41 pounds down.... and winning! (Long story)

Hey everyone. I've been a member on here since October and wow, what a resource and community we have here. I'm 31 years old and a professional pilot for an airline based in Atlanta. My prior careers had me either at a newspaper office desk where the sedentary lifestyle wasn't helping, or bouncing from small airport to small airport, carrying a roll of quarters and living out of the vending machines. Looking deeper into my past, I started gaining weight in middle school, and by the time I graduated high school I was 210 lbs. and gaining. At age 29, I bumped right against 265 on a water-retaining, bad sodium day.

My flight surgeon warned me that my blood pressure was a little high. Then in later years, he told me that my weight range put me at risk for sleep apnea. Either condition could hamper my ability to keep my job, and flying is my love in life. As an aside: if you can do what you love for a living, go for it. I couldn't go back to a desk job for all the money in the world!

Anyway: I fell in love with a girl whose eating and exercise habits were far healthier than my own. Enter Amy1n, who is a member here. She volunteers on organic farms, and is building a garden empire in her yard on the north side of Atlanta. Eating with her introduced drastic changes to my diet. She won't join me for a cheap burrito at Taco Bell. Nearly all of our meals include salads. No more sodas - I have learned to love carbonated water.

Amy trained for, and ran, the Peachtree 10K Road Race in Atlanta last year. I was just exercising my sarcasm when I told her that I'd enter next year and run with her. I figured there was plenty of time to get out in the span of a year, right? But still, I was fat, my energy levels weren't where they needed to be and I felt bad at age 30. Getting old was going to be a lot more pain and suffering at this rate. I bought nearly all of the "Eat This, Not That" books, and really started focusing on cooking healthy. I've always loved cooking huge meals and feeding friends, but such entrees as the "Barbecue Bacon Explosion" just don't lend themselves to healthy living when enjoyed regularly.

So. I flew a trip not long after Amy's Peachtree race with a captain who used MFP. We talked a little about weight loss – he was a fitness nut. He was logging his sandwich on skinny bread, and cast an eye on my meal from Moe's Southwest Grill - a Close-Talker salad. He made a few swipes on his phone and announced, "Well, if you'd just skip that tortilla shell and get the vinaigrette dressing, you'd have a pretty safe meal in your lap, there."

A few days later, I recalled the name of his app and downloaded it. I started logging every bite of food I ingested. I logged one day eating what would have passed for normal portions under my old habits: fried meats on a biscuit for breakfast, a large fast-food combo for lunch, a frozen pizza for dinner. A large soda with each meal; beer with dinner.

It was frightening.

Scared stiff, I began metering my portions to safe sizes. I learned how to eat from small plates, not dinner platters, and I learned that putting food back into the fridge for another day is a great habit. I try and overestimate calories when I'm eating something that is not in the database, and all of a sudden, the pounds started falling away.

I have a weak knee from an injury when I was a kid, and with all the weight on my frame, running was simply not an option. As the pounds started to fall away, though, I started thinking, "what if..." I tried running in normal shoes. With a long, heel-striking stride, there was just too much impact. I'd bought a pair of Vibram FiveFingers on a whim, and one day I decided to use them for more than just floating the river in my kayak. I studied up on barefoot running technique, and on an overnight in Newport News, VA, I went for a run, the first session in the couch to 5k regimen. I stuck with the plan for a week or two, then realized I was fit enough to run longer than the syllabus. Not much longer, but enough to start pushing.

In the months that followed, I ran in bursts. My pace is slow, and my schedule doesn't really work for the regular discipline of a dedicated workout schedule. But this week, I mapped out and ran 5k courses three afternoons in a row! I feel ashamed to be posting in the shadow of everyone with 100+lb weight loss stories and multiple marathons under their belts, but a year ago, I'd be sucking wind after trotting to the far corner of a parking lot.

I've still got a long way to go. I'm not going to strip down to my boxers and start posting pictures here, but with these photos, I'm pretty sure you can get an idea of the progress, even just looking at my facial features.

My food diary is open, and you are welcome to shoot me a friend request. The mutual support on here is more powerful than just the calorie counting!

Anyway. Pictures. Crap. The quick link from my blog didn't work as I figured it would, and I just got called in for a trip. Take a look on my profile! I can put pictures there quickly enough.

Thanks for reading! I'm slated to run my first real 5K on the 21st with my sweetie. Can't wait.