Happy Birthday to Me -- 229 lbs

Happy birthday to me. My name is Jeff, and I just turned 49.

Personally, I don't like society's obsession about weight, but for the next year I am going to obsess about mine. For various atypical reasons, I plan to lose 49 pounds by my 50th birthday. I don't particularly care about my appearance, and my doctor says I'm perfectly healthy (despite a decidedly unhealthy lifestyle). So why would I purposely subject myself to something so unpleasant as dieting for such a long time?

Hello!?! I'm going to be turning 50! It seems like just yesterday I was 180 lbs, full of wonderfully naive dreams, and ready to take on the world. Today I'm 229 lbs, approaching the end of the road with a trail of trashed ideas and unfinished projects behind me, at once both cynical and apathetic about the world. I don't see myself picking up my personal litter or improving the Human Condition, but going back to my high school weight seems doable, especially if I take out a whole year to do it.

The more substantial reason I'm doing this is because I want to accomplish more things that are meaningful to me, and I've been having trouble carving personal time out from my heavy workload and demanding 3-year old (1 of 5 kids, BTW). I plan to rectify that by recouping time from less eating, which should also result in less pooping and less sleeping (digesting makes me really tired!). I mostly enjoy all of those things, but those moments are brief and vanish forever, so I would rather spend that time creating things that may stick around for a while.

I don't have a particular dieting plan, other than to avoid any commercial diet, maintain this blog (for a year), and never do anything like this again. I'm not interested in eating right or exercising, and though I may do both sometimes, I may subsist on whiskey and tobacco at others. Society and health science can kiss my hemorrhoidal ass.