Hi my name is Jack, and I live in Dallas. I'm a big-time barbecue enthusiast. I love all things barbecue, and I'm grilling in the backyard all the time. Most of my meals come straight from the grill. I think that's also what's been my downfall in the weight department. I've been big into grilling since I've been living on my own, and a couple of years ago it really caught up with me. I've been eating a lot of meat over the years, and I understand that that's the kind of thing that can cause weight gain. Especially steak, I grill a lot of steak. There's nothing tastier than a medium-rare sirloin basted in my favourite sauce. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! But I don't do that anymore.

I never had a problem with my weight before. I was always an average sized guy, I played a lot of sports. That probably helped to keep me in good shape. But I don't really play sports anymore. I don't have much time or opportunity, I'm getting older. There's not much call for players of my age! So when I started gaining weight, I didn't really know how to deal with it. In all honesty, I didn't really care too much, and I kind of avoided thinking about it. It seems normal, I mean it happens to a lot of guys around my age. My family was starting to notice though. They ribbed me about it here and there. They didn't really mean anything by it, but it got me thinking about my weight. I really started to notice it then. I wasn't huge by any means, but I got to thinking that if I kept going on this way, I would just get bigger and bigger and I know that isn't healthy.

I wanted to lose the weight, but I didn't want to give up backyard barbecues. I mean, that's what I know, that's what I'm good at! So I saw on tv that there are ways to cook healthy meals on the barbecue -- ie grilling vegetables and such. I'm not a total carnivore, I've always eaten vegetables with my meals, but never very much. So I started taking recipes I was seeing on tv, and changing them up and trying my own ideas. I put a lot of different veggies on the barbecue now, all kinds of different stuff. There's ones that I like, and ones that I don't, it's all an experiment. I've also taken to grilling a lot of fish, which is healthier. When I'm not doing that, I do chicken, which is better too. I still grill steaks, but not very often -- it's a treat for when I've been good. I'm enjoying my barbecue more than ever before, and yet I'm still eating healthy. Who'd believe it was possible?

Even I knew that wasn't enough though. You can't just eat healthy and expect to drop the pounds. I wanted to do some exercise. But I didn't know what would be good for me. So I experimented with that too. I started with jogging. That didn't work though. With the extra weight I was carrying, my ankles were taking a lot of impact and they got real sore after I was out for a while. So I took to walking, which was a great low-impact activity. It was also easy to do because I could look around and get distracted by things and forget I was exercising. Walking was my favourite exercise of all the ones I tried, and I kept it up pretty easy.

I've been living healthy for about 9 months now, and I've been getting great results. I've lost about 46 pounds. That's not all though, I think I'm gonna have no trouble keeping up the lifestyle and staying healthy for years to come. I'll probably live longer for it.