Here is my "a-ha moment" I had an illness at the beginning of 2010 that sent me to the doctors office, someplace I had been avoiding, and I had to step on the scale... my weight? I figured no more than 375 I had been stuck there ever since I took up swimming to lose weight (and had to quit in 2009 because of 10 months without work)... it was 395lbs.

That scared me I promised myself I'd never get this big (yes I would never step on a scale or look in a mirror) and so I started Atkins again (it had been most effective before, until I got bored with it) and I did Atkins for about 8 weeks before I got lazy and let it slide again.

Fast forward to two weeks ago I went to the doctors for a pulled muscle in my back, go figure, and again with the putting me on the damn scale, this time it was 440.

So I spent a week to deal with my shame and anger at myself and then spent a week really asking myself why I kept failing. All I could really point to was myself and the habits of 45+ years that taught me "if it isn't fun why are you doing it". Atkins was a cheat for me I think, yes it does work but it really had me convinced I could eat all that fat and protein and so long as I was eating all those veggies I was doing OK. The problem was/is that I still was cheating, snacking and not thinking when I ate food.

That was my a-ha moment, why was it so hard for me to care about what I was doing, when I was doing it? Food was my unconscious master, I would snack when I was bored, eat without thinking and that was the problem. I no longer respected the bounty that came from my kitchen.

So I asked myself how do I change that one thing? What is it I am good at? I love games, I mean I really love games, so how could I leverage that? I remembered a TED conference speaker, well actually a friend remembered her for me and posted it to Facebook, that I had seen awhile back who talked about using games to get healthy. She had created a site called SuperBetter that uses gaming as a away to get us to engage and she had partnered with a weight loss group called The Full Plate Diet.

Wait a minute a diet that is a game too? It had to be to good to be true, the game is probably lame. The reality is, for me, it is exactly what I needed. I've been playing for 2 days now and restarting my blog is one of the exercises the game has me committing to.

I'll be wrting each day and for now it is just for me, but we'll see where this goes.

I've just begun a new path towards health today. I need to lose weight and I need to be faithful to myself in this area.

I have been lazy most of my personal life when it comes to "getting it done" I find the energy and drive when it comes to my work and play but the rest of my life I would rather just pretend all is well. For the most part it is, I have a wife who loves me and kids that spend time with me but I also have a body and a house that I have ignored doing only the most basic things to take care of them.

Most of this is so I can play or because of work, although work has become less of an issue so really it is just play.

So today I will start documenting my adventure, yes I am turning losing weight and getting control of my life into a game because THAT is where my heart is. And I play games to win, just ask my wife and kids :) , I will be using a great new game called SuperBetter to help drive me and push me to win :)

That's it this blog is for you Mike.

Goals: Lose weight, feel healthy and learn to love myself again (not necessarily in that order).

Current weight 440 lbs