100 Days

No food journal today because I am about to write a ton of words (literally. There are just over 2,000 words in this entry.) Lately I felt that I was neglecting the blog, and I wasn’t too happy about that. I want to give you guys something to read. So I decided to chronologically track my weight throughout my whole life.

I think its interesting.

So here goes.

THE OFFICIAL DAN NIED WEIGHT HISTORY:

August 10, 1979: 8 pounds, 2 ounces. It was a different time. Jimmy Carter was president, the world hadn’t even heard of ALF yet. I think there might have been hostages somewhere. I was born into this world at St. John’s hospital in scenic Detroit, Mich. I was normal size, some would say I was even cute. My hair was dirt black, my skin wrinkly and my penis almost invisible. I didn’t have to do a damn thing back then. Life was so much easier. Recently, my mother told me that I was a skinny toddler. However, the world of Dan Nied would change drastically over the next five years as my parents grew further and further apart. Somewhere between my third and fifth birthday they divorced. It was then, according to my mom, that my struggles with weight began.

1985 (First grade, age 6): 99 pounds. We had just gotten a new bathroom scale and my brother’s friend, Jimmy Slaton (who may or may not be imprisoned as I write this), convinced me to do the first of many weigh-ins. I was chunky at the time, but I was also cute. My baby teeth were ready to come out just as my adult gut was ready to come in. I don’t know if I was one of those kids they feature on the news when they talk about the obesity epidemic among American kids. But I certainly could have gone to the casting call.

1990 (Fifth grade, age 10): 202 pounds. It was quite an accomplishment when I finally got over the 200 mark. I was very proud, as was my mother. It only took 10 short years to get there. Now, 16 years later, I haven’t come close to looking back.

It happened in gym class – health day or whatever the fuck they called it – at St. Clare of Montefalco grade school in Grosse Point, Mich. Everyone weighed in and did some other shit. I don’t know why, but the only other person in the gym at the time was the teacher. I got on the digital scale, saw the 202. In case I missed it, the teacher announced it aloud. Thanks, gym teacher. That made my day. I was neither proud nor devastated, really. I was indifferent. I knew I was big and I was ok with it. At that point it was becoming my identity. I had resigned myself to the fact that I probably wouldn’t ever kiss a girl. Instead, it was time to work on my comedy. Because that is how a fat kid wins everyone over.

I believe, with some uncertainty, that this was when my mother decided to take me to Weight Watchers. I don’t know what my weight was at that time, but I do know I lost 16 pounds in three months. I think the problem came when my friend (also a youth fatty) and I convinced our mothers to take us out to dinner after every meeting. At first we got salads and healthy shit. After awhile we started ordering burritos. I think that was where the weight watchers plan went awry. Most likely, if it wasn’t for those burritos, I would have gotten a lot more ass in high school. (Actually, we can simplify that last statement to: I would have gotten ass in high school.

1993 (Eighth grade, age 12): 240 pounds. During the summer, my grandfather died. For some reason, that meant we had to move from the east side of Detroit to the west side. This is where I really began to develop. I went from St. Clare to St. Thomas Aquinas elementary for eighth grade. It was a small class, maybe 18 kids in my grade. Since I had been working on my comedy, I made quick friends.

I remember one parent saying, at a basketball meeting, that they “now had a 6-1, 240 pound power house.” That would have been correct if I had been able to make a layup. Looking back, I wasn’t really that fat then. It wasn’t until recently that I think I actually got fat. I think I was just big boned and overweight for most of my life. But eighth grade was a good time. I remember rat tails (not on me, but on my friends). My first brush with meathead homo jokes (my friend John making me very uncomfortable by whipping his dick out in someone’s basement) and getting suspended from the basketball team twice for play fighting.

But I only spent one year with my new friends at St. Thomas. The next year was high school. That’s where, physically, I started to become me.

1995 (Sophomore year of high school, age 14): 306 pounds. There was a growth spurt between my freshman and sophomore years. By my memory, I entered Dearborn (Mich.) Divine Child High School about 6-1, 260. By sophomore year, I had grown two inches and gained 40 pounds. Was I attractive? No. Had I kissed a girl yet? No. (Incidentally, if you are waiting for me to reveal the moment when I actually did kiss a girl for the first time, then stop reading. That information isn’t coming out. I will tell you about throwing up on myself in the shower, bowel movements, stretch marks and a lot of other embarrassing shit, but nothing is more embarrassing than when I first kissed a girl. Ok, you got it out of me. I was a sophomore in college. However, that was definitely due more to my lack of recognizing kissing opportunities than it was to my chubbiness.)

1996-97 (Senior year of high school, age 17): 286 pounds. I stayed at or around 300 through junior year. However, at the end of football season our coach called me into his office and said: “You can’t start for us at 300 pounds. You have to lose weight.”

So what did I do? Well, I cut back on what I was eating and worked out like a madman. I dropped a cool 14 pounds over the summer and started at right tackle my senior season. If you will let me be a meathead for a second: We were 8-1 that year and should have won the state title. But the Michigan football playoff system was fucked up and we didn’t get in. They actually changed the playoff system because of our team. Now every team with six wins makes the playoffs. Great. Also, I was a decent player. I got a looks from some (1) Division II schools, and a few more from D-III schools. However, I decided to forego my budding football career to become a sports journalist.

That quest took me down to Ohio, Bowling Green State University to be exact. (Ay Ziggy Zoomba!)

December 1999 (Junior year of college, age 20): 300 pounds. This was where the ups and downs really started. Over Christmas break my oldest brother, Mike (also 6-3, 300 at the time), decided we were both too fat. So he bet me $100 that he could lose more weight than me over the next four months. I took him up on it. I didn’t really start until February. However, when I did (and this has been mentioned several times in the blog) I dropped quite a bit of weight. In fact, I think that every pound I lost on that bet came between Feb. 1 and St. Patrick’s day.

And that got me down to:

April 2000 (Age 20): 267 pounds. Oddly enough, Mike and I both lost 33 pounds during the bet. We each weighed 267 on weigh-in day.

The bet was a wash, but on the bright side, 267 is the least I can remember weighing in my adult life. The picture I posted about a month ago, the one of me in a bar with Bryce and Angie, was taken during this time. I would have to say that this was the best I have ever looked in my life ever. I think this was the year that my roommate Ian and I had a gentleman’s bet to see who could make out with the most girls over the school year. Ian won, but by a slim margin: 13-12, I believe. I think I might have led him in boobs touched, though.

By the way, because of a lack of game, obesity and my catholic upbringing, I was still a virgin at this point.

But not for long.

August 2000 (age 21): 275-280 pounds. After I lost the 33 pounds from the bet, I did my internship at USA Hockey in Colorado Springs. I was away from friends and family for the first time and I decided to have a good time. My weight wasn’t on my mind because I looked pretty damn good going out there. I looked pretty damn good coming back, too. I worked out regularly while I was out there (at the US Olympic training complex) and was pretty happy with myself. I didn’t get laid while I was out there (I should have tried harder) however, once I got back to Bowling Green and the land of horny college sluts, it wasn’t long before I became a man.

The gory details of my first time aside, it also wasn’t long before I met Heather, my first (and only) serious girlfriend. She was nice and cute and she talked a lot (which I like). However, once she became my girlfriend in Sept. 2000, I realized that I had someone who liked me just for me, which may have been the worst thing possible for my physical appearance. We ate and ate and ate and never got any exercise. By the time the relationship had run its course, I was the heaviest I had ever been. Since I don’t like taking responsibility, I blame Heather for my ultimate peak of 370.

February 2002 (fifth year of college, age 22): 335 pounds. In a classic dickhead move, I think I broke up with Heather somewhere between Feb. 12 and Feb. 15. Heather, if you are reading this, I am sorry.

But the problem was, I was physically huge when we broke up. Meanwhile, Heather was still hot. So she got the last laugh by finding much better rebounds than I did.

Little did I know that I wouldn’t reach the underside of 300 until four years later. (Five years total, considering that I probably hit 300 again around Christmas, 2000.)

Summer 2003 (Age 23): 300 pounds. I had reached 340 during the winter and I wasn’t too happy about it. So I got just enough motivation to start walking in the park every day. That turned into running short distances. Interestingly, I started the whole walking in the park thing in February. I liked walking in the winter for some reason. When summer came, I lost interest. Why? I’ll never know. I knew I had to lose weight because, the first day I went to the park, I did so only because I broke my parents’ treadmill first.

My diet at that point consisted largely of Subway double meat clubs. So there is precedence for Subway in my diet.

Oct. 2004 (age 25): 320 pounds. This is an estimate. However, the time was interesting. I had been out of the journalism business for a year and had worked some horrible temp jobs around the Detroit area. I applied for dozens of writing jobs and got only a few callbacks. Finally a small paper in Colorado decided to hire me. (Want the name of the town? Ok, this is the only time I will reveal it: Sterling, Colorado.) I gathered up my friend Guy, filled my car with my stuff and moved 1,700 miles away from everyone I knew. I haven’t left yet. I am trying to leave. Believe me.

Jan. 4, 2006 (age 26): 370 pounds (approximately). Once I got to Sterling, I had nothing to do. I didn’t really know too many people and I never had anyone to do anything with. There were few attractive women in town. I really had no one to impress. So I ate. A lot. I got fatter. In my first 14 months here, I gained 50 pounds and was so fucking fat that, when I went home for Christmas, strippers wouldn’t even give me lap dances (Actually, I had $20 so of course they gave me lap dances. They also told me I was cute and really their type. And they said that if they didn’t have a boyfriend, they would definitely date me. Too bad that one stripper was engaged. She was really into me.) Somewhere around the middle of Dec. 2005, I got a great idea to go on a really strict diet and keep track of it on one of those fancy internet sites.

It worked.

April 14, 2006. 299.2 pounds: I lost 70 pounds in 100 days.

April 18, 2006: 303 pounds. And I gained four the following weekend.