The Race is On (with apologies to George Jones)

I want to apologize to all my longtime MFP friends for being so incommunicado for so long. For the past year or two, I've allowed my eating to control me. As a result, earlier this summer, I zoomed up to my highest weight ever. Two things happened in July to change that. Our oldest son announced his engagement with a planned wedding date of October of 2020. Second, I celebrated my 58th birthday. I thought to myself that under no circumstances would I want to embarrass my son by showing up at the wedding looking like I do now. The thought also crossed my mind that being morbidly obese at 58 years old, there was a fairly good chance I would not live to make it to his wedding. So, combining those two powerful incentives, I took two weeks to formulate a realistic eating plan. On July 17, 2019, at midnight, I began executing that plan. I want to lose 200 pounds in the 15 months between now and next October. That breaks down to about 13-14 pounds per month. Given my starting point, and knowing my body, 3-4 pounds average weight loss per week is doable. If I am successful, I will weigh on the day of his wedding the same as I weighed on the day of my own wedding 1/3rd of a century ago. So how have the past 16 days gone? I am down 26 pounds without starvation, pills, surgery or intense exercise. Not that any of those alternatives is bad. They are just not for me. Anywho, losing a little over 5% of my body weight in a few weeks (you can do the math) has been a powerful incentive. I feel much better and am already seeing physical results. The next 15 months is a long stretch, but I know if I take them one day at a time, one meal at a time, one eating decision at a time, I can win this marathon. Because that's what it is. And no one cares how fast you run the first mile of a marathon. They only care about your results for the entire race. And I intend to finish mine successfully.