Fat, Sick and Dying

“I’ve decided to lose weight.”

I’ve dreaded making one of these posts because if I don’t follow through, it’s just a documented example of my failure.

My liver enzymes came back really high this past month and I had to have an ultrasound to find out I’ve got nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

It’s early in the disease, as stages go, but as Carrie has said – it’s the first hard evidence we have to make some changes. Up until now it was easy to cheat or go back to old eating habits because while I was fat, I was sort of healthy. I mean, I had no heart problems or blood pressure problems. But this diagnosis means that the last few years of joint pain and poor sleep and no activity is not just a sign of getting old. I’m wearing out.

I’ve decided to try follow the advice of Keto and Paleo advocates and go lo-carb, high-fat, moderate protein.

Carrie and I are reading labels and finding out just how poorly we’ve been eating. While Carrie hasn’t had any blood work and has no symptoms of fatty liver, she says that she’s in the same boat and is going to try this new diet with me because we both really would like to lose weight.

I’ve avoided taking any kind of “before” photos. I have plenty of pictures of me being fat.

I’ve downloaded MyFitnessPal and am using the app and the web site to track my food starting yesterday. Although I think the mere fact of writing down everything you eat is enough to shame you into eating less. I wish I had a daily diary of my eating from a few weeks or months ago. It would probably scare the shit out of me! So just tracking what I eat should be enough to eat less.

As far as what to eat – I’m looking for low-carb alternatives to daily foods. It’s not going too well but it hasn’t been a week yet. I’m hoping the immediate side-effects of eating better (less inflammation, less farting, better sleep) will help overcome the temptation to go back to bad foods.

But in any event, this blog entry has the distinction of being the written documentation of when I decided to try to lose weight. I have no idea what I weigh, but I think I saw 330lbs on the scale at the doctor’s office a few weeks back so I’m gonna use that number.

I weigh 330lbs at the beginning of August, 2018.

Let’s see what kind of progress I can make.

Wish me luck.

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