serolynne and I have been experimenting with intermittent fasting this month, and I have been amazed with the results.

This has been the simplest, most effective, and easiest to stick to shift in my diet I have ever tried.

And I've lost 11 lbs since January 1st, dropping from 250lbs to 239lbs!

The basic premise is simple - eat whatever you want for 24 hours, and then limit yourself to less than 400 calories for the next 24 hours. Your body very quickly adapts to this routine, you don't get particularly hungry once your body learns to trust that a full meal is at most just a few hours away, and the whole process is a lot less extreme than things like the Master Cleanse (lemonade only diet) that we experimented with last year.

Sure - I lost 10lbs in just one week on the Master Cleanse (and I did keep it off for months), but this diet and the more gradual weight loss accompanying it seems a LOT more sustainable for the long term.

I first heard about intermittent fasting (also sometimes called a "modified calorie reduction diet") after seeing this article in the New York Times. In part:

The study was notable because it followed another study earlier this year that found that skipping meals every other day could actually improve a patient’s health. In that study, published in March in Free Radical Biology & Medicine, overweight adults with mild asthma ate normal meals one day. This was followed by a day of severely restricted eating, when they ate less than 20 percent of their normal caloric intake, or about 400 or 500 calories a day — the equivalent of about one meal. Nine out of 10 study participants were able to stick to the eating plan.

After following the alternate-day dieting pattern for two months, the dieters lost an average of 8 percent of their body weight, and their asthma-related symptoms also improved. They had lower cholesterol and triglycerides, “striking” reductions in markers of oxidative stress and increased levels of the antioxidant uric acid. Markers of inflammation were also significantly lower.

Wow - impressive!

Researching this diet further, I found a lot more information and analysis of the health effects of this sort of eating pattern at the Health & Nutriton Blog of Dr. Michael R. Eades.

From him we got the tip to set our cutoff time just before dinner - for us we've been using 6:30pm. This means we eat breakfast and lunch and an afternoon snack one day, and then fast (with only a few hundred calories of snacks) until dinner the next day. This way, we always have at least one full meal every day.

The only real negative so far has been when our fasting schedule and our social plans are out of sync. But this is a pretty minor concern, and if we really need to we can shift the schedule forward by a day. But overall, this diet has been trivially easy to stick to. After the first few days, I've hardly had to think about it any more.

We've also managed to cut our food and restaurant bills dramatically in the process. Save money, feel great, lose weight. I like this.

I'll report back again after another month. If it stays this easy and I can manage to lose another 10lbs, I will be thrilled!

My body seems to be wired for waking up at 10AM.

If I go to bed at 5AM, I pop awake at 10AM alert and fully rested.
If I go to bed at 10PM, I pop awake at 10AM alert and fully rested.

If I change time zones, no matter where I am, 10AM.

If I set an alarm and get up earlier, my brain often doesn't join my body in being awake until... 10AM.


I have no problem generating the necessary morning adrenaline to get up earlier when needed. I just wish it came naturally to me.

I'd actually love to be a morning person, getting up regularly at 7AM or even earlier. I just need to figure out where the necessary adjustment knob in my brain is located...

roadriverrail pointed me towards an awesome feature article by Michael Pollan in the New York Times entitled "Unhappy Meals" that provides some great historical context on how the American diet ended up so warped and unhealthy.

Not surprising - political lobbying and greed had a lot to do with it.

This is a very good read, I encourage everyone to "digest" it.

Here is a taste of the article:

No single event marked the shift from eating food to eating nutrients, though in retrospect a little-noticed political dust-up in Washington in 1977 seems to have helped propel American food culture down this dimly lighted path. Responding to an alarming increase in chronic diseases linked to diet — including heart disease, cancer and diabetes — a Senate Select Committee on Nutrition, headed by George McGovern, held hearings on the problem and prepared what by all rights should have been an uncontroversial document called “Dietary Goals for the United States.” The committee learned that while rates of coronary heart disease had soared in America since World War II, other cultures that consumed traditional diets based largely on plants had strikingly low rates of chronic disease. Epidemiologists also had observed that in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.

Naïvely putting two and two together, the committee drafted a straightforward set of dietary guidelines calling on Americans to cut down on red meat and dairy products. Within weeks a firestorm, emanating from the red-meat and dairy industries, engulfed the committee, and Senator McGovern (who had a great many cattle ranchers among his South Dakota constituents) was forced to beat a retreat. The committee’s recommendations were hastily rewritten. Plain talk about food — the committee had advised Americans to actually “reduce consumption of meat” — was replaced by artful compromise: “Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake.”

A subtle change in emphasis, you might say, but a world of difference just the same. First, the stark message to “eat less” of a particular food has been deep-sixed; don’t look for it ever again in any official U.S. dietary pronouncement. Second, notice how distinctions between entities as different as fish and beef and chicken have collapsed; those three venerable foods, each representing an entirely different taxonomic class, are now lumped together as delivery systems for a single nutrient. Notice too how the new language exonerates the foods themselves; now the culprit is an obscure, invisible, tasteless — and politically unconnected — substance that may or may not lurk in them called “saturated fat.”

The linguistic capitulation did nothing to rescue McGovern from his blunder; the very next election, in 1980, the beef lobby helped rusticate the three-term senator, sending an unmistakable warning to anyone who would challenge the American diet, and in particular the big chunk of animal protein sitting in the middle of its plate. Henceforth, government dietary guidelines would shun plain talk about whole foods, each of which has its trade association on Capitol Hill, and would instead arrive clothed in scientific euphemism and speaking of nutrients, entities that few Americans really understood but that lack powerful lobbies in Washington. This was precisely the tack taken by the National Academy of Sciences when it issued its landmark report on diet and cancer in 1982. Organized nutrient by nutrient in a way guaranteed to offend no food group, it codified the official new dietary language. Industry and media followed suit, and terms like polyunsaturated, cholesterol, monounsaturated, carbohydrate, fiber, polyphenols, amino acids and carotenes soon colonized much of the cultural space previously occupied by the tangible substance formerly known as food. The Age of Nutritionism had arrived.

I also discovered that there is a term for the diet that I am taking on, Flexitarianism.

Vegetarians are healthier than carnivores, but near vegetarians (“flexitarians”) are as healthy as vegetarians. Thomas Jefferson was on to something when he advised treating meat more as a flavoring than a food.

Michael Pollan has a book out called The Omnivore's Dilemma that was chosen by the editors of The New York Times Book Review as one of the 10 best books of 2006. I think I may just have to read it...

Cows taste good. Cows are easy to take care of. Cows feed themselves. Cows make more cows.

No wonder so much of the world has grown increasingly dependent on eating them.

But that is not a sustainable practice, and more and more research is coming out showing just how bad the livestock industry is for the environment. This is real scary stuff.

I found this report posted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to be fascinating, and horrifying.

Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Interestingly, the while the UN report does list many potential remedies (such as better managing the diet of cattle so as to produce less emissions) - they seem to miss the most simple and obvious solution: encourage people to eat LOTS less meat.

You can find the UN report here.

My post a few days ago about my experience eating vegetarian for the past month has generated a lot of good conversation.

To summarize my thoughts:
Right now most people seem to be either oblivious daily meat eaters, or full-on vegetarians.

I'd much rather see people become (and restaurants support) people being deliberate and conscious occasional meat eaters, or full on vegetarians - whichever their body seems to be most wired for.

My personal intention going forward is to become a balanced, conscious omnivore. I don't think my current month-long stint of vegetarianism will last much longer, but I do know that I will NOT go back to regularly eating meat by default just because 90% of every menu seems to tell me to.

Our culture has most of the US indoctrinated into the idea of "Meal = Meat". I certainly was raised that way. And that basic assumption is unhealthy for the planet, and probably for our bodies as well. It needs to end.

I think one of the key steps towards conscious meat eating is spending an extended time going vegetarian, figuring out what works for your own body, and experiencing how easy it is to make unconscious choices because so few vegetarian options are even offered on most menus.

Another laughingly sad experience from last night - dinner at the Rainforest Cafe adjoining Disney's Animal Kingdom. We asked the waitress for some vegetarian recommendations: "Uhm, the selection is pretty minimal actually. There is the cheese pizza, and there is also the pepperoni pizza - oh wait, that is meat, right? We have a vegetable stir fry too - but I think that is made with a meat sauce. Uhm, there is a veggie sandwich... And I think that is about it..." Meat sauce on the vegetable stir fry?!!? WTF?

Considering that land clearcut for raising cattle is one of the leading causes of the loss of rain forest, I sure expected better from the Rainforest Cafe. *sigh*

A month ago (Jan 15th) serolynne and I started the Master Cleanse (aka "The Lemonade Diet"), which involved us drinking nothing but organic lemonade for a week. (Yep - no solid food at all!)

The other time I tried the Master Cleanse (May 2005) I lost 12.5 lbs over the course of 10 days. This time we stayed on it for a week, and I dropped 10 lbs - from 251 lbs (ugh!) to 241 lbs.

The cleanse left my appetite thoroughly recalibrated. Since finishing the cleanse Cherie and I have been splitting portions at meals, and eating nothing but vegetarian. After a full month now, my weight has stabilized at around 236 lbs, a very nice improvement. Getting back under 225 lbs feels like it is nicely in reach.

Eating vegetarian is a really eye opening experience that I recommend everyone try once in awhile. Realizing how hard it is (especially outside of California!) to avoid meat in meals makes it really blatant how pervasive the idea that "Meal = Meat" is in our society. And that is sad.

Just how sad is made clear by this article - Vegetarian is the New Prius. In part:
Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius.

I am not about to become a militant vegetarian and push for a meat-free existence. But I think that there is no reason that eating meat should be a daily staple, instead of a rare treat.

Yet our society makes that damn hard, and that is indeed sad. A few examples from this past month:

+ Laying over in the Houston airport, Cherie and I tried to find dinner at the airport food court. The ONLY vegetarian choices (out of five different restaurants!) at the one food court was cheese pizza or french fries. Ick! We had to hike to another terminal to find another food court that had veggie burritos as a choice.

+ Dining at Chilis on the way back from Tahoe last week - we found only a single veggie option on the entire lunch menu. We asked for the dinner menu to expand our choices, and eventually decided on Spinach Artichoke Dip. The waiter then said: "Uhm, I think that might have bacon in it. I'll go check..." Ten minutes later we ask him if he had an answer yet: "No one in the kitchen knows, so the manager is on the Internet right now trying to look it up..." Egads!

And so on...

Even when places do have a vegetarian choice - it often feels like a single token item. Subway for example has a "vegetarian sub" - but why just one, and not a dozen different choices? You can have just as many vegetarian choices on a menu as meat choices, but so few places do. Sad.

While out in California last week Cherie and I had some amazing meals that prove that vegetarian choices can be much more than just tokens on a menu. Check out the menu of Cafe Gratitude, where the food is not only vegetarian, but not even cooked! (And totally amazing tasting!) Herbivore also has a totally amazing and delicious menu with dozens of great choices.

The mentality that Meat = Meal needs to end. I'd love to see "mainstream" restaurants start offering at least 50% of their menus as meat-free. It really wouldn't be that hard.

Imagine how good it would be for the health of the planet if people started eating meat once a week, and not daily.

It is a small shift, why not try it? (And spread the idea!)

A conversation with a friend sparked a long bout of research tonight into prion diseases - "Mad Cow" and the human equivalent: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. This pamphlet gives a great readable and balanced look at the current understanding of CJD.

And this alarmist website will scare the shit out of you.

A week ago I had barely even heard of Prion diseases, but now I am feeling very unsettled and deeply troubled at the thought of them. They are scary and gruesome - particularly how they are spread and how they kill you. And there is so little known about them...

Consider these details:
+ 100% Fatal (usually within a year of symptoms showing)
+ Untreatable.
+ Can lie dormant for as little as 18 months to as long as many decades.
+ Completely undetetabe while dormant.
+ Detectable once activated via a brain biopsy (while alive) or autoposy after death.
+ Not caused by a virus or a bacteria. Little of what we know about traditional diseases seems to apply.
+ Eats away at your brain - turning it into a sponge with HOLES carved away in the brain tissue.
+ Drives you insane, then kills you.

And now the sacry / gruesome stuff:
+ Prions are immune to conventional sterilization techniques. Heat, chemicals, and ultravilot light will not destroy them. CJB has been spread by using STERILIZED surgical tools!
+ Typically spread not by touch, not via the air, not via sex: but by EATING a contaminated animal (or person - there was prion disease that was documented killing thousands in a certain cannibal tribe). And not just eating the meat either - but eating the BRAINS and spinal column nerve tissue causes the most risk. (Egads - this sounds like a zombie flick...)
+ Capable of jumping the species barrier. (Sheep -> Cow -> Human)


It has been common practice to feed cows the ground up carcases and scrap meat from other cows (cannibal cows - ick). That is how Mad Cow spread so widely throughout Briton - British cows were eating ground up bits of brain from other contaminated cows. And typical butchering (and sausage making!) practices make it possible for meat intended for human consumption to end up contaminated as well. Nearly 150 people have died so far from meat raised in Europe - and potentially thousands (more?) are infected but not showing symptoms yet.


The "good" news:
While Prion diseases are perhaps the most frightening and gruesome diseases I have ever heard of, at least they aren't (currently) spreading rapidly. There are only 200-300 diagnosed new cases of CJB a year in the US, not a lot. And so far NONE of them can be conclusively traced back to contaminated meat raised/eaten in the US. Eighty five percent of the cases are considered "spontaneous" with no known cause, and most of the rest are familial - with a known genetic predisposition to prion diseases that can be traced back generations.

But - there is potentially a lot of CJB going misdiagnosed too because so little is known. One study estimated that 13% or more of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's actually had CJB eating away at their brains. Yikes!


So in summary: An undetectable and 100% fatal disease is lurking out there that could kill any one of us in an extremely gruesome fashion a few decades after taking a bite out of a contaminated hamburger. And there is very little you can do right now to protect yourself - you may even already be infected.


Bird Flu and HIV seem minor scares in comparison - at least we mostly understand how they work and how to fight them. The multi-decade gestation period and the possibility of a massively contaminated food supply open the doors to some scary nightmare scenarios with prion diseases. I am already imagining some potential horror/sci-fi film screenplay ideas that make my hair stand on end.

I've teetered with the thought of giving up eating mammal meat before - this may just tip me over the edge... The risks seem to be statistically trivial at the moment, and my rational mind is not feeling overly worried. But I can't help but feel a little bit nauseous right now. Brains? No thank you...

*squicked*

When I updated a week ago, I was camped out in a West Sacramento KOA hoping to soon get a little warranty work from the dealer on the back hatch of my camper.

Turns out I ended up needing some warranty work on myself too!

Lid Repair - Sacramento, CA (April 23rd - 30th):
I spent Monday and Tuesday at the West Sacramento KOA, working on various chores and getting my camp kitchen organized. I put it to the test tuesday night, and Lindsay came over to share my first "home cooked meal" - a delicious Japanese-style beef curry, complete with wine and a salad course. *yum*

All day Monday and Tuesday though my left eye was bothering me - particularly the left eyelid. At first I thought it was just a bad bought of eczema, but it just kept getting worse. So Wednesday AM after dropping my camper off for its lid repair, I called Kaiser and managed to schedule an urgent warranty lid repair appointment of my own that evening.

The doctor on call hadn't seen anything like it before, so he asked me to come back the next day to see an opthamologist. But he did guess that it was a reactivation of the chicken-pox virus (I had it when I was in 7th grade). The Herpes Zoster virus that causes Chicken Pox never leaves your body and lies dormant, and on occasion it comes back - often on the eyelid! *yikes*

That diagnosis stressed me out - particularly because there was a real risk of permanent eye damage. I spent Wednesday night at Lindsay and Sean's place researching Herpes Zoster Opthalmicus. The next day I was ready with good questions for the Opthamologist. He confirmed that it did indeed look like Herpes Zoster (the same as Chicken Pox), it was relatively common, and that it was hard to say what caused it to re-activate in me - but that we had caught it early enough so that it didn't look likely to cause any damage to my eye. He also said that it was unlikely to come back any time again for years to come. *whew*

That was a LOAD of stress off. I LOVE my eyes, and don't ever want to be without them. :-)

I then went off to pick up my Tab - and the techs had thankfully managed to get my back hatch closing properly again. They also put some set screws in place to keep the hinge locked in place, so hopefully it will stay fixed this time.

Next up - I drove into Folsom and got a camping spot at Beal's Point in the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area. Lindsay drove up from Sacramento after work, and we had a nice dinner out. It was HOT out. Monday night I had been using the heater, and Thursday night I was needing the fan on! Somehow we jumped straight from winter to summer - skipping spring!

I spent Friday relaxing and taking it easy - I did some bike riding, and walked along the lake. I also did some more vehicle shopping and research. (more on that in another post...)

By Saturday my eye was at last starting to feel back to normal. I drove down to Sacramento to do some laundry at Lindsay's place, and in the evening we walked around downtown and checked out the city rose garden that was fully and fragrantly in bloom.


This morning I checked out of Beal's Point, and set off for some paramotoring adventures at the Sod Farm. But as usual - I managed to scare away the wind, and there wasn't enough this evening for me to get off the ground. I did manage to put another nice dent in my cage trying though. I also got to experiment with ways to transport the motor in the trailer without needing to fully dismantle it and pack it up. Mixed results... It is almost less work to take it all the way apart as it is to bungy it into place half-disassembled.


My jeep makes for a great aircraft carrier, and the Sod Farm in Davis is an AMAZING place to fly - acres of smooth flat grass make for easy takeoffs and landings. But without any wind, it is just too hard to get into the air without wheels...

And now I am a late arrival in Cupertino, at Rebekah and David's place.

Not a particularly exciting week - but the health issues sort of derailed me. But - I got some important maintenance work handled, and I got my kitchen systems all worked out.

Next up.... Jeepy goodness. (stay tuned)

The last two weeks have been a wild ride.

Sunday Jan 29th my mom arrived for a visit, stopping in on her way back home to St. Louis from a wedding in Hawaii.

It was a quick visit, but we did manage to at last make it to Alcatraz before she flew home on Wednesday.
On Friday, I caught a one-way flight to St. Louis as well.

Saturday was my cousin Eric's wedding and reception. It was great to see so many relatives gathered together. I had much fun and took many photos.

Sunday I spent the day cooking chili for a Super Bowl gathering at my parent's house, and a small gathering of us had fun watching the game.

Late Sunday night Leah / klrmn arrived, having driven cross-country from Atlanta on her way moving out to the Bay Area.

Monday morning we set off together road-tripping west - California bound!

Some highlights from the road: touring Tulsa (ugh!), Texas windmills and rest areas, Garduno's food in Albequerque, driving through the remote deserts of Arizona chasing our own shadow, and finally on Wednesday night - arriving at the Grand Canyon under the light of a nearly full moon!

We spent Thursday marveling at the Grand Canyon by daylight - but words and pictures can not really do it justice.

Friday around noon we reached the Salton Sea in SE California, and Leah dropped me off with my paramotor friends from Sacramento before she continued on her way to San Diego and then up to the Bay Area.

My gear was all there waiting for me - but I had no place to sleep. Fortunately the nights were warm enough to sleep out under the full moon. :-)

Friday and Saturday were full of paramotor fun - I'll post more about that separately.

Sunday I packed up, and got a ride home as far as Stockton from one of the other pilots I was camped with.

Rebekah was wonderful enough to meet me in Stockton, and she brought me and my gear home at last Sunday night.

Monday (yesterday) I went to the doctor because this ENTIRE time I have been fighting being sick. I've had a sore throat and swollen tonsils ever since a few hours after my mom landed two weeks ago, and over the past two weeks they would at times have me in complete misery, only later to ease to a dull ache.

The doctor called this afternoon to tell me I do indeed have strep throat, and to put me on antibiotics.

*gargh*

My tonsils are evil. They KNOW when I will be away from easy medical care, and they plan their attacks carefully. (I almost removed them myself in Costa Rica!) If they try ONE MORE TIME to ruin one of my adventures, I swear that they will find themselves OUT!

*grumble*

But despite the evil tonsils of doom, it was a great adventure. Leah was a fun travel companion, and we had a great time traversing America together.

I only hope NOT to be sick the next time I hit the road!

With some help from instructions I found online at DoItYourselfSurgery.com (endorsed by 9 out of 10 Alaskan fur trappers), I was able to extract my own tonsils yesterday - and I am pretty sure I managed to do it without too much loss of blood or damage to my vocal cords.

It really wasn't that hard, once I had a clean mirror and the right kind of spork.

Things are feeling much better today. My tonsils are only a little sore, and I can actually swallow without a grimace now. By tomorrow I should definitely be back to normal.

Woke up this morning and my mouth and head were SORE, worse than yesterday even! *owwwww* This better start feeling better soon!

I think a long hot bath is in my near future.


I did treat myself to a 3hr four hand massage yesterday though, and that was HEAVENLY! My friend Brian has developed his own unique style of massage he describes as "improvisational Thai massage, assisted yoga, or land Watsu..." and this was my first chance to fully experience him practicing his art.

He is AMAZING.

His technique doesn't use a massage table, rather he has you on the floor, and he uses his entire body to manipulate you. Arms, legs, feet, elbows... And on Sundays he works with a partner to turn it into a four hand experience. Mmmmmmm.... Highly recommended!

Check him out: www.innovativetouch.net

He is presently offering 3hr massages for just $100, an amazing way to treat yourself. He is in Oakland, right by the lake, and two blocks from BART. Do it - your body will thank you! :-)

Tomorrow morning I am going in (and under) to get all four of my wisdom teeth yanked.

*yikes*

This does not sound like fun.

If only the damn things would stop hurting, perhaps we could declare a truce for a few more years....

The Master Cleanse is over. Total weight loss: 12.5lbs. Body feels great!

I just had my first proper meal in 10 days. Yumm. And I'm very much looking forward to dinner tonight.... :-)

So I am presently wrapping up day #8 of a 10-day "Master Cleanse".

Several of my friends have done this and have reported good things, and since my body had been feeling a bit icky lately and I've been putting on weight, I decided to give it a shot.

Since last Sunday, all I've had is lemonade to drink. No food. Nothing else.

It works like this...

Every morning I start the day by drinking a quart of warm sea-salt-water, and letting that flush through me.

While doing that, I mix together 6 ounces of grade B maple syrup with 6 ounces of fresh squeezed lemon and lime juice. Add cayenne pepper to taste. Mix into 2 liters of water.

Drink that slowly during the day.

Before bed, have a herbal laxative tea.

And that's it. Pretty simple.

And amazingly - I have not felt hungry once. Bored of lemonade - YES! But not hungry. And I've actually had a ton of energy - enough to go paragliding and to clean the storage unit. On the third day I had an energy crash and was low energy for a while, but by that evening I was wired again.

This has been a fun experiment in body-hacking, and the results seem good. I certainly feel thoroughly "flushed out", and I've lost 9.5lbs so far.

Not bad for a weeks worth of lemons...

Anyone else ever tried anything similar?

One thing is for sure - after this Wednesday, I'm not going to want lemonade again for a LONG time.

In the six months that I was out of work before coming to Palm, I was really able to focus on my health - and I got my weight down from the mid 250's in May of 2000 to to as low as 219 lbs by September - the lowest I have been since graduating from college.

But then - I started work at Palm in October of 2000, and working is bad for your health. As the workload at Palm piled up, my health became less of a priority. I stopped regularly tracking my weight, and over the past 3 years it has bounced around - mostly bouncing back up - even back into the 250's.

This past November I started tracking things again, and watching both my diet and exercise amounts.

On November 8th, I started out at 243lbs with a phase one goal of getting back under 225.

This weekend - March 20th - I made it! 224.5 lbs!!! Woohooo!

I intend to get back into record territory of under 218 lbs soon, and then I'll try to figure out where I want to stop after that. It would be cool to get under 200lbs, but that might be too slim for my body. We'll see.

But right now, it feels great!

- chris


PS -- I have used a great free Palm OS program called EatWatch for years to track my weight. It is the best such program I have ever stumbled across. You can get it at:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/palm/