Losing Weight

Well. I seem to be losing weight. I steadfastly refuse to keep a set of scales in the house. But at the beginning of this year, my belt was on the second notch. Now my belt is on the fourth notch, and even that is becoming loose.

People who know me out here in meatspace would find it hard to believe that, up into my mid-twenties, I was fairly thin. With some minor ups and downs. But as late as age 25 I weighed 140 pounds, same as when I graduated from high school.

Then slow steady gain. By age 31— 1987— when I moved from Illinois to North Carolina, I was brushing 200 for the first time. Living the poverty of student life in North Carolina brought that way back down again: a diet of rice, dried beans, potatoes, oatmeal, and ramen noodles will do that. I returned to the Midwest several years later somewhere near average weight.

Until late '92 and early '93, when I spent six weeks lodging in a bed and breakfast (long story). Rich food for breakfast every morning, my weight shot way back up again. Didn't succeed in shedding the excess pounds until around 1997, when physical activity working in wholesale sports merchandise did the trick.

Then, life in Iowa, eat as you please, little exercise, I really don't want to think how I've packed on the pounds since the turn of the century. At one point, two or three years ago, I had reached well over 200, and my belt was on the first notch. Like I say, I refuse to keep scales in the house.

Now, since the beginning of this year, I've been dropping the pounds again. If this goes on, I may have to move from XXL to XL shirts. Hard to say just what has done the trick. Exercise? Not like I ought to, and my exercise bike, sad to say, pretty much just sits there gathering dust. Diet? That seems to be a large part of it. Key principles: cut out all candy; cut out most if not all pop; avoid french fries; pizza not so often; six-inch rather than foot-long sandwiches at Subway. Lately I've been eating smaller suppers, so that I usually arrive at the next morning with noticeable hunger pangs.

It really is weird to feel my clothes getting loose on me. For several years there, I had pretty much given up any thought of losing weight. Now... well, I can look down at my stomach and see the difference.