Diet Update

        Back in August, I blogged about my attempt to lose weight after realizing the cow I had become.  I was all gung ho and then promptly went right back to being a typical American and quit.  And then, being the typical American, I started back up again.  I've lost 20 pounds since I started back on March 24th.  
        My newest eye opening moment was when I stepped back on the scale and realized I had gained back my whopping 10 pounds that I had lost and had even gone over by 5 additional pounds.  I followed that depressing moment with a trip to our local Longs drug store to pick up some Advil for my wife.  My wife's family was going to be joining us for Easter (always a stressful, headache inducing experience) and I quite frankly needed to get out of the house. I decided on a lark to sit myself down in one of those blood pressure machines and see how close to death I was.  The answer was closer than I thought.   When the test finished, an automatic 911 call was made to pick me up because my pressure was through the roof.  Not really, but having level 2 hypertension was not what I was expecting either.  I've never been the picture of manly heath, but I never expected to be this close to death at 33.  
        The following day at work, I started researching my options.  I could go the Weight Watchers route like my wife did and start counting points.  That didn't really interest me for multiple reasons, most of which includes pride, arrogance and the fact that I have two testicles.  Granted my wife is down 40 pounds, looks terrific and feels even better, but it has involved, for her, submitting herself to a pretty aggressive regime of vegan hell.  Please don't send me email saying that Weight Watchers allows meat, cheese, etc.  I've already stated my three big (or is it four) reasons for not going on Weight Watchers.  It just didn't interest me.
        I kept looking and found a diet that makes sense to a IT guy like me.  The Hacker's Diet.  The best part of this diet is what I believe needs to be a habit that is instilled in me.  To be aware of how much food I'm ingesting is I believe my Achilles heel.  I've never thought twice about consuming a whole large pizza and then swilling it down with a couple of soft drinks.  That was after having the Hungry Man breakfast at Denny's.  When I first saw the link on Google, I thought....cool, I can eat pizza and Jolt soda and lose weight.  Obviously I learned differently but I like the idea that the body is a system and approaching my weight as an engineering system....well it appealed to my manly pride.  I've also borrowed heavily from Jeremy Zawodny's tweaked approach.  His approach and tools was where I started.  I hope in the following weeks to document my progress and stay with it this time.
-PC