Josh the Aspie’s Blog

Approximately One Third of Americans adults are Overweight. Obesity, especially extreme obesity, has long term health effects, reduces enjoyment of lifestyle for many people, and causes increases medical costs, medical insurance costs and… of course… food bills.

On the morning of April 22nd I weighed 278 lbs, placing me on the lower edge of the “Extreme obesity range” for my height. I’ve been putting off trying to loose weight for a while. Any time I make a resolve to do something this big when I don’t have the time, I inevitably fail. I’ve spent a lot of time getting other things out of the way, finishing commitments, performing tasks that I’ve been meaning to forever, and now I’ve begun working on this very important health issue.

For the longest time, I would eat through out the day. Sometimes people said I was eating because I was bored. That is completely untrue. I’ve always been incredibly busy. There are two reasons that I can think of that I would have been eating that much.

The first of these is that according to some researchers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory when a person consumes food, it releases chemicals in the brain that are similar to the chemicals released when people eat food to get high. This is similar to what a drug addict goes through, though this chemical release in the brain seems to be more similar to a psychological addiction.

The second reason is that for the longest time I have used similar endorphin boosts to make myself feel better and improve my concentration and productivity when sad, or uncomfortable, or frustrated. When younger I used exercise and was a rather hyperactive fellow, but for a while I was on a medication that really ramped up my appetite, and I got into the habit of using food instead. Exercising became harder, and so even after I went off of the medication, I continued to use food when available.

Because of all of this, I became extremely obese.

I’m starting with a very small, rather simple plan. First of all, I am setting rewards that I will give myself for every 5 lbs of weight loss I achieve. These rewards aren’t trivial, so I have an actual reason to go after the weight loss, one I have to think of any time I consider doing something that would upset that goal. These goals aren’t food based either, as they would be setbacks to my goals, and would be self-defeating to my program.

The second part of my plan is that every time I consider getting a piece of food, I consider whether the rush of pleasure from the taste and endorphins and the nutritional value are worth the long term effects on my weight. If the answer is yes, then I eat it. If the answer is no, then I don’t.

The first day was incredibly tough as I was still learning to deal without the rushes. It was a hard decision on each piece of food I almost got out and ate. It seemed almost cosmically cruel when the next day I had actually gained five pounds, going up to 283, but I kept to my guns, and each day it got easier and easier. I’ve begun to shed pounds in leap and bounds, and in the first 5 days of my diet total, I lost 6 lbs taking me to 272, just with the strategy I outlined above.

My first reward? I’m looking into taking Tai Chi lessons, which will helpfully aid my health and weight loss goals.

As for my next reward, I am debating between three different rewards.

Reward 1 is a D100 gaming die, and a set of metallic Dwarven Dice

Reward 2 is a heart rate monitor.

Reward 3 is a pre-registration to one of the biggest gaming conventions in the mid-west, which is actually hosted by the local major gaming club, of which I am a member.

I’m open to suggestions for which of these I should choose… and if someone suggests a reward I like, I may choose that.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.