The Last Supper (day before the diet)

The last time I tried to eat Mediterranean for 3 months, it turned into a total disaster.

August 16^th, 2009: Bub’s Barbecue

The night before I was to begin eating one of the healthiest diets in the world, I invited a bunch of my friends to a local all you can eat Barbecue. I brought a filmmaker to document the evening. For at least an hour, I gorged myself on ribs, French fries, macaroni salad, baked beans, cornbread, and beer.   As soon as one plate was done I would head back for another. Many heaping plates later my stomach was bloated and uncomfortable. I ate with absolutely no abandon as if this were my death row meal, as if I would never eat a good meal again. I ate until my esophagus burned with reflux, until my stomach felt as if it would explode and it still wasn’t over. To really prove just how much I loved myself back then, I topped it all off with a big puffy deep fried twinkie. I wonder what my friends really thought of this crazy event meant to be a prelude to healthy eating. If I watched someone else do this, I think I would have felt very uncomfortable. Here is a person who teaches healthy eating, but feels it necessary to destroy them self with food before they start a program of healthy eating. What an absolute inspiration!

At my first weigh in I clocked in at 236 pounds, the highest I had ever weighed in my life. Within a few months of that weigh-in, my Mom passed away and I ate my grief away to the tune of another 20 pounds gained. By the same time the next year, I weighed 256 pounds. I was so heavy that I couldn’t make it up the stairs without severe knee pain. I was literally sick all the time from acid reflux; I was on a constant dosage of Prilosec. I felt discouraged, sick, and depressed.

May 8^th, 2016 (Mother’s Day)

Now, it is almost 7 years later and I have decided to try to eat 100%

The Last Supper

Mediterranean for 8 weeks. Has anything changed since then? Is this bound to be another failed attempt to lose weight? I don’t think so. I feel vastly different now than I did then. The idea of doing a last minute gorge before eating healthfully seems almost ridiculous to me now. (That being said, I did have a “last supper” of sorts tonight. Mother’s day barbecue at my Mother-in-laws house: A hamburger, pasta salad, potato salad, salad, cake and ice cream, but I didn’t overeat.)

I am not thinking of eating Mediterranean for 8 weeks as difficult. I am actually looking forward to it. Since my highest weight of 256 pounds, I have slowly lost 35 pounds. We will see what I weigh now, but it is somewhere around 220 pounds. I think the most important change is that I love myself a whole lot more than I did 7 years ago. That, I believe is what will really make all the difference.