I began gaining weight around the age of 12, it was around the time that I was hitting puberty. I was getting a lot taller, and I liked that, but I was also gaining weight around the sides. I was laughed at for it at school quite a bit. I didn't know how to deal with it. I looked so awkward. I had this crazy idea that if I gained just a little more weight, I might look right, and I might get some respect. But obviously it didn't work that way. My parents even became worried when they saw how much I was eating. They thought I couldn't control myself and had the doctors prescribe me appetite supressants. That didn't help, because I still forced myself to eat, and I didn't have an appetite problem in the first place.

Over time I wised up and saw that I was getting nowhere, health-wise. I needed to lose the weight, rather than try and round it out. I have always been the kind of guy that does crazy things on the spur of the moment, so I did the craziest thing I could think of at the time, which was go vegetarian. You cannot imagine the flack I was getting from my friends. They were all sports jocks, so you can imagine the kind of attitudes they had about vegetarians. But I surprised them all. I lost over 60 pounds in 2 years of being a healthy vegetarian. Oh, and I did it properly too, despite everyone worrying that I wouldn't. I ate very well, and had an impeccable diet.

I kept the weight off for a long time, and I was looking really good. But it wasn't going to last forever. By the time I was 25, I was working a really bad menial job, and I was kind of depressed. I didn't know what to do with my life, and I was unhappy. I started neglecting my health and laying on the couch and in bed a lot. Of course I started gaining weight... a lot of it. I gained over 100 pounds in 2 years, a huge difference. My family was worried about me, moreso about my mental health than my physical health. The weight gain was just a clue as to my state of mind. My friends were worried about me too, because I was out of contact for a while and never went out anymore. I just kind of drifted off into space.

My father died of a heart attack shortly after that. It really crushed me and I had a very hard time dealing with it. He was a pretty big guy himself, and he didn't eat very well. That was the worst part, I saw that I was heading just where he was. I knew that if I didn't smarten up that the same thing was going to happen to me. It's just too bad that it had to be such a tragic event to shake me back into reality. I spent a lot of time with my mother from then on, and she tried to help me lose the weight. The hardest thing was sticking to the exercise when I just didn't want to do it anymore. But we both sort of took it on as a project to do together, believing that dad would have supported this wholeheartedly. And who knows, maybe he helped me somehow from wherever he is, but I stuck with the exercising for months. I even found vegetarianism again, and remembered my old habits. My newfound health has got me feeling better not just physically, but mentally. I'm energized, and ready to deal with things.

To date, I have lost 65 pounds due to exercise and healthy eating. My mom is very proud of me, and I think my dad probably is too.