Yep, it's another darn set of before-and-after pictures.
After I stopped working in Manhattan, the last factor that actually forced me to exercise was taken away. I drove to work and spent up to twelve hours each day sitting at my desk. I also fell out of my old habits of doing a ot of walking and biking. So it's hardly surprising that I gained weight. By the spring of 2003, I was at the point where I really didn't like what I saw when I looked in the mirror every day. The photo on the left should give you a good idea of what I looked like at that time.
That first photo was taken on May 18, 2003 at Scanner's barbecue party, while I was on vacation in California. Pomru showed me the pictures a couple of days later, and I was quite surprised and disappointed with how I looked. Well, to make a long story short, I lost a lot of weight over the next year, and decided to take another picture for comparison one year later. The picture on the right was taken on May 18, 2004 during my Block Island vacation.
Here's another picture from 2004. Note the distinct lack of beer gut.
So how was it done? The only way that works. Less food, more exercise. I'd been eating all kinds of junk food up until 2003, including several cans of Coke and a packet of Fritos every day at work. That's a lot of useless calories every day, especially if you don't exercise. I started by cutting out the junk food and walking for an hour every morning. I also stopped eating big lunches at work. By the summer of 2003 people were already commenting that I'd lost weight, and by early 2004 it was a significant difference.
I don't really like the concept of low-carbohydrate diets. I prefer to go for natural, unprocessed foods. My diet while losing weight consisted mainly of whole grain breads, fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, veggie burgers (I highly recommend Morningstar Farms products) and the occasional bit of meat.
Not that I gave up soda, chocolate, corn chips, or other treats altogether. The key thing is just to consume a lot less of them. And keep up the exercise so that you burn at least as many calories as you take in. As of mid-2004, I go to a gym several days each week, but most of my weight loss was accomplished just by walking, so there's no need to spend money or do anything extraordinary to get results.
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