Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: The Preamble

By Dan Nied [send email]

So there I was two years ago, looking like Louie Anderson after a year-long Crisco kick. Belly bursting the buttons on my shirts, face enveloped in three layers of fatty casing. There was too much to look at, which meant there wasn’t much to look at at all.

So one night in mid December 2005, as I lay in bed listening to the sound of nothing in a dead town in the Colorado plains, I decided to change. Just like that. No big events leading up to it. No trauma, no guiding light. I was just a 26-year old man nearing 400 pounds, thinking about how I had sabotaged my life through a series of mid-afternoon pizzas followed by late-afternoon pizzas.

I lived out the remaining weeks of 2005 as a fatty boombalatti, made a trip back home to Detroit, saw family and friends, felt disgusted by how I knew they saw me. I returned to Colorado on Jan. 2. The night of Jan. 3 I had a goodbye pizza. At 5 a.m. on Jan. 4, I awoke and finished off the last piece of pizza, and then at 10 a.m. I awoke again a new man.

One hundred days, 70 pounds. That was the first accomplishment. Five months, 95 pounds. That was the second. I stalled there, as my life changed with a new job in a new city and state. But in less than half a year, I went from 370 pounds to 275. Not skinny, but very close to my first goal of losing 100 pounds. If you are a longtime 210west or Blog Critics reader, you may remember that ride I shared with you in daily entries and photographic progression. If not, then let me introduce myself. I’m Dan, your not-as-fat-as-he-used-to-be blog friend.

So that’s where it started. But there’s a little more to the story now.

I left the blog behind in July 2006 after accepting a job in the San Francisco Bay Area. That’s in California, if you aren’t up on your U.S. Geography. I set out on what I called “my own personal manifest destiny” with a new look, and a different lease on life. My biggest enemies were recurring stomach pains resulting from fatty foods and the fear that super fat Dan would re-emerge over time. But as it was, a good looking 275 pound man was better than the greased up, morbidly obese fatty I had been seven months prior.

I came to California, and lived a nice year. I am still here, living in the town of Vallejo, about 25 miles north of Oakland, and about 30 miles from San Francisco. Life has been worse. It could be better.

Two years after the most involved life-overhaul I have ever been a part of, I am proud to say that most of the weight has stayed off. Basically, I look the same as I did when I left Colorado.

But there is one catch.

When I began my weight loss program, the ultimate goal I had in mind was 240 pounds. That’s where I wanted to end up when this was all said and done. That number, 240, was the most attractive girl in the room. And the whole point of the weight loss was to ultimately work up the courage to talk to her, charm her, ask her on a date and marry her when we were both good and ready to settle down. I wanted to spend my life with 240.

I still do.

And that’s why I am coming to you today, launching Dan Nied’s Fortess of Weight Loss, the sequel to the critically acclaimed and highly successful first blog, which was entitled “Dan Nied’s 100 Days” or, as I like to call it, “Dan Nied Doesn’t Want to be a Fatass Anymore.”

The goal here: to lose those last pounds no matter how long it takes.

While “100 Days” was a quest to prevent morbid-obesity, diabetes, heart disease and never getting laid again, this series is more of a quest to find the perfect balance in my physical life. It’s about not resting on the 95 pounds I lost the first time. It’s about not being satisfied with simply being less fat. The first one gave me temporary happiness, and it certainly advanced me through a very tough time in my life. But this one is about finding permanent happiness, something that I can live with for the rest of my life.

Maybe there was a certain grizzly appeal to the last one. It was, after all, an endearing story of a man trying to pull himself up from rock bottom. Maybe that’s what readers wanted.

If so, then I have bad news. I’m not at rock bottom anymore. But I certainly am not at the top. And where the “100 Days” project was backboned by the idea that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, this one is more progressive. For the most part, things are good. But I want them to be better.

I won’t go into specifics here, because that’s not the important part. Besides, there is plenty of time for me to unveil my new life, for both better and worse. But I do have a job that I don’t absolutely hate. I do have a few friends that don’t absolutely hate me. I am still single, which is both good and bad. And I don’t see snow unless I visit my parents back home. So not that bad, eh?

But you should know the basic information of this series. First, my weight this morning was 299 pounds, a number that is ballooned up from two months of eating nothing but crap. Second, I will go back to my old eating ways, which means taking in between 1,200 and 2,500 calories per day. It’s a wide spectrum because this isn’t totally a science. I won’t eat the same things every day, but I will probably eat some things that you don’t think I should be eating (You’d be surprised how far you can get with a can of spaghetti) and many of you will not think I am losing weight in the proper fashion.

I will be working out at least three times per week, which will be a big part of this endeavor. I will be posting pictures as I see fit, and I expect to hit 240 pounds before June.

As for the blog itself, it will take on its own life as we go along. However, the plan for now is to post on this site every weekday, and on Blogritics.com at least once a week. This might also, somehow, find its way to my Myspace page if I, in fact, decide I don’t mind being one of those people.

Starting Friday, I’ll be keeping food journals, counting calories and detailing workouts, just like I did the first time around. And I certainly encourage feedback, questions, comments, suggestions and scoldings. You can leave a comment here or on Blog Critics, or send an email to nieddan@gmail.com. Every comment will be answered in some way or another. But be warned that unless you tell me otherwise, your emails and comments may be used in future posts.

And that about covers it: Dan Nied’s Fortress of Weight Loss, a metaphor I will fully explain in coming days.

Hopefully you will give me what I need, which is someone rooting for me and becoming interested in this whole process. Hopefully I can give you what you need, be it morning entertainment, inspiration, something to mock, or just something to kill time.

See, this is a team effort. I’m ready to begin.