5/23/2013:
I've been working on losing weight since 2011. This is actually the third time since August, 2011 that I've been on a serious weight loss program. The first time, I lost 30 pounds in a couple of months. I felt great, and was surprised at how easily the weight came off.

Then it got colder and I stopped exercising. Since I wasn't exercising, I stopped dieting. As a result, my weight ballooned even beyond my initial start weight up to a maximum of 310 lb. I felt ...

5/23/2013:
I've been working on losing weight since 2011. This is actually the third time since August, 2011 that I've been on a serious weight loss program. The first time, I lost 30 pounds in a couple of months. I felt great, and was surprised at how easily the weight came off.

Then it got colder and I stopped exercising. Since I wasn't exercising, I stopped dieting. As a result, my weight ballooned even beyond my initial start weight up to a maximum of 310 lb. I felt tired, achy, and ashamed of myself. In April, 2012, my wife and I had our second child and that prompted me to start losing weight again. Again, I did well through a combination of diet and exercise (mainly walking and biking). I managed to drop down to 262 lb, but starting around July, I developed worsening hip pain. I diagnosed myself with pyriformis syndrome which I probably got from the walking and biking. It actually got severe enough that I was having difficulty getting in and out of my car, and I was living on ibuprofen just to get through the day. So I felt it was in my best interest to put the exercise on hold in order to recover. Although the pain did improve over the following months, I stopped watching my diet and my weight rebounded again.

Now I'm 33, and as of December, 2012, I weighted 305 lb. I wasn't always heavy; in fact, I've been in great shape for most of my life. When I graduated from high school, I was 6'2" and weighed 180 pounds. I gained about 20 pounds in college, although I was lifting weights a lot, and much of that weight gain was muscle. During medical school, it was no longer convenient for me to exercise, and I stopped watching what I ate; as a result, I've been steadily gaining weight since that time. For the past several years, I've noticed that I have less energy, less get-up-and-go. As a physician, I see a lot of patients who have health problems which can be directly attributed to their weight, and they would benefit from being able to drop a few pounds, but a lot of them are so big that exercise is difficult for them. I don't want to wait until I'm having joint problems and poor mobility, and I feel that I need to start taking control now before it's too late.

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