Weight loss testimonials are boring, self-congratulatory, corrupt and as full of bullshit as the diet programs that most are offered in support of.

So here’s mine.

About three years ago, I was previewing a DadLabs video, and, as usual, I could barely stand to watch. There I was again, lumpish and ursine, but this footage was particularly bad.  There I sat, next to Brad’s young son, wearing a snug gray fleece with my back to the camera looking like nothing so much as a dirty snowdrift. Perfectly convex and not easily plowed.

I’ve never much respected vanity, and nothing infuriates me about the world we live in more than the fact that it is run by skinny, well-dressed, good-looking people. But what I saw on the screen said: Oafish, plodding, undisciplined, careless, ignorant. I didn’t want to be vain, and the fact that hot salespeople make better money than fat ones sucks, but I also didn’t want to set a bad example for my children.

What happened immediately was absolutely nothing. Except maybe sharpened self-loathing. I was dissatisfied, uncomfortable in my body, fishing around for some way to address my unease, but nothing happened. As cliché as it may be, my real effort to overhaul myself started in earnest about five months later as a New Year’s resolution. On January 2, 2009 I set my alarm for 5:00AM for the first time.

Just over two years later, I was somewhat disappointed in my finishing time at the 2011 Livestrong Half Marathon, but an old high school buddy, and fellow runner pointed out that 1:42 was pretty good for “an old offensive tackle with no speed.” Despite not having set a personal record in my 6th half-marathon, I agree. I’m 30 lbs. lighter. I’m more comfortable on camera. More importantly, I’ve reconnected with a more disciplined and resourceful part of myself. In short, I feel fit for the first time since I was in school. And I’m not going back.

While I still have a ways to go (more on that later), now seems like a good time to reflect on what got me here and to resolve to take the next steps along the way.

The 6 keys for me.

-Multi-year contract

-Compete

-Strength Train

-Family Dinner, But VB6

-Drink wine

-Find a Group

Allow me to elaborate.

For me, this had to be a long-haul, lifestyle change deal.  I’ve lost weight before and always put it almost immediately back on.  So I had to sign off on a multi-year process. I’m in year two of a three year plan (so maybe this post is premature). There is nothing about this process that is either easy or fast.  Anything that promises otherwise is total bullshit. If you are fat, getting fit is the hardest thing you have ever done.  It will take years of discipline and incredibly demanding physical work and sacrifice. Any plan that has a quantity of days in the title is total crap. See above.

I made the first whole year solely about getting into the habit of exercise. With no regard to weight loss or changing my eating habits, my pledge to myself was to exercise every day. Deeply ingraining this habit was the essential first step. My exercise time would be in the early morning, ending when it was my turn to get in the shower every day at 6:30am. Getting up at 5:00 or 5:30 sucks, but any other time meant compromising my time with family, which doesn’t work. Over time, I was able to go to bed earlier. Added bonus: Research has shown that exercise before the morning meal increases fat burn.

I started on the Wii Fit. Not kidding. I wasn’t bragging much to my guy friends about my exercise regimen, but the game system/home gym was excuse-proof: no commute, all-weather, unavoidable.  I hit it every morning, seven days a week. I went on my first run on Valentine’s Day, and was hooked pretty quickly. I rumbled around the local track in big baggy sweats. I literally stumbled upon a 10k being run out of my back yard and signed up on race day.

I almost expired that morning, fading painfully in the last 400 meters, but also latched onto the excitement of race day as the thing that would give shape to my exercise regimen — I would train and compete in races.  I settled upon a half-marathon as my distance. Within six months I stepped off the Wii Fit for good, but tech was never far away in my exercise regimen. I’m now a Nike+ iPod system zombie.  The shoe insert pedometer and website combo provided me with a half-marathon training program, and allowed me to track my runs and collect a variety of stats on their website.

My running has only gotten more geeky, with iPods and watches, and GPS apps on my iPhone all sending data to Nike+, but the really essential running tech for me is Audible.com.  I have a subscription that provides me with one unabridged audiobook each month, and that almost exactly covers my running time.  On many mornings, I’m motivated to get up and run, just so I can find out what happens next in my book. Lots my favorites can be found in the book thread on the forums.

Having a race training schedule makes it tougher to flake out on a run.  I ran in the rain and sub-freezing temperatures. I don’t think I’ve missed more than 5 running days in the last two years.  In the next 10, I want to fill up a bucket with race medals. I want to run a bunch of full marathons. Now that it’s “off-season” (and that’s sort of fun to say, also), I run four days a week, totaling about 25-28 miles, and I’ve come to really love it.  It’s my hobby.  That and wine (more on that later).

But running by itself, even training for half-marathons wasn’t enough to get me down to a normal weight. I ran my first half-marathon at a chunky 205. I’d shed a few pounds in year one, but starting year two I knew that a couple of tweaks were necessary to reach my goals.  The first was to add a strength component to my workout.  Which I really hated to do. I filled my lifetime quota of macho, posturing weight-room bullshit in my athletic career in high school and college.  Still today whole idea of “pumping iron” makes me want to puke.

Fortunately for me, Coach Jay came to our neck of the woods. Jay was offering a bootcamp, muscle confusion, P90X style workout on the track just a few steps out my back door. I’d seen these guys on a few mornings, hooked up to absurdly large rubber bands, apparently failing to pull down a fence. One of the guys was a friend and he invited me to join. I have since participated the hardest workouts I’ve ever done, high school wrestling and college football included.

Pulling sleds, throwing medicine balls, crawling on the gym floor, hanging from torture straps called a TRX, and, yes, weights on occasion — all a part of the sick/fun always changing regimen. My workout companions are type-A, successful businessmen. There’s not much room for conversation. I’ll be honest; I’d rather run, but the results have been pretty clear. I could not have lost the weight without having added this portion. My cost is about $20 per workout and I go twice a week.

My diet: I have a whey protein shake after I work out in the morning, a banana or citrus at about 10, a handful of almonds or pistachios at 11, and apple at noon, maybe another handful of nuts at 2.  I drink a ton of coffee and chew a pack and a half of spearmint Eclipse every day at work. As soon as I get home, I have a heavier snack, usually 8-10 pita chips with hummus.  Then I have a full dinner, with my family on the nights that the various practice schedules allow.

My wife cooks amazing meals from fresh, scratch ingredients, and she always balances of proteins, starches and veggies.  We almost always have a  salad.  A lot of times she makes things that would not seem to be dietetic — pasta carbonara is on the regular rotation, but it still seems to work out. I take the occasional cheat days, have bacon and eggs most Thursday mornings (that’s another story), and blow it all off on vacations, but that’s the general routine. I know that my diet is pretty high in sodium and caffeine, but I sweat a lot and I need to stay awake.

(A side note: I’ve never wanted to make a big deal about being “on a diet” with my kids. I didn’t want them, especially my daughter, to get the message that you need to obsess about what you eat. As a result, in direct contradiction of the conventional wisdom, my calories are “back loaded” every day. Whatever. This is what works for me and my family.)

Also I drink wine, mostly red, and lots of it.  Amid all this discipline and self-denial, there has to be some pleasure and balance. There are plenty of studies that have shown that red wine in moderation has plenty of health benefits.  That’s not how I do it, I just thought you should know. Wine is a passion I share with my wife. We travel to the Wine Country every year or so (I’m pitching her the Napa Marathon as my first, next March). So wine’s staying in.

Finally, the great community here at DadLabs has been key to sticking with it.  The Weight Loss Challenge was an important source of accountability.  I looked forward to (and sometimes dreaded) the weekly check-ins, appreciated the encouragement, and enjoyed encouraging others.

Despite it all, I’m still overweight. At 5’11” and 192 pounds, I score a BMI of about 27.  Anything over 25 is overweight. And so I matriculate to year 3.  If year one was about getting fit, and year two was about looking fit, year three is about meeting the specs — getting to a normal weight and engineering the lifestyle to stay there. For me, that means 179 pounds. About what I weighed as a Junior in high school.

So here we go.  Any day we will be announcing the sponsors and relaunching a new Weight Loss Challenge. I hope you’ll join me.