A new beginning

As many of you know, I kept this blog from May 2011 through Summer-ish of 2012 as I was working on losing weight.

Here's the summary, for those who don't remember or weren't along for that journey:

In late 2010, I had been walking for exercise, and my sons had managed to injure my left knee . . . so I stopped.   At the same time, years of overeating had caused my weight to balloon to 278 pounds (I wrestled at 167 pounds as a senior in high school, so being 100 pounds heavier than that was a bit of a wake-up call).   In dealing with my leg injury, my doctor heaped upon me insults and lectures.  (I'm saying this good-naturedly, honest.)    His greatest hits included two comments:  1.  "You used to be an athlete, didn't you?" and 2:  "If you want to see your sons graduate high school, you need to lose significant weight."

So on May 15, 2011, with me at 278 pounds and my lovely bride at 196 we began the South Beach Diet, and started to exercise with a purpose (although the exercise has been limited mostly to walking).  In a mere three months, I was down to 244 pounds.   We plateaued briefly during the winter, but got back to serious weight loss in spring 2012 and our weight loss peaked last summer, with me at 217 on July 4, and Karen at 164 on July 1.  (Ahem -- motivation is where you find it . . . my 25th High School Class Reunion was July 13)

By Autumn, as you can see in my previous post in September, we had resumed a number of bad habits, but were generally sticking with smaller portion sizes, and eating better than we had before the diet. . . . but -- I hit the two year anniversary of the big lifestyle change (May 15) having put back 20 pounds.   So, today, June 15, we're starting Phase One of the South Beach Diet anew.

We're hoping to drop below our previous lows, and hoping you'll come along for the ride.

Breakfast this morning was the South Beach Staple . . . one egg, a strip of turkey bacon and no carbs.  We're getting ready to head for the grocery store, and the plan is to be totally carb-free for the remainder of the week.  We have family commitments next weekend, and we're going to hold to our previous policy of "bending" the rules a bit when with family -- THEY'RE not on a diet.

I'm planning to make regular updates to this blog -- and probably to go back and re-read the whole thing for inspiration tonight.