Baby...I can't weight...

In 2005, I went on a trip to Europe with one of my closest friends. He is about 6 feet tall, weighs about 150 pounds, and is / was an avid runner. You get the type. You basically wanna bitchslap him when he can fit into anything. Me on the other hand, has a mother who has a yoga fit body, but a father who is built like Danny Devito. Guess whose genes I tend to have more of?

So anywho, we are eating our way through Ireland, England, and France. Enjoying the lowfat options everywhere...um, no. When you can buy a crepe smothered in Nutella on a street corner and you think this is a light snack, you know there are issues. My friend was eating anything and everything and is a bundle of energy. I on the other hand was eating the same things but feeling lethargic and not like I was about to win the Ironman. My friend is also Vegan...maybe he was onto something.

So we are eating, walking around, eating, sight seeing, and eating. We decided we were going to do some clothes shopping in Paris...because that is the religion there. I should have realized that French clothes are cut for my friend, not for me. Almost every single thing I tried on didn't fit. If it did fit, it just made my body remind me that I am Greek / Italian and God will punish me with a belly for it. So, I didn't buy anything. However, it didn't hit me until I saw the pictures from our trip. Who the hell was that guy in the pictures?

When I was a kid, I was so skinny that people used to tell me to eat something, anything! There are photos of me on the beach wearing a bathing suit where my hipbones were sticking out. I looked emaciated, I looked skinny, it was heaven. I ate anything I wanted and had the energy of a chihuahua. As you get older, your body changes, and you can't eat whatever the hell you want whenever you want it.

So, flashforward to 2005. I land back in the States and decide I am going to do something about this. I no longer wanted to be the puffy guy in the photos. I had done Weight Watchers at Work a few years before and had lost 15 pounds..but didn't keep up with it after the work program stopped. So I went online and discovered that WW had now taken their program into the impersonal online world. You mean I could track what I ate online..it would calculate point totals for me..and no one had to see how much I weighed and how much I lost, except for me?? I was in. However, I didn't want to learn how to fit a tub of Cool Whip or a Bacon Cheeseburger into my diet. I really wanted to learn how to eat healthily and enjoy what I was having. So I talked to my Vegan friend, who is also a nutritionist by the by, and decided I was going to go whole hog (pardon the expression) and do the Vegan thing as well.

And I did. I was whipping up the best vegan stirfries for dinner (no oil by the way), was enjoying the best veggie burgers, discovering seitan, and tempeh, and learned that tofu makes a great substitute for formerly creme based dishes and desserts. I was actually loving the food...and the weight was dropping off. So much so that from June - October of that year, I lost almost 60 pounds. I was looking great, I was feeling great, I had boundless energy. My friend hadn't seen me in a few months and when I finally saw him, his response was literally "Holy shit, I can see your jawline."

I went on a conference to Las Vegas that October and folks who had not seen me in a long while kept complimenting me and calling me "slim" and "hot" and whatever. I felt great and I felt like "Wow, I am not the only person who noticed." I think that is when ego started to set in. I felt great and thought, ok, I conquered this, and I stopped being so strict about my eating habits. I managed to keep the weight at the same level for the next year...but never lost another pound, even though I had about 15 to go.

Then, the holiday season hit and my mother kept insisting that I eat the food she prepared (turkey, potatoes, gravy, etc.)..so I did. Then I thought, "this isn't so bad, you can eat a litle bit more here and there." BIG mistake..big..huge. I just became completely careless after that and while I still remained relatively vegan, (completely vegan at home, but not so much when I was out), I was not watching portions. Over the course of almost two years, I managed to put back on about 40 of the pounds I had lost. I went back on WW and lost about 13 pounds, but then became careless again and gained it back.

So here I am. Three and a half years after I initially started my weight loss program, and I am starting it again right now. Well, actually yesterday. I am staying vegan as I enjoy vegan foods and have fun creating vegan versions of non-vegan dishes. I am starting back on my exercise regime (which I used to really enjoy) and deleting delivery.com from my list of Bookmarks. :)

So, to WW, I toast you with my Tall Soy Decaf Sugar Free Vanilla latte (2.5 points). Here's to me...well, less of me.