I've alluded a couple times here that I'm on the Atkins Diet. That started on June 20, 2005, exactly two years ago, and I have no idea how much I weigh.
If you've never been overweight, you have no idea of the sheer mortal terror fat people feel when confronted with a scale. Unless we've resigned ourselves to a life of fat-and-happy, we hate weighing ourselves, because we know it's never good news. But if we never step on that scale, we can trick ourselves into thinking we're smaller than we really are. My drivers' license has said "285" since I got it. It has never been close.
(I know, it's blurry as [censored]. My scanner's on the fritz, so these are all pictures of pictures.)
That's the closest picture I have of me to my maximum weight, and that was 3½ weeks and probably 15 pounds into the diet. My cheeks are so fat that I look like I'm pushing them against glass.
I have no other pictures of me at the apex of my fatness because I'm almost as afraid of cameras as I am of scales. I know I'm a raging fatass, I don't need my girthy blubber immortalized forever on film or in digital rendering. But here are a couple I have handy: my mom gave them to me so I could magnet them to my refrigerator in case I feel like falling off the wagon.
Me, in October 2002, taking a pull on the giant slot machine in the Excalibur in Las Vegas. (I lost.)
This is from February? 2004, at a local establishment that serves a 1½ lb. hamburger for $7.99. When I show people these pictures, my joke is that I was so fat that I needed EVERYTHING to be supersized: that's my supersized burger, and above is my supersized slot machine.
Now, some more recent pictures. I still don't like having my picture taken, but these look a lot better:
At my cousin's wedding in May 2006. (This was outside the reception hall, and I was already working on a pretty good buzz, hence why I was looking somewhere else.)
Halloween 2006. I was Larry The Cable Guy, though it's surprising how many people thought I was a lumberjack (lol), or a Canadian (LOLOLOLOL), or Bob The Builder (wtf?).
And this is me this morning. (I have no idea how to pose for these shots. And yes, my mirror is filthy. I Windexed it just before taking this picture, so I'm not sure what all that [censored] is.)
This is all wonderful, but I still don't know how much I weigh. I didn't weigh myself when I started the diet, because I would have probably forgone the Atkins Diet in favor of the Smith & Wesson Diet, in which I eat a bullet. And I didn't weigh myself at regular intervals during the diet because I didn't want to get discouraged if I go through a couple-week stretch without losing any weight. Occasional "plateaus" are normal for dieters, but they've caused me to go off diets before.
I think I'm ready for the truth today. While I step on the scale, here's some bonus NSFW for those of you who want to see someone who's both thin and attractive: Allison Stokke.
Slideshow. Vaulting, then interviewed. News Report (low volume, turn it up, and I swear to God it's not a rickroll.)