My diet began around 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 9. It may have actually began two weeks sooner, but that's the best line of demarcation I have, so I say it was Feb. 9.
My diet began with the worst pain I've felt since I dislocated by knee in the 9th grade. At the time, the pain dwarfed the knee, but looking back on it, I still gotta go with the knee. But on to the pain and the diet.
I woke up with what I thought was a stomach ache. No problem. I've had those before. Just head to the bathroom and wait for the magic to happen. However, on this night, nothing happened. Nothing except for more pain. Excruciating pain. I thought if I laid on my stomach for a while it would go away. Only as I laid on my stomach it got worse, so much worse that it hurt to even lay down. It was then that I realized I needed help. I didn't need to be convinced to go to the emergency room, but I did need to know which one because there was no way I could sit in a waiting room while my insides tried to burst through my skin (which is how it felt). It was decided by my wife and physician sister (who we called) that we should take the 20 minute drive to Methodist North.
The emergency room was pretty empty for a Tuesday night and within 15 minutes I was writhing in pain in a hospital room, conscious enough to crack the occasional joke with the attending physician without making it seem like I was faking. I was examined, examined again and given pain medicine which made all right with the world, at least until I threw up the first time in the trashcan of the exam room. I guess my weight loss began at that very moment. The next week would be filled with more and more vomiting and no eating at all (doctor's orders in the beginning. My orders at the end).
After what seemed like a couple of hours, but was actually 4 hours, the hospital made the decision to admit me. The next 3 days were a blur of pain, way too much television, sometimes not enough drugs, no food and even more vomiting. The weekend included a visit from my Nashville-based family, more vomiting, a game of find-the-veins-move-the-IV, more drugs and the onset of frustration from said-family (including my wife).
All told, I was in the hospital for 10 days and diagnosed with diverticulitis, a disease I had never heard of before the doctor taught me not only what it was but how to pronounce and spell it. The disease is caused by small packets of undigested food that find their way into the lining of your small intestine or colon and set up shop, causing the pain I felt and discomfort.
A lifetime of almost every processed meat and food product a guy could think of finally caught up with me.
I've never really had a horrible diet, per se, but I also haven't had the most healthy diet either. However, at the end of my hospital stay, I had lost 20 pounds. At my healthiest point as an adult, I was 217 pounds. That was also when I was working out 3-4 days a week (depending on my schedule) and more or less eating a lot of salads and tuna as a survival mechanism due to my sister's horrible cooking.
A series of circumstances, including the loss of my personal trainer (who worked me out for free), a move to the opposite end of town from my gym of choice and spouse who is a cooking savant all played into the emergence of the 284 pound me by the end of 2010.
While none of the above reasons is a valid excuse for me to fall out of the workout habit, the fact remains that it happened. However, after the hospital stay, two things were clear to me: I had started losing weight and I needed to keep it that way. But how?
We had toyed around with re-joining the YMCA or actually utilizing the limited, but viable and free workout facilities in the basement of our apartment, but none of that has come to fruition yet.
After two months of keeping the 20 pounds off because I've been eating mostly fish and chicken and no lunch meat at all, I'm about to embark on the journey with P90X. Who knows how it'll work out, This is the first post of what I hope will be several on my experience with this workout system. Will I end up looking like a professional athlete at the end of 90 days? Most likely not. But will I be able to get back to that 217 pound threshold? That's the $1 million, or in this case $119 dollar (with three easy monthly payments) question, now isn't it?
