There I was, 285 lbs. I knew what I had to do, right? Gotta find a diet. I couldn't possibly begin to consider losing weight without a diet. No one on God's green earth loses weight without the diet. How much weight did I want to lose? Absolutely no clue. How fast could I lose it? No idea. How fast did I want to lose it...ASAP.
OK. I had at least established a timeline. ASAP. I was brilliant.
First things first. Did I really need a diet? I mean, there are other options right? There is that Gastric bypass surgery that Carnie Wilson (Wilson Phillips, daughter of the Beach Boy?) had. She lost a lot of weight. Even posed for Playboy. Then I saw some more recent photo's...I don't think she will be back for the anniversary issue. How could you possibly put weight on when your stomach has been basically shrunk to the size of an avacado? You must have to eat 24/7 and never move! Well the thought of that method just was plain scary.
Ok, how about liposuction? I knew only one thing about that process, and it had to be true because I saw it on "Nip/Tuck" (the Fox show with the perverted plastic surgery doctors), and that was that it was maybe the grossest thing I had ever seen. A plastic pipe with a point on it and a huge vacuum (it looked like a shop vac for the basement when it floods) at the other end with a retainer that, of course, was see-through so you could see all the fat being sucked up. They jabbed and jabbed the thing into this huge person. Left, right, up, down...jab, jab, jab. I half expected to see a lung get sucked out. How do you NOT damage major organs?
All right, a diet was sounding better with each passing moment. Now the real chore, how to pick the right diet. I should say for the record that I was no stranger to diets.
I did my first diet in 1972 at 10 years old. I was in 5th grade. I was also in very "husky" pants. I remember this because the Wrangler jeans actually said it right on the tag. "Husky 34". They should just have said "Elephant 34", they could have been the very first pair of Grr-animals. The doctor told my mother I needed to go on a diet. He told her all the rules (because diets have rules...strict rules) and gave her the list of foods I could and couldn't eat. My mother was about 35 lbs overweight at the time...I was in great hands. I lost a little weight. I lost a lot of self esteem. I learned some very covert military tactics on how to eat food without being seen.
I did a diet in 1979. At 17 years of age, I was 220 lbs and about 5'10". As a Junior in High School I was not what one would call "Marketable." No social life to speak of. I decided I was not going to spend my Senior year like I spent my Soph and Junior years. In 4 months, I lost 60 lbs and grew 2 inches. My body was probably relieved from the weight loss. From May of '79 to September of '79 I ate one small meal a day and nothing else but fruit and water. I began exercising like a fiend and by the end of summer could run 10 miles at a clip. I weighed 160 lbs. I got contact lenses. My friends didn't know who I was. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I also got dates. Mission accomplished. But the weight didn't stay off. I hadn't changed my lifestyle, I had just modified it for 4 months.
About 1990, I went on another diet. I was at approximately 255 then and now a fully grown 6 foot tall adult. This time, it was Weight Watchers. My buddy Dan had been going and doing ok. He suggested it and off we went. He told me we would weigh in and not stay for the meetings. "Why?", I asked. Dan is not one for big talk..."it sucks."
"Well why don't we stay, just this once?"
"I have stayed before. You'll see. We can stay."
We weighed in and sat down in a group of about 30. I looked around and counted 4 men. Then it started. Discussion about food. What they loved about food. What they missed about food. What foods they could still eat if they didn't eat other things. Food they could swim in...it was endless. It reached its crescendo when, and this is 100% true, a woman stood up screaming "I can't take this anymore" and bolted out the door and into the parking lot. The last time I saw her, she was moving like a bat out of hell toward the McDonald's on the other side of the parking lot. Dan and I never went back to the meetings. We DID continue to weigh-in weekly. The discipline of weighing (and paying $10 to stand on a scale) kept me in line and I went back to jogging/running. I lost about 45 lbs.
I did a high-protein low carb diet around 2003...I lost about 35 lbs. But I started that diet at about 265 and got to about 230 lbs.
Seeing a pattern here? In May of 2008, I weighed 285 lbs. I was kind of afraid of the next diet. Not because I thought I couldn't lose the weight...because I was afraid that by 2010 I might weigh 330 lbs!!! Hey, I can do math, I understand trends.
So what diet should I pick? Do you know that if you search the web there is a web site that lists a complete list of diets? The complete list...right. There are about 300 diets on this list. If you don't believe me, look for yourself at
Diet List
Are you kidding me? If you ask people where you work if they are on a diet, do you know how many people say 'yes'? Most. And with 300 diets out there, well, I must be one of the few fatties left in the world right? Wrong. Do I have to quote the obesity figures to you? Just go to Walmart and take a look at some of God's beautiful creatures waltzing up and down the aisle. We are having a party folks...at our own expense. Picking the right diet was the key to success here.
So I was in the cafeteria at work and I saw a guy I knew well. About 4 months earlier, he and I had been in a class together and he was in awful shape. Acid Reflux, back issues, Sleep Apnea...wait that was me! Just kidding, it was him and his story was all too familiar. But, he looked like the shell of the person I had seen 4 mths ago.
"What have you been doing, Ray?"
"I am on a medically supervised diet at Miriam Hospital in Providence (Rhode Island), and it's called Optifast." It was the diet Oprah went on years back. He had lost a phenomenal amount of weight very quickly and looked and felt fantastic. "It's not just a diet though Dick, it's an education to change how you think about food and how you live your life." All his symptoms of illness were gone. I needed more information.
I got on the phone and made a call that would change my life.
Next: Orientation!
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