So a couple of months ago, I made a clerical error in posting that I weighed 247. At a recent doctor’s appointment, I checked and discovered that I had been only 242 (a veritable featherweight). The scale at my gym is two pounds off from the scale at the doctor’s office (at said recent doctor visit, I weighed myself at the gym just hours before weighing in at the doctor’s office). So let’s call the original weight 240 because I weigh myself most frequently at the gym, so that’s my benchmark.

Yesterday and today at the gym, I weighed in at 203. I’ve lost 37 pounds. My face is thinner, and jeans that I could barely squeeze into a month ago have spare room in the waist now. Pants I bought a little large a little over a month ago now have 5 or 6 inches of extra room in the waistline and are essentially unusable. I wear a large tee-shirt comfortably now rather than feeling self-conscious about the XLs that looked like tents on me. I still have bulges above my waistline, but they’re much smaller. I still have a little bit of a pot belly, but it’s much smaller. It’s a little speedbump along the trail to heaven (as the line of adolescent hair in the belly button region was called in my youth) rather than a steep dropoff. One can now almost see a layer of abs underneath the remaining girdle of fat.

I’m fully recovered from my gall bladder removal now and returned to my regular gym schedule this weekend. I’m running 25 – 30 minutes and then doing an upper body workout that reportedly has resulted in much greater firmness.

Twentyish more pounds and I will have reached my initial goal of getting back to my college weight. When I set that goal, I figured it was a pipe dream, but almost 40 pounds down the path, it’s seeming downright attainable. I’m healthier. I feel better about myself. I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I look in the mirror more than I did before, checking the profile, occasionally flexing a bit to see just how firm the old upper body’s getting. It’s a little ridiculous, yes, but let’s try to think of it as if I’ve just gotten a new car and am kicking the tires and sitting in it out in the driveway to experience the pleasure of the new car smell. Eventually, the newness of my (soon to be) hot bod will wear off and I’ll just be your average hunk who’s too cavalier about his guns, his gams, and his gut to bother checking them out every time he changes clothes. In the mean time, if you catch me kissing my biceps, be sure to sock me one and welcome me back to the real world.