I recently hit a point in my life that I'm not proud to admit. Within the last 30-60 days, I've noticed my weight increasing, my clothes not seeming to fit, and my athletic ability was absolutely dismal. I don't know what it was that lit a fire under my ass, but this prior Tuesday (April 15th) I started a diet. I had previously tried this diet before while my wife was pregnant, and saw amazing results for the brief period of time that I stuck to it. As you can imagine, I didn't stick to it very long. To be exact, the first time I tried the diet I lasted 2 days. So far, I've made it almost through the whole first week this time around. The diet I am trying is called the "Slow Carb" diet.

About two years ago, I bought a book called The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. If you want to know more about the book, you can check out the website here. Anyways, the book explains the diet in detail. Summarizing the chapter which covers the diet is pretty simple, though. Basically, the rules are as follows:

1. Don't eat dairy, starches, or fruit
2. Don't eat processed foods, sugar, or artificial sweeteners
3. You can eat as many vegetables, eggs, beans, and meats as you want
4. Follow the above rules 6 days a week. One day a week eat as much of whatever you want.

There it is. Looking at those 4 rules, it seems pretty simple. And, for the most part it's easy enough. Physically, my body doesn't crave all the foods I'm not eating. I work for a company called Flying Pie. We make the best pizza in Boise, ID (seriously, we were voted the best pizza in Boise by USA Today in 2010), and I don't have a hard time avoiding the foods I'm not supposed to eat. Do I still want to? Hell yes! In fact, my first "cheat day" is scheduled this coming Monday (April 21st), and I'm going to the lunch buffet at work to get my fill of delicious, forbidden pizza goodness.

Anyways, enough about about pizza. I started the Slow Carb diet weighing in at 207 lbs. Today, I weigh in at 198. I've consistently lost 2 lbs each day. I've made sure that the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is take a step on the scale so I'm not getting inaccurate results from being weighed at different times in the day. You might be thinking that it's exercise that has helped produce these results. To some extent, the exercise I do could have some impact on my weight loss. But, I'm trying to get back into shape. I started the Couch-to-5k running program, and I've added in a bit of body weight exercises as well. But, I only do this three days a week. If I were exercising the way I used to while I was in the Army, I would think that it had more to do with the recent changes in my weight, but that isn't the case now.

Now, I am starting to see dramatic, consistent changes in my body. It is because of these results that I've been getting that I have decided to start this blog. A friend of mine that I went to school with recently underwent a life changing experience and started a blog of her own, detailing the changes in her life.Until I get her permission, I won't tell any details or post a link to her blog, but her story inspired me to publicly keep a record of my health and fitness goals. With all of that being said here goes:

Starting weight: 207
Current weight: 198