The Incredible Shrinking Tuck--My weight loss journey

This last 7 months have been a challenge.

Through a series of situations, some of them good, and some of them very injust, I decided to embark on a weight loss journey.

It has been a challenge. Have not went out for ice cream since I started. Have rarely eaten candy bars, or drank white chocolate mochas, or had a big gulp. It has been a difficult, difficult challenge. But I have learned a lot.

The first thing I learned was that life is not always fair. I had to get past the fact that others could eat what I cannot, can exercise less with less consequences. One of the biggest sticking points for me was that it just did not seem fair that others were allowed to do what I was not. People are very insensitive to people who have restrictive diets too. They have a snack time at church in between church and Sunday school. I tried to get them to provide fruit, especially since it was my church employer that forced the issue with weight loss. They said it was too expensive (they have 300,000 in the bank as a church). Staff meetings had Danishes that were about half my daily allotment of calories. For a person trying to lose weight, it seems like you are always an alcoholic working at a liquor store trying to be in recovery. Trying to break a thirty year habit of red meat and fried foods is not always an easy thing.

Not to mention when you are a minister there are always the homebody church women that base a significant portion of their self-image on being able to feed others. And they always push you to have more than you want.

It has also been an adventure. Part of my weight loss journey is cooking more. So I have taught myself to cook some damn good fajitas for instance. I have discovered that I love the fruit bars almost as much as Otter Pops. I have discovered that I love salad at the Olive Garden...and I could hardly stomach salad without gagging at the beginning of this journey.

I have discovered that I used my "eating" time as my time out. My play time if you will. My "me" time. I give a lot to others. My time with my oven bake pizza was my time for myself. I am and need to find other ways to do this.

I started the first three months of the diet on an 1800 calorie a day thing. I lost weight rather quickly. In recent months I have maintained. I wish I had done better, but it is a heck of a lot better than gaining! And who knows, with the uptake in exercise I might have lost body fat.

Along with taking on a CPAP machine for sleep apnia, the diet and exercise discipline has brought on a lot more energy for me in some ways. I can get through the afternoon without feeling groggy. I am more my hyper, playful, witty, "lets wrestle" self.

Right now I need to work on late night eating. For me weight gain or lack of weight loss seems to come from working 10-12 hour days and eating dinner late at night. Then eating late becomes a habit.

NEXT: GROWING UP AS THE FAT KID