Ok, Yell At Me

[WhistlesAndStripes]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

A few years ago I gave up Pepsi (and other pop) for Lent and lost 20 pounds. I wasn't smart enough to make it a life-style change.
I have again given up pop (for the most part, with the occasional 12 ounce indulgence) and have lost at least 10 pounds in the past month. Not sure it's only the pop, though, as I also gave up french fries, which I was eating about 3 or 4 times a week.
Now that I've started exercising to prepare for the season, I expect to drop another 10 pounds easily by November 1.

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

A professional colleague of mine also gave up pop, and permanently now. If he has a sip of Coke or Pepsi now, he feels like he wants to throw up because of how horrible the taste is.

I've done a few 2 and 3 week pop bans and the taste does become undesirable.

Let me share my story.

A few years ago, I decided it was time to do something about my weight. I had become rather complacent and packed my 5' 9" frame up to a lofty 273 lbs. I decided it was time to do something about it. When I made that decision, I didn't know how much I weighed. I didn't even own a scale.

I purchased a scale, weighed in at 273, and knew that it wasn't going to be easy. I didn't want to "diet," so I just decided I would start eating less and cut the sweets out of my diet. I was a HUGE pop drinker -- I'd often come home and down 3-4 a NIGHT easy. That came to a screeching halt. It was late October 2004 when I made this commitment to myself. I was running games 3 nights a week. By late December I was down to about 260, and decided that I needed to do something more. I purchased a treadmill and committed myself to a minimum of 30 minutes a day, 3 nights per week -- preferably on nights when I wasn't running games. (It was rather depressing when I first bought the treadmill and the box said not to be used for people over 250 lbs. I was thinking, how stupid is that!!! Someone wants to lose weight, and the treadmill says STAY OFF ME!!!)

I started treadmilling and kept running. The pounds kept falling. When April rolled around, I started biking to and from work 3 times a week. This replaced most of my treadmilling for the summer months. I would often go on evening rides with my children as well. By the end of December 2006, I had hit 206, and that is the lowest I got. I stayed within 10 lbs of that for quite some time, but in the past year or so, I've slowly crept back up to just over 230.

It's time to drop it down again, this time below 200. So yell at me too. I know you all love to yell at me often anyhow. This will just give you all one more reason to do so.