The Battle of The Bulge, Pt. III

This can serve as a before picture, though it's from three days into my Thing.

You people are making me fat.

As has been mentioned, we had 13 sets of visitors spend time at our house over the course of 4.5 months. Three more sets of friends and family have trips planned for October (we'll call them the smartest of the bunch, though you're all special.)

People are obviously drawn to us. That creates a good problem for this guy because people want to eat out when they visit and food has always been a challenge for me. I weighed 235 pounds the summer before 10th grade and still have stretch marks to prove it. Then I stopped eating. The "diet" was ridiculous. I skipped breakfast. Skipped lunch at school. Then I came home and had two Healthy Choice dinners, a sandwich and a Diet Coke. I was an idiot.

I see neck fat!

Back when The Wife and I were merely dating, and broke up, I lost about 40 pounds. Over the course of our eight-plus years of marriage, there's been a creeping-upward trend. When we got married, I weighed around 160 pounds. A week ago, I tipped the scales at 186.4 pounds.

This is not a national emergency, but it's scary. The pants weren't fitting and it was obviously time to do something. A viewing of the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" simply lit the fire under me to actually do something.

I've justified the weight creep for years. After all, I still run 20 miles a week. Fat people can't run 20 miles. And I like drinking beer. That's not going to change.

But at 186.4, it was time to do something. Or, specifically, it was time for The Thing. It's not really a diet ~ diets are often aimed at hitting a particular weight. The Thing is a time-based commitment to eating gluten- and dairy-free for two weeks while maintaining my exercise.

That sounds fancy, and The Thing is not fancy. Here's what it really means:
* Eat lots of veggies and fruit; at least six servings a day;
* Eat three meals and two apple snacks a day (Seriously, I think apples are filled with lard because they're so filling. I wish they tasted like bacon-dusted French fries.)
* Averaging 13,000 steps a day on the pedometer on my cellphone. This isn't a lot. In fact, it's exactly how many steps I averaged before The Thing started.

This morning, after a run, I weighed in at 179.6 pounds. If all the numbers up there confuse you, I'll boil it down: That's a loss of almost seven pounds in less than seven days.

The realizations from The Thing are almost basic. I had no idea how much I was snacking before starting The Thing. You know who gained 25 pounds by eating hummus and corn chips? This guy. Surely, the beer played a large role, too.

And then there's eating out, and that's where you come in. I've eaten out once since starting The Thing and that was this morning with Nacho Man and Molly Lu. I ordered a veggie salad with vinaigrette (full disclosure: I gave myself a break from The Thing by snacking on their nachos and chicken fingers).

When people come to Maine, they want bacon-dusted French fries. The cousins wanted Buffalo wings and nachos. Hashtag and #PoundSign wanted lobster rolls and fried seafood. Always the good host, I indulged, too.

And that's just it. I indulged. Nobody crammed food into my mouth. Well, Nacho Man would probably do it to be funny. But usually it's my choice whether or not I'm going to eat something. You didn't get me into this mess, I did. Otherwise, I'd ask you to lose the weight for me or get lap band surgery. If only it were that easy.

Actually, The Thing hasn't been that big a deal. It's fun to watch the general downward trend on the scale every morning. And so we go into another week of The Thing. Actually, it's just me going. It's not you, it's me.