The last 6 months has been a exciting ride in scraping the rust off my muscles! For more than couple of years I have been feeling bad that I haven’t done anything to get out of my slumber, hibernation, albeit long, of inactive, geek potato life! Being a S/W engineer sitting and starring at the computer screen for 12+ hours on a daily basis isn’t unheard off and is almost a scenario of pride in the Geek World!! Soon I found myself to have regained all the hard-shed pounds of fat that I lost in months leading up to my wedding (5yrs ago!) and was back to 215lbs !!! 
Checkout me at full 215 pounds!! [Ok not that lady! I wasn't that fat. The guy in the Blue T-shirt holding the helmet!!] This was back in Dec 2011.
I would haven’t actually cared much if it weren’t for a series of nudging and yet flagrant “warning” signboards !! Like the ones below!! This was me taking the infamous snoring test!! haha!! This freaking procedure costed me more than $1.5K out of my pocket alone after insurance coverage!!

And the snoring test.. because i was snoring like a pig!! .. at least that how Preethi put it
After all this shiny tests I thought the doctor is going to actually prescribe some drops/tablets etc or heck even in operation to fix it… but ..but only to hear, from horse mouth so to say, that the doctor does not actually know where the snoring comes from!!
I am like, really!! – you really don’t know and you still went ahead with these test? Oh, we wanted to understand how severe your snoring is and its pretty serious. I am like – Oh Really!!
So what next? – We have this big machine that can help you reduce snoring or more technically sleep apnoea, which cost yous 2+ grand bucks. Cool. Will that cure me and how long will I have to use it. Oh, we don’t know. It might get rid of your snoring and at some point in the future time you might not have to use this device, but we don’t know. But as long as you use it it will help you will sleep apnoea. Ok now I am like – REALLY!! At this point I was more than restless to get out!

This was one of many warning signboards. I couldn’t jog more than half a mile in a stretch and hadfrequest wheezing, cold n cough. Neck and shoulder pains started becoming more common with 12+ hours stretches of being Geek Potato (as apposed to couch potato as I don’t really watch movies that much!)
Finally, Finally after more than year of procrastination and delays and finding all sort of excuses, I couldn’t post pone more. Moving to a new house which was far from office was blessing in disguise as this meant that I had to take the bus and had the opportunity to ride half way in bicycle!
And thus began my bicycling stint, all over once again, it was nice to be back on the wheels and started riding like 3 miles every day to work. It was almost a nostalgic feeling of riding bike to reduce my weight 5 yrs ago, before my wedding when I lost, in the same way 25 pounds!!!
The last time around, I reduced 25 pounds in 3 months or so! This time however, I wanted to make sure I make a lifestyle change and not crunch it out. I wanted to make sure I reduce weight over a prolonged period of time so that my habits and lifestyle changes along the way.
I am now 190 pounds down from 210+ pounds !! Yay!!


Last week it was time to swap a major chunk of cloths as by now none were fitting me sensibly :) I donated most of pants and shirts to the poor and went for a good round of shopping!!
Few things that helped me a lot on the way were:
1) Less Sugary items :
I read somewhere that sugar doesn’t just add on to your calories but also increase your appetite and increase your ”want” to have more food. So reducing the sugar intake in coffee, sweets and almost everything helped me a lot in maintaining a routine, healthy diet.
2) Light Breakfast:
I know the age old saying, “eat like a king in the morning”. However this did not work for me. Restricting myself to just a falvored yogurt and fiber/protein bar helped me a long way in keeping my diet! This was purely my invention or discovery!!
3) Eat anything but less:
I did a fair bit of research and followed the best foods to eat while trying to reduce weight, such as high protein, low calories, high fiber foods. I definitely tried to maintain a balance and tried keeping away from a lot of high fat, high sugary bakery and food items. However, by no means I was close to the rigorous diet that I followed last time around and did not follow the strict “salad” diet. I most certainly ate everything but ate LESS! Way Less! Even when my mom was staying with me over the summer I ate less but all the savory dishes she made
4) Running trumps everything!
At 215Lbs I wasn’t even able to run half a mile without take a break and had tough time completing 1 mile with several breaks. Now I am able to run 2+ miles at a stretch and 4+ miles in total !


The last time around, I did a lot heavy weights and lot of gym to reduce weight. This time around, I hardly went to Gym. All the 20+ pounds were shed from Cycling, Running, Playing and Eating less!
My original goal was to reach 170lbs !! So essentially 20 more pounds to go! I don’t think I can get away this time without the help of Gym though