke. Before afternoon workout, a snack– probably a footlong sub, chips and a cookie with some Gatorade. After practice, we went to “The Pits,” the campus’ all-you-can-eat cafeteria, for multiple plates of meats, veggies, casseroles, salad and dessert. (Except for Tuesday nights, which were .50 taco nights at Del Taco, where we’d each drop a ten-spot.) Then late in the evening, we had “fourth meal” before fourth meal was cool — A pizza or some calzones washed down with a twelvepack of beer. I should also mention that any class I sat through required at least a 44 oz Coke to keep me going.

And with that, I was 185, ripped and in the best shape of my life. I was committing crimes against nutrition with impunity and getting away with it, so I was completely unprepared when, on graduation — burnt out on swimming — I had to start eating as a non-athlete. I thought I was real crafty, cutting out one of my six daily meals right off the bat.

Then, I got involved in D Magazine, the first of several relaunch / startup businesses I’d participate in over the next fifteen years. High-stress, long hours, lots of drinking. The pounds packed on. When the college clothes stopped fitting, a boss gave me some of her husband’s hand-me-downs. They quickly got to0 big. There were leveling-off points at times, but on average, I gained 6 pounds a year. Time marched on…

True on so many levels

I should also point out that despite my athletic youth, I don’t really enjoy exercise for exercise’s sake. I’m too much of a clutz for most team sports; running gives me shinsplints; and I was majorly burnt out on swimming after ten years of staring at a black line on the bottom of a pool and grinding away until my shoulder popped out of the socket. I also, even when fit, suffer from sleep apnea, limiting my will and ability to get up early to exercise. (I pulled it off in college by skipping classes and taking afternoon naps.)

I hate thinking about food, outside of what tastes good. I hate counting calories. Frankly, I won’t do it.

There have been numerous abortive diets and exercise plans over the years, none of which stuck more than a week. So what’s different now?

It’s not any one thing I can put a finger on yet. Maybe it’s talk of having kids and not wanting to be the fat dad. Maybe it’s some particularly cruel business correspondence between former employees I recently stumbled upon. Maybe it’s that I’ve started to feel so-low energy that it borders on continual low-grade illness. Maybe it’s April’s efforts at shedding pounds gained solely while eating on my schedule.

Regardless, when April broached a new diet plan she was considering, and was willing to accept the fact that I didn’t even want to discuss the hows or whys, but just follow a damn plan and not think about it. So, ten days ago, the following rules were set down:

• No starches. Period.
• Nothing that even remotely tastes sweet, whether with sugar or artificial sweeteners. Not even diet sodas. This is to break my addiction to sweet tastes. It even includes fruits. The only indulgence is a handful of 70% cocoa nibs.
• No milk. Not even skim. Not even a drop in the coffee.
• Only certain cheeses and in small quantities.
• No beer. Red wine, scotch OK.

The two toughest things have been the sodas and basic starches that go into things like nachos and spaghetti. I’ve gotten through the soda deficit with club soda mixed with ginger tea to make a fauxgingerale. It’s been the starches that have driven me mad for ten days, but so far I haven’t broken.

My biggest enemy is restaurants. Really hard to pass up the bread or chips on the table, or to watch a companion smack down tacos while I eat a modified salad with even less than advertised on the menu.

This will be a continuing story. But ten days in, I’ve dropped a year of the weight and feel substantially better. My jeans are already loosening…

The Band: “The Weight”

The Beatles: “Carry That Weight”

Aretha Franklin: “The Weight”

One other note. When I hit my goal, my prize is this.