The History of Ted

Go forth young man, spring forward from 

history and leave 20 pounds behind.

A little historical reference always helps. Here's mine.

I was a super skinny kid growing up. I had tons of energy and stopping to eat was a speed bump in the road on the way to more interesting things. My family did a good job of feeding me nutritious home cooked food. My Mom followed the 1 Meat, 1 Veggie and 1 Starch system. In fact it's so ingrained that I have a hard time breaking away from it now. Raised in the burbs we had a Kroger, Red&White, FoodLion, PigglyWiggly and roadside stands. The lunches at school were actually pretty good. Granted as kids we talked about how bad it was, but looking back our trays were full of veggies. We had fruit as a snack. We had milk to drink. (chocolate was for Friday only) I really believe that foods back in the 70's and 80's were not as processed, not so full of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils as they are today. We rarely ate fast food and junk food and candy was for Halloween.

I see kids today eating nothing but chicken nuggets and drinking coke and I'm amazed. I guess I'm a product of my generation. A solid GenX'er. Current age, 37. I was raised on Star Wars and 80's pop. Went to college with Seattle Grunge. Graduated to watch the birth of the internet, the dot com bubble and The Great Recession. And all that time, as the years went by, my eating habits got worse.

I probably put on my first extra pounds around the 10th grade, lifting weights and packing on the calories in hopes of playing football, +10. Then college the meal plan didn't help, add on some more, +15. After I graduated and moved to the big city, started a job 10 hours a day sitting behind a computer and another 2 sitting in traffic, +18. Add in the sadness of a layoff, a quarter life crisis, +20. The joy of eating out with my wife, +25.

Welcome. Some of you know this place well.

Now I have tried to lose in the past. With some success. I've tried Akins, Weight Watchers, and P90x. Did these diets work? Yes. A quick run down of my experience is as follows:

Akins: works for a very limited amount of time, but is simply not sustainable. You just can't live off bacon. Tired, cranky and headaches that don't end. No thanks.

Weight Watchers: I lost 16 lbs two different times... and that seemed to be my stopping point. I will say it's not WW's fault. We tried to do it on our own, counting points, following WW recipes. I believe it probably works better if you attend meetings. And in retrospect I realize that I was living off 100 calorie packs. My fault. I would try it again because I do believe it works if done correctly. Plus you do learn a lot about how to eat and how much.

P90x: Technically not a weight loss plan, but a get in shape plan. Weight loss is a by product. Does it work, absolutely. But it works better if you can drop some weight ahead of time. The workouts will payoff more if you can do them. Carrying too much weight makes it very difficult and it did a number on my feet, knees and ankles after 60 days. Also be careful what type of supplements or protein shakes you take. Take the wrong ones and you may gain weight, and not just muscle. My biggest issue with P90x was the time required to complete the workouts. It almost has to become your only "hobby." When I drop some weight I'm looking forward to giving P90x another try.

So that's my background. Not that dissimilar from most of you.