Hi, all. (a bit long--sorry)

boku70
boku70 Posts: 80
edited September 23 in Introduce Yourself
I'm Boku! ("Boku" is a word that young Japanese males use to refer to themselves (i.e., "I" or "me")

I'm 40, and live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife and our daughter. I'm originally from the northeastern US, and I work in the high-tech industry. I speak Japanese and English.

I'm new to the dieting thing. This is the first time in my life I've seriously dieted. But I hit 40 last year, have been taking awful care of myself, and the time had really come to try to seize the problem by the horns. At the suggestion of my doctor, I entered the HMR program run out of the hospital where he practices.

What finally got me off my duff about dieting was a blood test. Ironically, though, it wasn't a bad result that did it. Instead, I found out that I've got pretty "clean" blood for someone 100 lbs. overweight. Glucose smack in the middle of the normal range; cholesterol only slightly high.

But I'm not getting any younger. Sooner or later my good luck is going to run out. And I was terrified about what the blood-test result would prove to be. So now I feel like I've been given one last chance to get my a** in gear, and I better take it if I want my daughter (currently 4) to grow up with a daddy. The sense of fear and urgency was enough for me to kind of declare a "state of emergency," and decide that I can't do this alone, as much as I've always told myself that I could...it's just a mater of common sense...etc.

So, like when an alcoholic gives up and goes into rehab/AA, I decided that I need to accept that it's time to put myself into a kind of rehab--that is, a medically supervised regimen with very clear do's and don'ts. (HMR is a rapid-weight-loss program where you pretty much settle into an existence of eating the prepared meals (basically like nutritionally optimized Lean Cuisines) and drinking the shakes provided by the program. Because you're eating from a predefined set of choices, you know exactly what your intake is.

At the same time, I've also taken up bicycling again. I used to ride a lot, into my mid-twenties, but have been incredibly sedentary for the past decade.

So, with all of this going on, I decided I'm going to become one of those annoying people who constantly count calories, and track everything--intake and outburn. That led me to search for a good iPhone app, and that's how I found MFP. :-) I will say that what's good about tracking is that the numbers become their own reward after a while.

So, I'm on Day 18 of HMR now, and one week into getting back into cycling. So far, my motivation has been very high, and I haven't been tempted to cheat. That said, I do find I'm starting to miss my favorite foods a little. But it's working, and I don't want to ruin what's a great set of numbers so far. ;-)

Anyway, it's nice to "see" you all.

b

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