Let it begin

My journey may be just like everyone else's, maybe ... probably. I could go all the way back to childhood and the horrible head trips I laid on myself with the help of other children but I imagine anyone reading this would understand that one. Instead I will fast forward to adulthood and how that entire thing snowballed out of control.

When I graduated high school I was already seeing the warning signs that I had no way of controlling the monster inside. I would pick up massive amounts of weight in very short periods of time. I was eating the exact same diet that my forever thin brother never gained an ounce on. I am talking 15 pounds plus in a week. I Loved food. I really did. Since I was a little baby everything that was love and family was deeply rooted in food. Combine that with the fact that the regional cusine of the Texas panhandle was horrible health wise. I had moved to Colorado at 12 and I think that people from here fought some demons too but people my mothers idea of health food was fried liver and onions. The fact that I hated liver and onions made that misleading fact believeable to me. I was to be forever stuck in a loop that everything "healthy" would and had to .. SUCK. I avioded healthy choices like a deadly desease. After all not only did healthful foods suck I would also have to deal with the fact that I was over weight and that I could not do. I avoided mirrors and the size tags on my clothing. I Piled second and third helping of all my meals on my plate with abandon. Mashed potatos and gravy, fried potatos and onions, baked potatos with 1/4 stick of margarine (health food) and 1/4 cup of sour cream were my main loves. I am also amazed at the fact that all otherwise healthy veggies had to be fried, drowned in bacon fat or drenched in a creamy cheese sauce. After all to not do so made them healthy and healthy food sucked. In Texas any food that is not fried must be smoked low and slow and bathed in sugar laiden bar-b-que sauce. I would drench everything with salt and call it good. I lothed any form of exercise, but still concidered myself an athlete because to be otherwise was anti American or something. That was a recipie for disaster.

I stalled my complete ruin by enlisting in the Army. I managed to keep a dangerous handle on the monster do completely to the vast amount of physical activity that I was forced into by Uncle Sam's Army. I hated the exercize but I had no choice so I managed to forstall the avalanche. I also noticed that the Army diet was also horrible but it was so differant that didnt eat nearly as much of it. I saw the truth coming every time I came home on leave. I would pickup 30 pounds in three weeks like clockwork. I hated Army life but I came to avoid leave because it would mean 2 to 3 months of remedial physicle trainning and the ire of my first sargent. Then it happened. I was honorably discharged. I returned to Colorado. I had a ball. I loved my new Army free life. No P.T. no early wakeup, no accountability for my weight. I never listened to my body. Refused to ever see what was comming. I was in the middle of a perfect storm and didnt even know it.