Introducing Chris

Welcome, one and all, to my new Google-powered blog. If all goes well, I intend for this to be a chronicle of my weight-loss journey (destination: 199 pounds!). If all doesn't go well...well, hopefully someone will find this and give me a good kick in the ass.

I'm 31 years old, married nearly two years, and living in Ottawa, Canada. In an incredible stroke of irony, I just started a new job last week, as senior statistician for nutrition data at Health Canada. Hey, if I'm going to be counting everyone else's calories, the least I could do is keep track of my own, right?

I've had trouble with my weight for pretty much the entire time since leaving university. I used to be thin. Really thin. My wife looks at my grad photo from university and can't believe it's the same person. Back in university, I was broke more often than not. This had two beneficial effects on my health: I couldn't eat a lot, and my main form of transportation was my bike.

I used to ride everywhere. I went to school in Waterloo, Ontario, which is one of what are called the Tri-Cities, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge. Waterloo was in the north part of the area, and it was a long ride to get anywhere in Kitchener. Getting to Cambridge was even further. As a result, I logged hundreds of miles on my bike in those years. I even did a couple of really long rides, one to Guelph for a surprise visit to my aunt and uncle, and another to Hamilton, just because I was bored one day and wanted something to do. Go to Yahoo! Maps and look at the distance between the two cities, and you'll see how in shape I must have been (and how nuts, as well - it's not exactly flat when you get near Hamilton, as the main road goes straight down the Niagara Escarpment).

Now? Well, I still love the idea of biking, even though I haven't been on a serious ride in years. After I got my first full-time job with the government, and more specifically after I broke up with my live-in girlfriend of two years, I became interested in a lot more sedentary pursuits, like gambling, or sitting in front of the TV and/or computer for hours (sometimes days) at a time. My eating habits became much worse. I travelled everywhere by bus, and later by car, instead of on my bike. Of course, I put on weight, and the more weight I put on, the more sedentary I became. It was a truly vicious circle.

My only real experiences with dieting were two bouts with the Atkins Diet. The first time, I entered a weight-loss bet with two colleagues from work right around the same time as Atkins was starting to gain momentum. Three months later, I'd lost around 40 pounds, and won the bet with ease. Of course, immediately after I went off the diet, I ballooned right back up. The second time, I went on it for two weeks, and got off right after meeting my future wife.

Right now, I'm somewhere between 280 and 300 lbs., depending on which scale you believe. I'm trying to get somewhere under 200. Even one pound -- one OUNCE, even -- and I'd be ecstatic. I don't have a date in mind to achieve this goal, but one mini-goal I've set is to be wearing a tuxedo at my sister's wedding in October that's smaller than the size-46 I wore to my own wedding two Augusts ago.