It's time to lose some weight again ....

     I realize how cliche it is to do a blog the first week in January about resolutions, or on weight loss, yet here I am doing just that.  Since this blog is primarily stories of what is happening in my life, the fact that I am starting a diet is a valid topic, and the way I'm hoping to lose the weight may be worth a story or two while it is happening....

     Don't we all know the signs, too well, of the need to shed some pounds?  Clothes fit too tightly, you might look ridiculous trying to get out of a deep seat, or you don't like your reflection in a mirror, or you don't recognize your face in a picture taken of you, yes all of these are subtle hints that you may have added some girth to your frame.  I've had all of these happen this year, and now it's time to pay the piper and try and get back into shape (other than round, which they tell me is a shape).

My weight, as I start this diet, is one of the highest weights that I've been in my life, around 182 lbs on my 5' 6.5" frame. This puts my BMI at 28.9 which falls in the overweight range and is teetering perilously close to the obese number.  I have been working out this year, so I'm proud to say some of this really is muscle, which I've never had much of in the past, but it definitely was getting harder to see the muscle underneath the outer layer of  "not muscle" that I've been carrying.  I've convinced myself that I probably already have a six pack, but just can't see it yet.  So point is, I'm larger than I want to be, so how did this happen and what am I going to do about it?

     For regular readers of the blog, I really don't have to explain how this happened.  In my case, it's simply having too many vices, and not enough virtues to balance them out.  Some of my vices are my love of food, my inability to eat reasonable portions of it, and my larger than normal intake of alcoholic beverages.  It's not unusual for me to eat a large breakfast, have a big cheeseburger for lunch and have a 3-4 course dinner 4 or 

I'll miss you, my friend.

so days of the week.  I like to relax with an alcoholic drink like wine or a gin and tonic and a lot of nights 
3 of these are added to my caloric intake.  The half an hour of exercise I do daily really isn't enough to combat all of these vices.  This is definitely not a diet conducive to weight loss or even maintenance.  It's pretty amazing that I don't weigh over 200 lbs already, so I probably have a pretty good metabolism in place, although it's not the metabolism I had as a youth.  In my senior year of high school my brother Ace and I would eat dinner at 5, go play 3 games of racquetball at the Y, and then make the loser buy a 12" sub at Papa Franks, which we would eat 2 hours after Mom had made us dinner.  I weighed 132 lbs then, and the 3 games of racquetball barely winded me.  Now, I could probably play 3 games, back to back, but I know if I finished, I'd be more than an little winded.  Of course, carrying 50 lbs more than I did back in high school, doesn't make it any easier to accomplish.  So it is, what it is.  I would not try to get back to that weight either, I'm allowing for the fact that I am older, slower, and I'm alright with carrying more lbs on me than the skinny, chicken wing slinging, kid I was back then.  I'd like to lose about 20 lbs though and get my BMI into the healthy range.  So how am I going to do it?

     Incentive.  That's what I need and my family is going to supply some of it for me.  My sister,  "She-Who- Shall-Not-Be-Named" is starting a 12 week weight lost contest on our family website, and I have joined it along with about 12 members of my family.  I am a very competitive individual, so once I get involved in

something like this, I'll do my best to win it.  The second incentive I will have is that I am going to give up alcohol entirely until I meet or exceed my 20lb goal.  Wow, even I could hear the collective gasp from the readers of this blog, and I suspect several bartenders in Canandaigua NY just had to be revived after passing out.  I've given up alcohol for Lent before, so I know I can do it, and since I do enjoy drinking socially, this will give me that added oomph I need to see me to my goal (In the interest of full disclosure,I am excluding a 4 day planned vacation in Jan from this restriction).  I anticipate getting to my goal in 6-7 weeks.  I've downloaded an app to my phone that will help me track what I eat, and I'm likely going to go on the South Beach diet.  My wife and I have had success with this one before and we both can stay on it, so we are less likely to fall off because we can support each other.  The last thing I am going to do is to increase my exercise to an hour a day.  This should double the amount of calories I burn each day, so it should get me to my goal that much quicker.  My exercise is going to be a combination of walking, biking, Wii exercise, weight lifting, and using an elliptical.  I have some arthritis issues, so I've picked exercises that I can do any day, regardless of any arthritic flare up. That's the plan, plain and simple. 

     As I finish this, I'd ask for your moral support in helping me reach my goal.  I'll take both prayers and well wishes.  If you need a DD in the next few months I am available (What? I said that I would stop drinking, not stop going out, after all)  It's going to be an interesting couple of months, and I'm sure I'll share my progress with you on this blog.  Wish me luck, and I'll let you know if I find that six-pack.