The Incredible Shrinking Ambulance Driver

If you’ve ever met me in person, then you know that I am, well… portly. The less-charitably inclined, including myself, would say that I am corpulent, wheezing bag of fatassitude.

Despite that, I am generally healthy. My HDL, LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides would be the envy of any man. My blood sugar is well within normal ranges, my BP runs around 120/80 most days, and my resting heart rate runs in the mid-70’s. I generally don’t winded easily, unless I’m tying my shoes and my big, fat gut impairs expansion of my diaphragm.

I can still do my share of lifting, and for a big guy, I can move pretty quickly.

Still, I am not without health problems. I have meralgia paresthetica, a chronic pain in my left upper leg, caused by my Cinderella belly* pressing on my left lateral cutaneous nerve. It makes it rather painful to wear pants, and especially a belt. But, since I can’t fully adopt the Robb Allen Pants-Free Lifestyle™, I must soldier on.

I’ve had creaky knees since I was diagnosed with Osgood-Schlatter disease in high school, and the pain has been there in various degrees of severity ever since. Mostly, pain is just part of the landscape now, but I notice it when I get up and down from the floor, and my weight ain’t doing those creaky knees any favors.

My current blood pressure is considered normal, but if I drop to well below 300, my BP runs around 100/60, and my resting heart rate runs in the mid-40’s. Plus, my cardiovascular recovery after strenuous exercise decreases from “Somebody please shoot me!” to “Hey baby, wanna go again?”

Regular readers of my blog also know that I went on a successful weight-loss campaign three years ago this month. I lost 84 pounds between February 4 and June 25, 2008, and didn’t have to resort to fad diets or surgery to do it. I simply expended more calories than I consumed, and when I wanted to indulge every now and then, I made sure to expend more calories that week.

Unfortunately, the move back to an ambulance on night shifts, coupled with the bike wreck that left me unable to do anything other than walk (gingerly) for a couple of months, all conspired to knock me off the healthy eating wagon. January 31, I stepped on the scale at the hospital, and was horrified to see that I was back up to 360.2 pounds.

That’s only two pounds short of the heaviest I’ve ever been.

I gained back 82 of the 84 pounds I had lost, in a little over two years.

I vowed then to change my disgusting dietary habits and start exercising, and thus far I’ve dropped 21 pounds since February 1. That’s the really shameful part about it; I have no problem losing weight. My tastes are simple, and I’m just as happy eating a foil pack of tuna and an apple as I am wolfing down a Taco Bell Heart Attack In A Sack™. All it takes is the willpower to do something about it.

So starting today, the weight loss ticker goes back up on the sidebar of my blog, and I’ll post updates on my progress every Friday. My goal is to be below 250 pounds by the Texas EMS Conference in November. That’s over 110 pounds in 8½ months. That’s a lofty goal, but I’ve proven I can lose the weight if I try. Now the task is sustaining good habits, and making it a lifestyle.

Hopefully,  I can eventually go from this…

… back to this:

Yeah, I know it looks like I’m about 17 years old and 165 pounds there, but I’m deceptive like that.

While I’m at it, any of you other JEMS Fire/EMS bloggers want to join me in a weight-loss challenge? Yeah, I’m looking at you, Mike Ward and John Mitchell…

* So called because it turns back to penis at midnight, despite the scurrilous lies told by my ex-wife. See also tool shed, hops and barley retention, and solar panel for the sex machine.