I always considered myself naturally chubby. From the very beginning, I was always bigger than the other kids, but not any taller. So as you can imagine, I was made the butt of a lot of very cruel jokes. Even into my teens I was like that. When all of the other guys were showing interest in girls, I was too shy. I was concerned about what they would think of my weight, that they might even laugh at me. I was an unhappy kid, and the way that I dealt with it was by eating. Food always gave me comfort. No matter what was going on around me, food was always the same, and it never judged me. And I'm not talking about health food, either! I was eating cookies, candy... anything sweet. When I got my license I started going on late night fast food runs - it was the only way I could get myself out of the house.

This continued on into my college years, of course. Now I'd never been a huge guy, I was just always chubby. But in college, I noticed my metabolism was slowing down, but I continued eating. And it was at this point that I was introduced to beer. I mean, you can't really go to college and not do some drinking! I always kept beer in the fridge, and I was at the bars every weekend, and always drank at social events. I was by no means an alcoholic, but all the beer was not helping me with my weight. Plus, with all the schoolwork I was dealing with at the time, I had little time to do any kind of exercise - not that I was ever really into exercise in the first place. Over my college years I balooned from 225 pounds all the way to over 260.

That's when I hit a bit of a turning point. I was really depressed and unstable during those years, and the slightest thing could set me off into another eating binge. One time I was hanging around the student lounge and I was buying a candy bar from the snack machine and I overheard a couple of girls talking behind me, and one of them said "Does he really need another one of those" and the other one said "Ewww." I guess they didn't think I could hear them, but voices really carry sometimes. Man, I thought that I was going to lose it. I wanted to scream and cry, but I just hurried myself out of there and found a place to sit alone and cry and gorge myself on chocolate. As I was sitting there staring off into space, I reached a decision. I knew I had to do something. I knew I was never going to be happy as long as I was a big guy, I just couldn't be comfortable with it.

One of the things that I've learned over the years of being heavy is that dieting doesn't work. I have been through a lot of phony fad diets and wasted a lot of money. I simply gave up at one point on those. I knew that if I wanted to get thin, there was only one way it was going to happen - healthy eating, and a lot of exercise. I don't know if I could have given myself a bigger challenge than that. I've really never done anything so difficult. I tried to go all out though = I sold my car, got a membership in a gym, and even sought help with a dietitian. It wasn't easy to keep up, and in fact I wasn't able to keep up going to the gym. I just couldn't deal with the environment. I cancelled my membership and continued exercising in my own way - in and around my home. I was biking, running, walking, and doing a lot of simple exercises in the house whenever I had some spare time. I did keep up the healthy eating pretty well. I won't say I wasn't tempted, and I won't say I never caved in and ate something I shouldn't have eaten, but over all I put in a damn good effort. Mostly I was limiting my overall intake, but specifically I was trying to cut out carbs and sugar and the junk food. I also stopped eating red meat, and managed to cut out the beer -- that was the hardest part!

It took me many years to get so heavy, and I think it'll take years to get to my goal weight of 170 pounds. But, after just one year of minding my habits, I've managed to drop from 260 pounds down to 230. It's not a miracle, it's just hard work and common sense!