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Stories like this just make me feel good, especially now. This guy went from 500 lbs to 240 lbs.

I was 34 and had always struggled with my weight, but for 15 years, I had allowed it to get out of control. I ate as if it were my hobby. I was unable to do the simplest physical activity…I couldn’t walk to my car from my apartment or office without being out of breath, and my knees ached from even that small journey. Lying in bed, I could feel my heart pounding. I awoke several times each night struggling to breathe. Still, I was in denial. I knew I was obese, but I never considered what I was doing to myself. Loved ones offered concern and suggestions, but I saw them as just “getting on my case.”… By the second week of July 2006 — just nine months — I had lost 200 pounds! I was now hiking the hills and canyons, as well as playing ice hockey. I was able to discontinue my blood pressure medication. Throughout, I never felt that I was depriving myself. I viewed it as a chance to rediscover the real me.

Awesome. This is the kind of story I like to read, not just on product advertisements and Billy Banks books (no disrespect to Mr. Banks), but in sources like CNN.

It’s funny, but one of the things he says there, that “Loved ones offered concern and suggestions, but I saw them as just ‘getting on my case’”, is something I think every overweight person has gone through. The only time I’ve really found it annoying, though, was when someone who I didn’t really know, or I just recently met would start telling me things like “You know, you should really change your diet and stop eating so many hamburgers,” without knowing the first thing about me. Usually these people were naturally skinny and unable to get to my size even if they tried, and they almost always came off as being judgmental about people who weren’t like them.

…jackasses…

Anyway, as of this morning I’m at ~287 lbs, so I’ve lost about 2lbs this week. Hurray! I also see Mr. Renato this weekend. Time for another butt kicking session.

As I mentioned in the first post of this series, my caloric intake has been between 900 and 1300 per day, mostly proteins and vegetables, with almost no bread or starches, and few fats from things like cheese. (Nuts and egg yolks still make an appearance here and there.) I talked to Mr. Renato and he’s rather impressed I’ve been able to keep that up. This, however, wasn’t the only thing I talked to him about. With the good comes the bad:

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Well, I’ve done it: I’ve become the biggest weight-loser in the office: 12.6 lbs in two weeks. The runner up lost 5 lbs. Grand prize is $70, plus two weeks of candy-based sabotage attacks from my co-workers, starting with the big pile of M&M’s and Snickers bars put in front of my office.

Thanks for the support guys. (The candy attack, by the way, was orchestrated by Flying Pig Hat Man. I call him that because he keeps a hat that looks like a pig which has flapping wings (powered by straps on the side of the hat) on top of his monitor at all times. I think it’s his thinking cap.)

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As you may recall, a few weeks ago some people at my office got together and started their own chapter (?) of The Biggest Loser, in an effort to help the average weight of the office — a number I personally skew way up — down to more normal levels (for the rest of society, not for the American tech industry.) There’s no unified formula we’re using, so each of us has been left to our own devices when it comes to figuring out how we’ll achieve weight loss.

For the most part, people here are doing the usual eat less fat and calories overall, and exercise more routine. While that’s a routine that works, it’s not one I particularly like, mostly because I know how my body works, and my body works better with fats than without them. Knowing that at the outset has helped me properly plan and prepare, all of which are keys to success down the line. This has apparently worked, because as of this morning, I have lost almost 11 pounds in two weeks. (To be fair, most of this is water weight. Also, a 300lb guy losing 11 pounds really isn’t all that much. We’ll talk when I make it to 30.) Here’s what I’ve been doing.

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The two biggest new year’s resolutions are losing weight and making more money. Interestingly, this year, I only made a resolution for the second. Fate, it seems, has demanded I also make a resolution regarding the first.

You may have heard of the show The Biggest Loser. (I’m sure most anyone who has gone to a gym lately has at least heard of it.) If you haven’t, and you haven’t seen it on television, The Biggest Loser is a show where people who are overweight are put to a training program to see who can lose the most weight in the allotted time. I’ve never seen the show, so other than better health I have no idea what the biggest loser wins.

Anyway, a bunch of us where I work have decided to do this ourselves. No, we’re not going to be on the show (although that, too, would be fun), but we have agreed to encourage each other to lose weight and have a little competition in the process.

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