Before my Appalachian Trail hiking trip I was tipping the scales around 218. Not surprisingly, I dropped about 10 pounds during the 3 day hike and then gained it all back within a week of our return. I decided enough was enough. A quick look at my daily diet, lack of exercise, etc. and I knew I was only going up not down if I didn’t change something.

I took a hard look at my diet – too much soda, carbs from chips, etc. and not enough balanced nutrition. Plus I was eating almost 2 full portions during dinner. Easy enough. I cut out the extra soda, added a couple salads per week, switched from white to wheat on my sandwiches, and pretty much eliminated excessive carbs altogether. I also try to cut back on going back for seconds during dinner. Nothing more than tipping my caloric intake over to my favor.

End result? I’m down ~17 pounds. The chart shows 212 as my start because I didn’t pick up the iPhone app (records daily weight) until late August but I’ve made steady progress down to about 200 over the last 6 months. That’s almost 20 pounds less weight my knees will have to deal with on my next hiking trip! Not having man-boobs is also a plus.