Have to start somewhere...

I guess we all have to start somewhere.  I'm starting today at 407 pounds.  Here's my weight loss story.

I'm in my 30's, recently divorced, and working on getting my life back in general.  The reason I'm so overweight?  I could make many excuses, but the truth is simply because I have not taken care of myself as I should.  I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders, and have an eating addiction.  Now that I'm in therapy and slowly moving back to school, I'm getting things back one step at a time.  I accept no other results except for success.

The starting stats:

Weight: 407 pounds
Height: 5'2"
BMI: 74.4

Ouch.  Kind of suck, don't they?  No one to blame for this but me.  Now it's time to take responsibility and kick ass.

In order to lose weight, I'm changing both what I eat and how I go about my day.  In terms of food, I'll be avoiding most starches and most grains.  Yes, I realize that conventional wisdom says whole grains are healthy, but they trigger very bad addictive tendencies when I eat them.  One slice of bread never quits there - it's a loaf of bread.  I simply have to say no and draw the line here.  So, that takes wheat, corn, oats, rye, potatoes and the like off the list.  If I'm really dying to eat it, and it's a special occasion, I might make concessions.  As long as I'm not eating it out of boredom, depression, laziness, complacency, or self-abuse, I will.  That probably sounds corny as hell, but we'll see.  It probably won't be a weekly, or even a monthly thing.  Instead, I'll eat fruit (fresh without sugar or processing) when the sweet tooth hits.

While I'll be eating 50g or less of carbs a day, the bulk of my food will be fresh vegetables, as large a variety as possible.  Most of these I'll try to get in leafy greens such as kale, turnip greens, romaine, endive, escarole, and the like.  Think probably anywhere from 2-4 pounds of vegetation a day.  I'll also be eating meat and eggs, of course, the best I can afford.

I'm using the book The Primal Blueprint as my framework.  I'm not going to worry about healthy carbs too much overall, unless I start eating way more fruit than I should be (think upwards of 100+ carbs of binging).  We'll see how it goes.

I'll be keeping track of my nutrients and such.  Not sure if I'll do it here, but perhaps I'll set up FitDay to do it.  I already use the retail version to track it, but perhaps extra accountability would be good?

Lastly I'd like to thank Tyler at the 344 Pounds weblog.  His writing gave me the needed jolt to get started.  So thank you, Tyler!  Also, he's an awesome guy.  I suggest you check out his website if you haven't.  He's a really inspiring fellow.