Diet: 20th week!

After the actual full 20 weeks of the Optifast diet, I have officially lost 68.4 pounds. That's an encouraging flying start, but just a start. It's sort of what they call "a new lease on life". I expect to live a little longer because I have graduated from obese class II to obese class I (and almost pre obese).

Now I know that God has a day to take me home, and I can't change it. But you see the theology isn't that simple. The fact is that God not only ordains the ends, but also the means to achieve those ends. In other words, if God has ordained me to live 10 years longer, then He has also ordained that I would wake up and do something about my inordinate corpulance.

So obese class I doesn't sound like much, does it. When I determined that I had to lose 80+ pounds, it looked rather formidable a task. But after these 20 weeks it looks very attainable now. I have but 18 more pounds to go. This past week, during transition (which is a dangerous time of frequent weight gain), I was able to lose an additional 4 pounds. At that rate I should reach my goal (under 200 pounds) by May 24. So I promise not to bore you with day-to-day discussion of my weight struggles until that date. I doubt if anyone is following this blog exclusively for updates on my weight. My medical assistant who took my debriefing last night was most amazed at my reduction of body fat from 41% at the beginning to 31% now. She said that reducing body fat by 10% was very unusual. If I knew more about that stuff, I would be proud of my accomplishment.


Here are a couple of photos of me before and after.