I'm am controlled by fear more than I care to admit. During my college years I worked at a hospital. I spent the majority of my time on the ward where bypass surgeries were performed. I got a bugs eye view of the unbelievable amount of cutting required to perform the surgery. In addition to four or five feet worth of sutures/staples patients endured untold amounts of anxiety, fear, pain, expense, etc. Seeing what they had to go through to get "better," I vowed to live a healthy lifestyle... living in such a way as to minimize the risk that I would ever go through that kind of nightmare.

Flash forward 25+ years... I've been a vegetarian for most of that time. I eat reasonably well, though eat a few too many sweets and a few too many calories. I exercise regularly, though could certainly work a little harder at it.

Since my 30th birthday -- when my metabolism took a turn for the worse -- I've added about a pound a year. Now at 47, I'm about 17 pounds heavier than I want to be. I'm not that much younger than some of the people I remember in the bypass recovery ward. Those memories don't haunt me per se; they are going to serve as a motivator, though. The pounds are coming off... starting today!

I read an article in the NY Times Magazine titled "The Calorie-Restriction Experiment." Long story short... the study attempts to determine if humans can benefit from calorie restricted diets (lab animals have shown much benefit).

Here's my version of that diet (which I started yesterday) based on what I could glean from the NY Times article: Eat 25% fewer calories than required to maintain my current weight. note: i did a bit of web research and used a few web tools to derive this number.

Goal: Eat no more than an avg of 1900 cal/day for one year.