Originally posted at my old blog geekcyclist.blogspot.com

I have worked for the State of Utah since the middle of 1994. One of the benefits is a program called HealthyUtah which includes a basic health and fitness assessment. The first time I went in 1995 I weighed 186 and my cholesterol level was 179. This seemed pretty healthy to me, even though it was about 20 pounds heavier than I was in 1992 when I ran a marathon.

Prior to taking that first position with the State, I was working at UPS unloading and sorting packages for 4-5 hours a night. I was also biking, rock climbing and playing basketball regularly. By the spring of 1996 Mrs. GC had given birth to our second son, we bought a house, and I was busy working full time and going to graduate school.

Suddenly I found that the Big Macs and Big Gulps had caught up with me. It seems like every year since I have ‘resolved’ to turn my weight and fitness level around. Don’t get me wrong; while I am clearly overweight, I know that I am still in better shape than a lot of 38 year-old men. Unfortunately I attended another assessment this week, and found that HeathyUtah has tracked my ‘progress’ since 1998. It’s not a pretty picture:

Looking at that I wonder now why I am not dead already. But I am still here, and three weeks into the new year I am making progress on my weight loss goal. I am hopeful (a trend on 1.5 pounds per week puts me right in the zone for my resolution to weigh 193 or less on August 1. I am also realistic, recognizing that there will be 2-3 plateaus on my journey, and that as this chart suggests, I am not very good at pushing through them.

So there you have it. The whole unvarnished truth going back almost 10 years.