Travelling Didn't Make Me Fat

I just got back from a business trip to New Jersey.  I'll write more about what I did while I was there, but there's something else on my mind right now.  Travelling is always difficult with weight loss.  It disrupts my schedule so exercise becomes more difficult.  I have a less controlled environment, which makes eating the right things more difficult.  So I was concerned that my weight loss would hit a bump in the road this week.

I was particularly concerned because I've been at a bit of a plateau lately.  Even though I lost a full inch off my waist last month, my total weight loss for March was 0.4 pounds.  But in the first week of April, I lost an additional pound, so I was finally making progress again.  I didn't want this week of travel to undermine my progress so that I couldn't catch up again until the end of the month.

When I go on vacation, I often give myself a bit of leeway to just enjoy it, and accept that it might take a week or two to make up my losses.  But since this was a business trip and not a vacation, I wanted to save my free pass to eat for my cruise this summer.  (Because there is going to be some serious deliciousness on that cruise ship.)

I think I did pretty well.  It wasn't the easiest thing in the world.  The first thing that's difficult is that my normal routine includes eating 6 times a day.  I have breakfast, lunch and dinner, with 3 snacks on top of that.  I've read that doing that keeps your metabolism up all day.  But that's not why I do it.  I do it so that I'm able to eat small meals but not feel like I'm starving to death by the next meal.  I'm also able to keep all sorts of healthy snacks on hand.  I usually have apples, oranges and nuts at my desk at work.  I also love to cook up asparagus or other vegetables in the afternoons.  On this trip I spent 3 days in a conference room.  I didn't think other people would appreciate it if I kept a bag of apples on the conference room table.

This meant I had to eat more at my meals.  That's not terrible except for 2 reasons.  One is that I have trained my body to stop at a certain point, and I don't know how to go beyond that point to the point where I can last for 4 or 5 hours without a snack but without overeating as well.  The other is that the catered meals I was eating did not have very many options for fruits and vegetables.  But I did my best, trying to take reasonable portions, and eating whatever vegetables were offered.  The one day there was a salad option, I took a heaping plate of it and I was very excited.

One evening I went out to eat with a group of managers and other individuals who had traveled from out of town.  I was really proud of myself.  I ordered a dish from the lite menu that was mainly chicken and vegetables.  It was delicious and I was satisfied.  Then it came time to order dessert.

I'm used to being the weird guy.  I was already the weird guy that drank water instead of wine with my meal.  I was the weird guy who didn't order any coffee.  But being the weird guy who didn't get any dessert was just too much.  (I probably could have handled being weird, but I really didn't want to sit there and watch everyone else eat delicious dessert.)  So I did splurge that night, and got a delicious chocolate peanut butter mousse.  It was the greatest thing in my life and totally worth it.

I figured out after the first day that I could take a couple apples from the breakfast buffet in the hotel and put those in my hotel room for the evening.  That allowed me to have a healthy snack after dinner which meant I could eat smaller portions during dinner.

Even with a few splurges and without my normal routine, I totally didn't gain any weight this whole week.  I was very proud of myself.

That's probably way more details than you wanted to read about my daily habits.  I guess I wrote this just to illustrate the kind of mental shift that is required to lose weight.  Sometimes even with that mental shift, it's a lot harder without the tools that you've filled your environment with.  But it's still possible.

Sorry if this post bored you.  Congratulations if you made it all the way to the end.  I promise I'll write about some of the things I did on the trip very soon.  Hopefully, that will be more interesting.

That Time I Accidentally Mooned all the Men in the Temple

Losing weight is hard.  I'm not talking about the exercise you have to do every day, or the fact that you have to watch what you eat.  Those are hard, but they've been a part of my life for over a year now.  I'm used to them, and I've learned pretty well when I need to be hardcore about it and when I need to let myself splurge.

No, what I'm talking about is a danger much more sinister.  Losing weight puts you in a position where you have 2 choices, neither of which is something any sane person would want to go through.  You see, when you lose weight your body shape tends to be in constant flux.  Clothes that fit you a few months ago will suddenly no longer fit.

These are the 2 choices you are presented with that I mentioned above:

The first is a true terror.  Something I try to never ever do.  Go shopping for clothes.  Are you with me?  What person would ever choose to do this?  If you have a constant, unchanging size, this is a pretty simple process.  You go online, find something with the correct number on it, buy it and receive a box a few days later.  It's painless and simple.  (This process only works for males.  From what I hear, sizes are relatively meaningless in the female world.)

But if you don't really know your size or what fits, because it has changed since a month ago, this is a horrible experience.  You have to wander around the store for a while, looking at prices and thinking about how you have perfectly good clothes at home, and this money should go toward buying something awesome.  Then you have to select something that you can stomach spending money on.  Then you have to go into a dressing room guarded by a clothes folding sentinel, feel really awkward taking off your clothes in a store, put on the item you picked, realize it doesn't fit and then repeat the process until you either find something that you're willing to live with, or you claw your own eyes out in frustration.  (The two outcomes have about an equal chance of happening.)

As terrible as the first option is, it turns out that delaying the first option leads to the inevitable second option.  The first option may be terrible, but at least you can choose when it happens and you can prepare for it.  The second option comes when you least expect it.  Of course, the second option is to participate in public nudity.  I've already told you about the time the wind blew my clothes off.  That was a relatively painless form of public nudity.  I was outside, so it was technically public, but no one was outside with me.  Anyone that saw me was just peeking out a window and we don't have to look each other in the eye and ever acknowledge that it happened.

This one was a little more public.

I'll start at the beginning.  I went to the temple with some family members.  I always wear a suit to the temple, and then I change into my white clothes in the dressing room.  I ran into my good friend Cameron, who works at the temple, as I was walking in.  We chatted for a few moments.  He mentioned that my suit is beginning to look ginormous on me.  (My suit is one of the items I haven't replaced.  I get cranky about spending 10 bucks on a pair of shorts.  Do you think I want to spend $300 on a suit?)  I casually mentioned that I was a little worried about my white pants.  The last time I had been to the temple was a month earlier, and I had noticed that my pants were starting to get really loose.  I had meant to get a belt before it got to be a problem, but had not yet done so.

"You know you can rent clothes, right?  I'll even give you the money if you're worried about that."

I should have listened to Cameron, that wise old sage.  I wasn't worried about the money.  It's like 75 cents.  I just figured I had only lost a pound since last month.  It shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Fast forward to the actual temple session.  There are portions of the ceremony where you need to stand up.  During one of these times, I felt a little breezy in the back.  I reached back to pull up my pants, thinking they were riding a little low, and that's when I realized the terrible truth.  It was my underwear that was riding a little low.  My pants were no longer a part of the picture.  Luckily, during this part of the ceremony, I was surrounded by men.  Not that men want to see my backside any more than women, but it seems slightly less embarrassing.

The title of this post is a little misleading.  I didn't actually moon anyone, because I still had under garments covering the essential pieces (though they were definitely riding low, and I won't claim that nothing was revealed) but my pants were definitely not contributing to keeping anything covered.

I totally looked like those punk kids who can't keep their clothes on.  That would be embarrassing anytime, but the temple makes it a special kind of embarrassing.

There is one shining light that makes this whole thing bearable.  I've been a little discouraged that I've only lost like 2 pounds over the past few months.  But, at least this shows that the change in my body shape is still fairly dramatic.

P.S. I bought a white belt on Amazon the moment I got home.  I didn't even have to go to a store.  Crisis averted.

Weight Loss: It's Not a Race

I like data.  I like anything I can measure in numbers.  I like graphs and charts and statistics and percentages.  That's why I've been measuring everything about myself as I've been losing weight.

At the end of every month, I weigh myself, and measure my belly, arms, legs, neck, you name it.

It's fun when those measurements have drastic changes.  I had one month where I lost 2 inches off my belly.  I had one month where I lost 10 pounds.  I had one month where my body fat percentage dropped 3.8 points.

Then I have also had months like November.  My weight loss in the month of November was 0.4 pounds.

Did it have something to do with this?

Ya, probably.

Or this?

Most definitely.

While I did do lots of exercise over the month of November, I also allowed myself to splurge much more than normal.

The result was that I basically didn't lose any weight in November.

On the last day of every month, I look forward to seeing my numbers, and looking over my (geeky) little spread sheet.  But when I saw that particular number I was discouraged.

Robyn, in an attempt to cheer me up said, "At least you didn't gain any weight over Thanksgiving."  She's of course, correct.  Many people gain weight over the holidays.  So far, I've just managed to maintain over the holidays.

But then I got to thinking about it more.  There's a show I watch called extreme weight loss.  In it, Chris Powell helps morbidly obese people transform their lives over the course of one year.  Many of them lose 200+ pounds in a year.  There was one particular episode that inspired me.  This particular individual had a severe food addiction.  He could not bring himself to follow the meal plan.  He worked out really hard, but he also wouldn't stop going out for fast food.

The goal Chris had set for him was to lose something like 75 pounds in 3 months.  At the end of the 3 month period, he had lost about 30 pounds.  Chris was furious.  He was so disappointed that this guy had not lived up to his full potential.

But when I watched that I saw something completely different.  I didn't see failure.  I saw someone who could succeed without being perfect.  That unintentional message may have changed my life forever.

I may have lost very little weight in November, but let me tell you about a few other numbers.

In November my biceps increased by 1/4 inch.  (For a while they were decreasing because I had so much fat on my arms.  The fat has finally moved out of the way so that muscle can increase it.)

In November, I worked up to the point where I do 80 pushups every morning.

In November, I set a new record of being able to climb 2700 feet in under 2 hours.

In November, the highest I ever saw my blood sugar was 123.

Looking at those numbers I realized that perhaps weight was never the best measure in the first place.  But, more importantly, I realized that it's okay to indulge on occasion.  It's okay to not be perfect.  And it's okay if sometimes progress is slower than others.

As with many things, it's not a race.  It doesn't matter how fast you get there.  It matters what direction you're going.

In The Closet

Today's post is short. I just wanted to share some pictures of me in the closet. Sorry if you thought the title implied it was something it wasn't.

Just over a year ago, my friend Melissa gave Robyn and I a tour of her new house.  She was a proud new homeowner and we walked through talking about future plans for each room, discussing the little projects, pointing out the cute things we liked, etc.  At one point, I discovered that her closet was the exact height of one Jeff.  Naturally, Robyn snapped a picture.

I do weird stuff like that all the time.  I thought nothing of it.  Until a year later, I was looking at old photos and happened to come across that picture.  It also just so happened that Melissa invited us over for dinner and some good times this past week.  I decided the only logical course of action was to wear the exact same shirt that I had worn a year ago, so that when I was reunited with the closet, it would recognize me.

Above are the 2 pictures, side by side.

It turns out I used to be a fairly large individual.  (And I used to have a super sexy beard.)  When I took the first picture, I had no intention of it being a "before" picture.  The second picture is certainly not an "after" picture, because I still have plenty more to do before I reach optimal health.  But I was kind of surprised to realize how far I've come in a year in improving my health.

The old me couldn't even put my arms straight down.  (And Robyn pointed out that I had a very endearing waddle.)

Hopefully next November I can visit Melissa's closet again.  It's really the best way to measure progress.

Fat Toys and Snuggle Tummies

The world needs more honesty.  Luckily,  the world is filled with children.  Precious, honest children.

The other day Robyn's brother came over to visit.  He brought 3 of his children and we had fun visiting and playing.

My 4-year-old niece had just made some very important acquisitions.  She had acquired a set of toys based on the various characters from Disney's Tangled.  Of course, if you had just obtained a collection of such value, you would want to show it off, amiright?  She was doing just that, she was showing us all of the toys, one by one.  With each toy, she told us who it was and gave us background information so that we could truly understand the character.

As she went through, she was saying things like, "This is Maximus, he's a horsie."  "This is Rapunzel, she has long hair, like me."  "This is her mom, she's not nice."

She got through all of them, and then she came to this guy:

She held him proudly in the air.  She looked right at me with a giant grin and a sparkle in her eye and said, "He's fat like you, Jeff!"

I've lost 55 pounds so far this year.  I've walked 260 miles.  I've burned 192,500 calories more than I've eaten.  I've worked my tail off.  Some might think the 4-year-old honesty in that moment would be discouraging.  But, if you could see the look in her eyes when she said it you would see how much love that statement contained.  There was no judgment or malice, merely an observation that her uncle whom she loves shares an attribute with her toy that she loves.

Besides, how could anything said by someone this cute be taken negatively?

The good news is that her equally honest siblings have acknowledged my weight loss.  So, it hasn't gone entirely unnoticed in the world of childdom.  Both of her older siblings have told me in recent months that they are very disappointed that my snuggle tummy is shrinking.  Several times in recent weeks they have asked to snuggle with my tummy before it disappears.

This is her older sister making proper use of the snuggle tummy about a year ago, before it started shrinking.

The snuggle tummy has been very important to all of them for a long time.  When their mom was pregnant, I was told, "My mom has a tummy like yours, but it's not for snuggling because there's a baby inside."

So here's what I've learned from talking to my nieces.

1.  I may have lost weight but I haven't completed my journey yet.
2.  Snuggling is really important.
3.  I will always be loved, regardless of what I look like.
4.  Little girls are really cute.

What have you learned from the wisdom and honesty of little children?

Fat Guy in a Little Coat

Robyn and I had the opportunity to go to Bear Lake with some friends this past weekend.  It was loads of fun, and I'll tell you more about it in just a moment.  But first, the tale of the fat guy in a little coat.

While we were at Bear Lake, Robyn and I were reminiscing about a trip we took to Bear Lake with my family in 2009.  We had spent the entire day in the lake, and that evening the whole family went out for pizza.

There was something funky going on with my body.  Apparently the lake had lowered my body temperature, and then the air conditioning in the restaurant formed the perfect storm that caused me to be cold.  I need to repeat that just in case you didn't fully comprehend.  I was cold.  That's not an occurrence that happens very frequently, or ever.  I'm the guy who wears flip flops in sub-zero weather.

Of course, I wasn't prepared for the possibility of getting cold.  It was August.  It was hot outside.  Luckily, I married someone who gets cold no matter how hot it is.  (One of my favorite quotes from Robyn is, "It's getting cold outside, yesterday it was in the eighties.")  Robyn was kind enough to loan me her jacket.  Much hilarity ensued, as I became the fat guy in a little coat.  But at least I stopped shivering.

I was the most precious fat guy in a little coat there ever was.

You may be wondering why I told you that ancient story.  Well, like I said earlier, Robyn and I were reminiscing about the time I had to borrow her coat.  Then, I actually looked at the picture.

It turns out I was a big dude back then.  I had like 14 chins or something.

Every time I look at a picture like that I am somewhat blown away.  I guess since I see myself every day, the changes aren't noticeable from day to day.  I look at myself and see how much further I have to go.  Perhaps I forget how far I've already come.

Here are Robyn and I from this past weekend.

I know Robyn is the cuter one in the pic.  But I have a surprisingly low number of chins.  I'm sure that doesn't excite the rest of you like it does me.  Sometimes I just have to stop and look at how far I've come.  Because I still have just as far to go.

Besides the realization that there is much less of me in the world, it was also a great weekend overall.

I know this post has multiple personality disorder, but I'm now going to transition from telling you I'm excited that I have less chins to telling you about our trip to Bear Lake.

We got there Friday night.  Utah has had some crazy weather lately with plenty of rain and storms.  Laketown was no exception and we lost all power that night.  Luckily, Robyn had brought some glow in the dark bracelets.  A dark house is perfect for just such a toy.  How awesome is that?

Yes.  Toys meant for 8 year olds are perfect for us.

The next morning I got up early to do my exercise.  There were no moose like last week, but I did see such wildlife as falcons, deer, and cows.  (The falcons and deer were wild.  The cows not so much, so perhaps they weren't wildlife, but just life.)  I also climbed halfway up a mountain.  I would have gone to the top but I was worried I wouldn't be back in time for breakfast.  (It's the most important meal of the day.)

I did get high enough for this view.

The water in the foreground is a little fishing pond.  Bear Lake is way in the distance.

After Breakfast we all spent the entire day at the lake.

I got to spend time with fabulous people.

A trip to Bear Lake is not complete until you hug a buoy.

It was a great weekend.  I think the relaxation was just perfect for Robyn after her first week back to teaching this year.

I feel relaxed just looking at this picture.  It's even better being there.

Twenty Nine States

I had the opportunity this past week to go to Durham, North Carolina. I was travelling for business and I went out there to meet with a client for a new project. I'd tell you all about the project I went out there for, but the truth is that you don't care. I'll just say that it fits in with my life mission to increase efficiency in the world.

The important thing about my visit to North Carolina is that it is a state I have never before visited.  That makes 29 states which have had the pleasure of having me set foot within their borders.

For your convenience, I have included this handy dandy map of every state I have visited.  Green means go, as in I have gone there.  White means meanie pants, as in, the people in those states never invite me over to hang out which is totally mean.

Is your state white?  Invite me over to fix the problem.

Most of my time in NC was spent working.  However, I did have a little bit of time to explore the area.  Here are a few of my experiences and observations.

Billions of trees
The first thing I noticed when I arrived in North Carolina was that there were so many trees.  I was in a big city, but it felt very rural, because everywhere I drove all I could see was trees.  I took a short walk from the office building where I was working.  I only walked a few hundred yards and I was in the middle of a forest.

I told my boss that we need to get a trail going through a forest at our office in Utah.

Driving through the city I was constantly amazed, but it wasn't until I got on the plane to go home that I really understood how many trees there were.

You wouldn't think there was a city in there, but there are 700,000 people hiding in those trees.

The Silent Sam controversy
I was told that Silent Sam is a landmark I need to go see.  It turns out, Silent Sam is very controversial.  Since he honors the UNC graduates who fought in the Civil War, some feel that he is glorifying the Confederacy, and by extension, slavery.

Silent Sam

To the sons of the University who entered the war of 1861-65 in answer to the call of their country and whose lives taught the lesson of their great commander that duty is the sublimest word in the English language.

To me, that plaque doesn't seem offensive.  It doesn't even mention the Confederacy or slavery.  However, I'm not taking sides in the controversy.  I'm just a cute little tourist.

A real southern meal
We went out to eat with some locals.  I was assured that if I wanted a truly Southern experience, I should order the shrimp and grits.

I've never had grits before, so I don't know what it's normally like.  If I'm being honest, the grits were kind of flavorless.  However, the gravy that was over them was absolutely delicious.  Of course, the shrimp was fabulous because it happens to be shrimp which is always fabulous.

Chapel Hill?
There is a "hill" in Chapel Hill, NC that has a bunch of chapels on it.  I assume that is where it gets its name.  However, if that "hill" were in Utah, it would be called, "flat area with some chapels on it."  I know that's not quite as cool of a name as Chapel Hill, but it would be more accurate.  To test how much of a hill it was, we put the car in neutral and let it coast.  There was a slight downward slope, however the car maxed out at 20 mph on the steepest part.  I'll let you decide if that qualifies as a hill.

Skinny on the plane
Okay, this really has nothing to do with North Carolina.  However, this was my first time on a plane since I began my weight loss journey.  For years, every time I've ridden a plane I've had to ask for a seat belt extender.  This time, not only did I not need one, but I had lots of extra room with the regular seat belt.

I sent the above picture to my wife when I got on the plane.  I was very excited.

Marriage tip:  Even if your wife is excited about your weight loss, a picture like this will not excite her at 5:45 AM. Her response when I sent this picture was short and to the point:  "Good.  I'm asleep."

Oops!

Managing Diabetes on a Cruise

If you've been following my blog at all you know that I recently returned from an Alaskan cruise.

It was an amazing experience.  I loved every minute of it.  Of course, on a cruise there is plentiful food.  Every meal is all-you-can-eat and not everything is health food.  Those who are aware of my quest for weight loss have asked me how I handled weight loss and diabetes management on a cruise.

There are 2 parts to my diabetes management.  The first is the daily managing of my blood sugar.  This involves limiting my intake of carbohydrates.  It also involves keeping my physical activity up so that my muscles use the sugar that is in my blood.

The second part is losing weight.  Fat cells do not process sugar, and the leaner the muscle is, the better it processes sugar.  So the more weight I lose, the better I can process sugar.  My weight loss journey involves three things: I do weight training three times a week to build lean muscle, I do walking 6 days a week as a form of cardio and I limit my caloric intake.

Before I left on the cruise I decided that I was still going to manage my blood sugar, but I was not going to worry about weight loss at all.  That meant that I could eat all the calories I want, but not all the carbs I want.

There were a few times that those rules were difficult, but for the most part it was pretty easy.  For example, that means that on the last night I ordered both the prime rib and the lobster, but I ordered the sugar free dessert.  I didn't order sugar free with every meal, but I did lots of sugar free desserts and I think I tried every sugar free option the ship offered at one point or another.  The buffet area always had these delicious sugar free mousses that were amazing.  I really didn't feel like I was missing out at all.

I found that there were always healthy options.  You really didn't have to overindulge, but of course, the option to overindulge always existed.  The menu always pointed out which option was the low calorie option.  Sometimes I took that option, other times I didn't.

Of course, the second part of managing my blood sugar is making sure that I get plenty of physical activity.  On days in port, that was easy.  There was nothing I wanted to do in Alaska more than go hiking, so that got my physical activity taken care of.

It was a little bit harder on days at sea, but luckily the ship had a track on the top deck.  I put in a lot of miles on that track.

The first day at sea, traveling from Seattle to Alaska, we were in open ocean.  The ship was traveling 30 mph into a 20 mph wind.  That meant there was a relative wind of 50 mph blowing across the top deck.  That was the funnest exercise ever!  I walked 3 miles in that 50 mph wind.  As I walked on the starboard side, I was walking into the wind so it was like a hard core hike.  On the port side it was at my back, so I pretty much just lifted my legs and the wind did the rest of the work.  So I would run on the port side and walk on starboard.  Super fun!

Other sea days there was less wind and more scenery.  I'll be honest, I can't think of anything on the ship that I could do that would be as fun as walking and enjoying Alaska scenery.  I took this little video to give an idea of what it was like.

I walked 5.5 miles the morning I took that video.  That's 22 times around that ship.  That may sound like a lot but the guy who lapped me 6 times during those 5.5 miles probably didn't think I was too impressive.

So, that's how I managed my diabetes.  I don't have super good data on where my blood sugar was at.  I normally test my blood 2 hours after eating.  Every time I ate, I made a mental note to test in 2 hours, but I always got involved in some adventure and didn't think to test until 3 or 4 hours later.  Every time I tested my blood sugar, it was within the expected range, but since I was slow to test, it may have gone high once or twice without my knowledge.

How about my weight loss?  Since I wasn't trying to lose weight how did I do?  Well, the morning I got back I weighed myself and I had gone up 5 pounds.  But I fluctuate 2-3 pounds from day to day, so it was really only 2 pounds above the margin of error.

Here is a graph of my weight loss for the past 3 months.

As you can see, the weight melted off pretty fast after the cruise.  In fact, my total weight loss this year is now over 50 pounds!  I have a Dr. appointment later this week.  I had my family members try to guess what my A1C will be.  I'll let you know how that goes.

I Lost Forty Five Pounds

So it turns out I'm better at this weight loss thing then I thought.

Remember back when I said that my weight loss goal for the year was to reach 250 pounds?  When I made the goal I was 293 pounds.  I figured a 43 pound loss would be pretty good for the year.  That's just under 1 pound a week.

Well, as of this morning I was 248 pounds.  I blew past my yearly goal 2 pounds ago.  I've lost 45 pounds.

Remember when I said that my shorts have started falling off?  I've taken to pulling them up over my belly.  But my belly has shrunk enough that they are starting to fall off even then.

Don't worry.  I'm still precious.

The good news is that they only fall off my belly when I'm on the treadmill.  The only other person that's there is usually Dr. Who, and he's generally too busy saving the world to notice that I'm watching him while I walk.

I may have to break down and get some new shorts here, soon.  I'm also drowning in my white shirt I wear to church.  This weight loss thing could get expensive.  But the worst part?  I can't order Google Glass.

Remember how my reward was going to be to get Glass when I hit the goal?  That was going to be so perfect.  I would hit the goal at the end of the year just in time to preorder.  Well, here I am, a precious 45 pounds later, and Google hasn't seen fit to put it on sale.

Several people have told me I should set a new goal.  I agree with them.  But, I should emphasize, I already earned Glass, and I'm preordering it the moment it's available.  Just because I have a new goal doesn't mean I have to meet it to have my shiny new wearable computer.

So here's the new goal.  I want to get to 223 pounds by the end of the year.  That would be an annual weight loss of 70 pounds.  More importantly, when I got home after serving a 2 year mission for my church, I was 230 pounds.  That would mean I would be the thinnest I've been in over a decade.

Wish me luck!

I Was Fat in Hawaii

The last few months I've been working really hard to lose weight.  Though, I've seen progress on the scale (and more importantly, in my ability to move around and enjoy my life) I wasn't entirely convinced that there were any visible changes.

Then I was looking at pictures of our Hawaii vacation last year.  This is me in the Maui airport about 10 months ago.

Don't get me wrong, I was quite precious.  But I just now noticed my dewlap made of fat.

Here is me right now.  (Well, not exactly, I took the picture like 3 minutes ago.)

I still have plenty to lose, but there's a noticeable difference, amiright?

Naturally, after looking at my reflection in the phone, it was important to try and recreate how I looked in the Hawaii picture.

Perhaps I haven't made any progress after all.

The Incredible Vanishing Bum

I don't have a bum.

It's a reality I've come to live with.  I have zero junk in the trunk.  There's plenty of junk everywhere else, but the trunk is entirely empty.

This is my body shape

As you can see, I have more than enough belly.  But it pretty much goes straight down on the back side.

This has always been a difficult issue for me.  My belly likes to push downward on my pants.  However, where most people can rely on their bum to fight the downward forces of the belly and help to hold the pants up, I have no bum to speak of.  So I am always having to pull up my pants, regardless of how tight my belt is.

That's how my situation has been for a long time.  Well, recently I've been working really hard to control my diet and do more exercise.  I've had a good amount of success.  I've lost about 25 pounds and I weigh less than I did on my wedding day.  That's the good news.  The bad news is, I'm pretty sure that 20 pounds of that has come out of my bum.

I don't have any empirical evidence to prove that number.  But here's my entirely non scientific proof.

1.  My belly still looks the same size to me.
2.  Every item of clothing that is supposed to go around my waist totally falls off now.
3.  (This is the most compelling evidence)  My bum totally hurts if I sit for longer than 20 minutes.  It feels like I'm sitting directly on bones.

This is what I envision is happening in my body.

Subordinate Officer:  Sir, we appear to be burning more calories than we are bringing in.  Request we use some fat stores.
Chief Metabolism Officer: You have my permission to use the fat from the trunk area.
Subordinate:  Sir, that area has a very limited supply.  Shouldn't we leave some to be used as a cushion for sitting?  Request permission to use fat from the belly.
Chief:  The belly?  Are you talking about his snuggle tummy?  Permission denied!

(My 8 year old niece told me she doesn't want my snuggle tummy to get any smaller.)

I'm looking for a new chief metabolism officer.  I'm not really sure who hired him, but I fear that if his behavior continues I'm going to look like this.

I could have the first concave bum in history.

The Skinniest My Wife Has Ever Seen Me

This morning I stepped on the scale and had a happy moment.  The little viewport said 270 pounds.  That is an important number for 2 reasons.  The first is that the last time I started dieting was in 2011.  I lost about 20 pounds and got down to 271, then I had a relapse and remembered how much I like eating more than I like exercising.

But this means I have officially surpassed the success of my previous attempt.

The second reason is that 270 is lower than my weight was on my wedding day.  That means, I have officially erased the last 4 years of weight gain.  In addition, I am now the skinniest my wife has ever seen me.

Look how cute I was back then

Lest you be confused, I will state plainly that 270 means I'm still a large individual.  I still have a long way to go.  So Robyn and I decided to come up with an incentive program to help us (but mostly me) motivate ourselves to continue striving to be more healthy.

We have a portion of our budget that we use for saving up for toys for both of us.  We decided that account will be the official motivation account.  We both had to devote some of our personal fun money to that account as a buy in for our new motivational program.

The above paragraph is a long way of saying that I don't get Google Glasses until I get down to 250 pounds.  It should be noted that my goal for this year was 250 pounds anyway.  Since Google has said that they will be releasing this fantastic gadget by the end of the year,  I thought it would be a fitting motivator.

Fun fact:  The act of losing weight coupled with the act of buying Google Glasses will make my hair grow back.

I'm hoping that when I buy the glasses, they will allow me to keep my own eyes and not force me to steal someone else's eyes like I did with the badly photoshopped picture above.

There are other goals and rewards set up to help me continue to make progress beyond that point.  But I will write more about those when they are closer.  For now, let's all just get excited for the geek with the super awesome wearable computer on his face, who weighs 20 pounds less than the geek who is writing this blog post right now.