"Man In The Mirror"

Y'all, I am having a moment here. Get out the smelling salts and a church hand fan, because either you or I will need them. Step into my shoes for a moment, if you will. If you are or ever have been overweight, you know that you have photos that you have decided will NEVER, under any circumstances see the light of day. They are hidden in a shoe box under your bed, or a folder deep in the recesses of your hard drive. For those of you who are visions of beauty who have never had a weight problem, just think back to that day you had a whopper of a zit on an important day. The photos live on forever, whether we like it or not.

I figure that a part of my process is to accept the fact that I am currently overweight (and used to be even BIGGER) before I can take my next step in finally losing it. I'm now controlling my weight and body instead of my weight controlling me. Therefore, I present to you a photo journal of my ups and downs since approximately 2001. Grab a healthy snack and settle in, this is gonna be epic.

Let's start back in 2001 and move to the present. This way we get the worst (read, biggest) photos out of the way early, and perhaps we can all forget them by the end of this entry. Also, I've cropped nearly everyone out of these photos, please don't take offense.

First up, early 2001. I was 16 or 17 in this photo. I was a totally average child; not skinny or fat. In early high school I slowly began packing on the pounds, but this is when it was starting to get out of hand.

I believe this is probably the biggest I have ever been. My own perception of my weight is so jacked that I really can't be positive either way. This was July of 2003, taken four days before I made my move to New York City. I didn't crop out Kimberley Locke simply because she's honestly the only reason that this photo wasn't destroyed. Just keeping it real! This photo takes my breath away; I feel like I'm looking at someone else, that there is no way in hell it could actually be ME.

This is from November of 2003. A solid four months of life in the city was obviously doing good things to me. I did a modified version of Atkins beginning in July of 2003. To this day, I still believe that Atkins (the REAL plan, not a bastardized version that claims you can eat bacon and cheese all the live long day) is a great plan. It's just very hard to stick with it.

Fast forward to May of 2004. I had maintained what I had lost, and continued to lose (albeit at a slower pace).

Just a few months later in August of 2004 I reached my lowest weight. I was still approximately 40 pounds from my final goal. However, I reached the point where I was finally starting to get too comfortable with the amount of weight I had lost. The impetus that made me start losing weight was that I wanted to be able to walk into any store and find clothes that fit properly. At this weight, that was no longer an issue, so I began the slow ascent to back up the scale. The one thing that strikes me about this photo is how young I look. I look like such a baby! I was 20.

Here we are sometime in mid-2005. You can see I put maybe 10 pounds back on, but nothing extreme. All of my slimmer clothing still comfortably fit and I felt fairly good.

This was taken in late September, 2005. When I look back at this I think, "I look pretty good!". The crazy thing is that I very clearly remember thinking when this picture was being taken that I did NOT want to be photographed because I felt that I had put a massive amount of weight back on. I was convinced I was back to obese. Now in present day 2009 (some 30 or 35 pounds heavier than in this photo), I wonder what was wrong with me back then. I'm convinced that every person with weight issues has at very least a mild form of BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder).

Perhaps since my late 2005 brain was already believing I was a failed fattie, the thought became reality, as you can see from this photo from March of 2006. This began the destructive cycle of: become unhappy, comfort myself with food, gain weight, become even more depressed, eat bad things (almost subconsciously), and continue the climb back up the scale.

Taken in October 2006, I reached the highest weight I had been since 2003. Having not been on a scale in probably a year, I was shocked to see the scale climb to above 300 pounds. The week before these photos were taken I had started another round of low-carb living, but the open bar put a momentary kink in that plan, as evidenced in the photo. :)

For whatever reason, the low carb lifestyle wasn't working for me as easily as it had in the past. This photo, from December 2006 shows very little change from two months prior.

There were very few photos taken of me in the first half of 2007. After seeing others manage to have some success with Weight Watchers, I attended my first meeting two days after my 23rd birthday in April. Down a significant portion of weight, I was feeling fairly good in August of 2007. I know I look like a bit of a douche in this photo, but in my defense the person that took it told me to "look like you are dancing!"

I continued to lose (although fairly slowly) into September of 2007. However, I had reached that magical weight that I had reached back in the Summer of 2004 where I was JUST comfortable enough to not care ENOUGH about maintaining a good diet. The problem with this is that I was still a solid 40 to 50 pounds away from my goal.

Though I had pretty much stopped losing weight (up 2, down 1, up 1, down 2), I was still attending my Weight Watchers meetings and half-assing it. Because of this, I was at least able to maintain all of my loss. This photo is from December 2007.

Throughout the first half of 2008 I stayed pretty much the same as the fall of 2007. I had one minor jump up of about 10 pounds, and that held steady for a while. This photo is from August of 2008. The funny thing is, I thought that it was a huge deal and that I had gained "so much weight back". As in the past, thought became reality, and after I was laid off from my day job, the weight began to pile on.

This is from Thanksgiving 2008. I had gained approximately 15 pounds since August. Much of my clothing was no longer wearable, and I had to purchase a few new shirts.

Fast forward to late Spring of 2009, and I've gained an additional 10 to 15 pounds. It's odd how I seem to maintain one weight for a while, and then seemingly within the period of only a week, it jumps 8 to 10 pounds. It teeters for a few days, and if I don't make a drastic change in my eating, it ends up sticking. It's very strange the way it works.

I'd venture to say that I'm a similar size to what I was in late 2006. I'm certainly not at my highest ever, but if I don't put a stop to it, who knows where this could lead. This photo is from July 2009.

I've been holding steady for approximately two months. No gains, no losses. I want this to be my FINAL before photo. I want every picture from here on forward to be an AFTER photo. I never want to see this weight again.

I'm so glad you all are here with me to help me become an AFTER. I did it before, and I know I can do it again. It just seems to get harder and harder with each re-gain. How many times can you put yourself through the cycle mentally and physically? It has to stop somewhere. There are so many goals I want to achieve in life. I want to be successful. I want to be inspirational. I want to be confident. I want to be a working singer/actor. I am confident in my abilities. I simply KNOW that I am good enough, and I have no doubt that I am capable of achieving all of these things and more. I just need to get my mind and body in order to be able to do them.

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. And no message could've been any clearer..."

Coming up next: I will detail my eating plan, and set a firm start date. Be here!