I used the Ph.D. as an excuse to avoid exercise and eat properly. It was a lousy excuse. Consequently, I not only got fat, but out of shape. Now that I now longer have an excuse, I started a program on September 5, to eat write and get some exercise. In the 16 days since I started, I have lost 12 pounds. Experience tells me that will slow down after the first month, but it is nice to get that first burst of progress. My intermediate goal is to get under 200 pounds before my graduation on December 15. That is a aggressive, but I think I have a shot at doing it if I remain consistent. The hardest part of the current program has been the exercise. I did not know how bad it was until I did my first hour on the treadmill. I only made it 2.1 miles. I did 2.9 miles yesterday, but it was rough and I might have to back off just a tad.

The end goal is just to be healthy. I am not sure what that means in terms of weight because I want to start lifting weights again after I get down to 180 or so. The Body Mass Index (BMI) charts were way off for me when I was younger because I had a lot of muscle mass. I measured as obese when I had less then ten percent body fat. Now, though, I think the BMI charts will be more correct because I have been so sedentary for so long. Right now I am just at the very bottom of the Class 2 obesity range. I hope that I will be in the Class 1 obesity range within the next few days. I have to get down to 191 pounds to get to the merely overweight range and all the way down to 159 pounds to be normal. I think I will want to do some body fat testing to figure out what really makes sense for me if I ever get that lot, but that is at least a half a year away.