A Geek’s Weight Loss Chronicles, Chapter 1: Background and the Diet

Prelude

I turned 50 this year, and finally hit a point where I knew I needed to make a fundamental change in my health. I’ve been overweight or obese (mostly obese) my entire life. I’m tall (6′), and reasonably active (I’ve been walking at least 20 miles a week most of my adult life), so I “carried it well,” but this year, I’d hit a new high on the scale, and had some frustrating illnesses and injuries that, on top of all the other accommodations I made in my every day life to deal with being well over 300 lbs., finally pushed me to the point of considering either surgery or a medically-monitored weight loss program.

I researched the available bariatric surgeries, and decided I couldn’t go that route. I really do love good food, both cooking it and eating, so making the accommodations necessary to manage a post-bariatric lifestyle seemed almost as onerous to me as being overweight. I totally recognize that this may not be true for many people, but it’s the conclusion I came to. So, I opted for a medically-supervised diet through our Kaiser healthcare system here in Northern California. Two important notes about this plan: first, it’s actually open to anyone, not just people in the Kaiser healthcare system. If you are not a Kaiser member, you are given a temporary card for the run of the program so…