52 Weeks to a New Me

I haven't been to the doctor in years. Just haven't gone. I've been afraid to go because I'm fat, and I knew that if I went to the doctor, he or she would tell me I'm fat, and I didn't see the point of paying someone to tell me what I already knew.

I had to go to the doctor the other day. It was a minor emergency, I picked up some kind of infection somewhere, he took care of it straight away. But before he let me go, prescriptions in hand, he gave me the Talk. The one I've been dreading for years.

But really, it wasn't so bad as all that. I'd expected to get chewed out for letting myself get into the state I'm currently in. But he didn't yell, wasn't mad or anything (that may have just been my natural paranoia at work, all this time). He started by asking me: how are you doing in your battle with your weight? He then moved on to some advice. It felt good, that someone would just assume I'm actively fighting it, not just passively growing my ass to record size.

According to my bathroom scale, I weighed 360 pounds on January 9, 2007. It's hard to be sure, since the scale's only designed to be accurate to 300 pounds. Since then, by cutting down on the fast food (french fries are the Devil. The Devil I say!), and spending about 30 minutes on the elliptical machine no less than three times a week, I've managed to lose three pounds a week. This was all before I saw the doctor.

After my little trip to the urgent-care, I crunched some numbers. If I average a loss of 3 pounds a week, after a year (52 weeks), I'll have lost 156 pounds. That means, by January 2008, I'll weigh right around 204 pounds. Until just that moment, I never believed that 204 was possible for me. I felt good, really good, for the first time in a long time. I'd finally noticed that light at the end of the tunnel. I'm finally ready to do this.

So, here's how this is going to work:
Once a week, on Tuesday mornings, I'm going to weigh myself and post it here, along with my weight from last week. That way, we can immediately see how I've done. I'll also post a picture, so there's a visual record of my progress. Heck, I'll even go as far as back-loading my weights from the past few weeks.

As I find articles and advice, I'll either post them, or add them to the links section in the sidebar. Can't say I'll personally implement all the advice, but it's good to know it's there.

My goal is not to lose 156 pounds in a year. It's to lose 3 pounds this week.

I don't know if there's anyone out there, and I don't particularly care at this point. If you're reading, and want to chime in, you're welcome to. I ask only that you keep things on a positive note. I've tried negative reinforcement for years, and I can tell you this much: it don't work.