"Lose 20 pounds in 30 days" was what caught me...

I love my wife. She is just one of the more interesting, intelligent, creative, wonderful souls that I have ever met. I am truly enjoying building my life with her.

So i have a confession. Betsy and I have been together for 8 years. And for many of our more important events that we have shared, i have always seemed to be a high point in my weight. 265 is a high water mark for me (except when i was 280 in my college football days...and was that uncomfortable!). When I look back, i was at that weight for our wedding, our trip to India, 2 of our shared school reunions, one of our trips to Vienna, and so on.

When I am exercising regularly, my weight is usually under control. and I can stay around 250 (my weight fluctuates +/- 5 lbs seemingly every day) when exercising regularly. I am a vegetarian and have been since 1992 (with a small detour on the Atkins diet in 1999...a long story). And technically, I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian (i eat dairy and eggs but no chicken, fish, red meat, seafood, etc). So between regular exercise and a vegetarian diet, I can usually maintain a good weight.

As the years have pressed on, my body is starting to fall apart a little bit. A separated shoulder, 2 torn calf muscles, a damaged patella tendon, a ridiculously tight IT band, and so on. And for these periods, I exercise less and the weight comes back on.

So aside from a lack of discipline when it comes to exercise, my diet, although healthy, is too caloric not to put on weight.

In June 2010, my wonderful wife is going to attend her much delayed graduation ceremony in order to receive her PHD from Oxford University in England. I am very proud of her. And once again, i was feeling and looking at the top of my weight scale (my 2 torn calf muscles were both this year).

As I was booking flights to England, I realized that once again i was going to be at my worst when I meet her graduate school friends and some of her extended family. At that time, i was reading the Tim Ferris book called the 4 Hour Workweek. A wonderful book that shares Tim's story about freeing yourself from the repetitive and useless income generating tasks that account for lots of busyness but little effectiveness or gratification.

Tim loves to tell stories and anecdotes from his life. (It really is a good read by the way.) And one of the stories starts "as i was finishing my thirteenth cupcake of the evening as the minutes marched toward midnight and the return to my regular diet..." I was dumbstruck. A diet plan that allows you to eat 13 cupcakes in a sitting?? I have to check that out.

That is when I found a post on Tim's blog called "Lose 20 pounds in 30 days". And I thought that this was it! I could get to my healthier weight in just 30 days and somehow I could eat cupcakes along the way!!

So I set up this little blog to share my experience with Tim's diet plan and the impact it has had on my life. Enjoy...