[Ghoulish Delight]

I'm currently trying to lose weight. Mostly because I know I've got genes against me. Both of my parents made it into their late 20s/early 30s at average weights, and then quickly began the slide into obesity. For my dad, it became diabetes, near fatal infection, and a stroke. My mom has blood pressure and cholesterol issues and struggled for decades with the weight.

Fortunately they have both gotten things under control in recent years, and fortunately for me I share my Dad's trait of being able to lose the weight "simply" by reducing calories and increasing activity. The hard part is doing that because I share my mom's love for the act of eating.

I've seen my future if I don't pay attention now. I'll never be skinny. I'll never be ripped. I am looking forward to losing the belly and love handles. I know I'm far from obese at my current weight, but when I started is was the heaviest I've ever been (pushing 200lbs) and no, I did not particularly feel good about looking in the mirror. But mostly it didn't feel good to feel like crap because I over-ate nearly every day at lunch, or not be able to make it up and down a soccer field more than twice without wanting to keel over. And it definitely didn't feel good staring down a future of weight-related disease that I'm more than likely prone to.