Last fall, I weighed 245 pounds - easily the heaviest I have ever been in my life. My clothes no longer fit, and the class ring I had worn since college didn't either - if I had it on, I couldn't get it off, and if I got it off, I couldn't fit it back on.
Yesterday, I stepped on the scale to find that I'd broken the 220 barrier - I weighed a comparatively svelte 219.5 pounds - 25 pounds lighter than six months ago.
What changed? Mostly, my attitude. I knew that I couldn't keep expanding like a government entitlement program. So I took action.
I knew that there were going to be limits on the kinds of changes I could make in my diet and exercise program. I jog a few miles a week, weather and pollen counts allowing, but most of my loss is probably attributable to the low-carb eating plan I'm now following. I used to consume rice, bread, potatoes, and especially sugary soda in vast quantities. Now, I simply skip them - rice, bread, and potatoes are rarely the interesting part of the meal anyway. The toughest thing for me, or so I expected, was giving up soda.
For about a month, it was. Dineen and I kept lots of seltzer water in the house (you can get sugar-free varieties with subtle flavoring) and drank it constantly. Then, one night out, all I had to choose from was soda - diet or regular. I resigned myself to the bitter aftertaste.That night I was shocked. I used to be the kind of person who hated diet soda. I could taste it - and loathe it - through just about anything. If the bartender gave me a bourbon and diet coke, I would choke on it. But not anymore. It seemed that a month of drinking just water had deprogrammed my taste buds - or perhaps just my mind. I now regularly drink and enjoy a variety of diet sodas, especially Diet Dr. Pepper. (Oddly, I used to loathe regular Pepsi, but I prefer Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke. Who knew?)
I don't pretend that my solution is right for everyone, but if you're looking to lose weight, do some reading on how your body processes nutrition. Most modern nutritionists understand that anabolic and catabolic hormones have a dramatic impact on how you process what you take in; in turn, what you take in has an impact on the natural cycles of those types of hormones. You might be surprised what you learn.
It's worked for me so far. I've lost weight to the point where people notice and comment on it. Now, my goal is to lose another 20 pounds by the end of August - a reasonable 5 pounds per month - so that by the end of the summer, I'll be back below 200 pounds for the first time in over ten years. W
Kaliber10000 is officially back in business. W
David Gagne contributes his 28 hours:
My birthday is June 26, 1973. I know. I was there. That's also what my mom told me, and she swears that she was there, too....
So today I have to trudge to the Social Security building and show them my birth certificate, passport, and driver's license to prove to them that I was born on the 26th. This makes little sense to me. Does it strike anyone else as odd that these other government-issued documents are what I need to prove to the government that they have an error in my file?
Fight the power, brother. W
Broomeman alerts me to the following:
The General Accounting Office has found that departing Clinton aides vandalized the White House and Old Executive Office Building, stealing two historic doorknobs, scrawling obscene graffiti on walls and inflicting $14,000 worth of damage.
Sounds like something Dan Hartung ought to read. W
This month's Virginia Lawyer magazine has an excellent piece on cyber-jurisdiction; in other words, the power of a court to govern a person or entity based on their activity on the Internet. Share it with a friend. W
When this is needed, we'll just rename it the Ronald Reagan World Wide Web. W
The sooner Andrew W.K.'s fifteen minutes of fame are up, the sooner he can get back on his meds.
Or vice versa. W
Have you just moved? Don't know who to complain to about your tax bill? Contact your Congresscritter in the U.S. House of Representatives. All you need is your address. (It's written inside the waistband of your undies - that's where I found mine.) W
Even with recent tax cuts, there's one way that federal income taxes are more burdensome than ever:
[T]he 17,000-page, 2.8 million-word tax code is more complex than ever. One estimate is that it now takes 28 hours and six minutes to tackle the Internal Revenue Service's 1040 form and do the necessary record keeping.
Twenty-eight hours! By contrast, a full-time week of work is 40 hours. That's three and a half full-time work days. Wouldn't it be nice if your government gave you that time off instead?
If you're mad as hell and you don't want to take it anymore, head over to www.taxslaverysucks.com for information about tonight's protest at the Capitol Hill Post Office. W
Network Solutions is now doing to Leslie Harpold and her excellent personal site, Hoopla, what one hopes his cellmate will one day do to the president of Network Solutions.
We'll all do our best to make that happen. In the meantime, if you have your domain name registered with Network Solutions, move it. Now. W