The New Me

This is me around August 1, 2010, when I suspect I was at my heaviest. I have to figure I'm an easy 305-310 here:

And this is me today, May 5, 2014:

Granted, the weight came off in chunks. I made a bargain with a friend to lose weight around this time, and the easy 20 came off in the Autumn of that year. Then the stroke took me down to about 265, and since February 1st or so I've lost about another 40 so far (I figure I'm around 228 as it stands right now). That means I've lost more or less 80 pounds since the uppermost pictures.

I guess the best way to describe how I'm doing it is, I'm just paying attention to my Diabetes. I have found that as long as you eat the right foods (or perhaps better put, abstain from the wrong ones), the weight kind of takes care of itself. And since I've realized what had to be done, the weight has just flown off of me. I'm losing about 5 pounds every six weeks, which is to my mind a perfect weight-loss rate.

My mindset toward food has changed on a pretty fundamental level. At this point, I view food as nothing more than sustenance. Now, you skinny people will look at that sentence and ask, with all good intentions, "What the hell else is food, if not sustenance?" Well, most if not all overweight people eat for a myriad of reasons other than hunger, and they know exactly what I mean. Food is a crutch, a friend, a presser of the pleasure button, something to be luxuriated in. I should know - I've been overweight my entire life.  For a fat person to change his attitude toward food so radically, in such a short period of time, is remarkable. I mean, once before I lost a fair amount of weight but it never changed how I felt about food - I just summoned the will to overcome it. Now I just have a different attitude towards it.

In fact, come to think of it, I have a different attitude towards EVERYTHING. I'm no longer the miserable troll eking out a lonely existence in his basement. I'm now a happy, reasonably well-adjusted troll eking out a lonely existence in his basement. But even that might be changing soon. For I have announced to a few choice friends of mine that I am once again looking for gainful employment and hope soon to adopt a more or less normal diurnal rhythm, not entirely unlike most human beings.

It's safe to say that everything about me is changed. And I am really, REALLY looking forward to what the next year will bring. When I think of what I will be in a year - who I will be - I want to press the fast-forward button and be there.

I guess, though, I'll just enjoy the walk, on this bright, bright sun-shiney day.