a little bit of personal

With the high schools in Macon taking a break last week, I decided to go a little personal today. I am going to talk about something near and dear to my heart and it may interest some of you and it may not.
I am on a diet.
For the ones who don't want to hear about this (lots of obese folks in this world) I urge you to click off now and go read Sports Illustrated or something. But if you want to hear what I really think, keep reading.
I will start off by saying what a tough world this is to try and lose weight. As I drive to work, I see signs of a super supreme biscuit, chicken biscuits, a new country fried steak biscuit, a butter steak burger, loads of friend chicken deals and just about everything else that describes some of my favorite foods. All of this while I am eating a banana or a plumb.
I will also talk about my least favorite term to be called. While I am a bit tall, I am not tall enough to be called tall. So when people walk up to me and say BIG JOHN how's it going. I will usually put my head down and pretend not to hear it and just say, going good here how about you.
But inside, I am burning.
I know you don't mean anything by it, but I am not that tall. So to me, its like you are saying, Hey fatboy, how's it going. IM not tall enough to be called Big John, so obviously you are talking about my weight.  So just say what's on your mind.
I figure over the last 45 years or so, I have lost 400 pounds. I was big in high school, and dropped 60 once but gained it back. My wife married me despite my size and soon after we were married I dropped around 100 pounds. And guess what I kept it off. I ran the Labor Day road race twice, even ran it in 24 minutes once. My wife had dropped to around 115 pounds and she was having issues getting pregnant, and the doc told her she had to gain a little weight to get things moving. So she did, and I did too.
Over the next 20 years or so I was usually pretty big, but I was ready to push again when I was out of clothes that fit. With a lot of help I went from a high of 322 to 260. I know still big, but a great improvement. I kept most of it off for a few years, but in the last year, I pretty much went in another tailspin of eating all the bad stuff again. I was not happy about it, but I knew after going to Madison's national meet that it was time to do something about it.
So I am about 30 days back into my plan and things are going quite well thank you.
I am not sure where I started weight wise, but I am quite confident in saying that it was somewhere around the first number not being 2 anymore.
As of last Friday I am down to 284. It is sickening that I have worked so hard and I still weigh that much, but even now my energy level is way up and I feel tons (no jokes) better. You see, here's the deal, I do not have the mind of an old obese man. I have the mind of a young guy with lots of energy. The weight takes that away.
I write this blog today to motivate myself. It's a deeply personal battle for me, but you see I don't care if you know my weight. I think some of you are fighting the same battle.
So, my advice to all of you is maybe not call anyone Big anybody unless they are 6'4 or above. It is down right insulting.
In closing I will say that I have another month of this before I will think about cheating. My wife and I celebrate a 30th wedding anniversary by heading on a quick beach trip on may 4th. I plan on being 272 by then.
Sure I will still look the part of Big John, but in my mind, I wont see it that way.
Have a great week everyone