Well, winter is here in spades... or snow shovels. We got dumped on last night and everything is wonderfully white. My Dad called to say how beautiful it is... and this is the guy who, at the age of 76, shovels his own snow. I got a little exercise vacuuming the stairs but last year I gave up shovelling the driveway... I'm just too overweight to do it without inviting a heart attack.

Yesterday I didn't get around to posting. I did a bunch of walking in 5 minute chunks that probably added up to half an hour. I also ate moderately, except for the whole bag of popcorn I demolished after spaghetti supper at my friend Stanley's home. Evenings are the hardest, as everyone, even the skinny butts among us, know. The drive to snack feels like an evolutionary imperative... or magic. "If you do not eat this bag of cookies before midnight, you will turn into a punpkin pie, and someone else will eat you." I can get quite anxious at the thought of not eating again until the morning. That's why dieting often feels like a cage and myself, a pacing tiger inside it.

When I was 14 or 15, I was bordering on anorexic. My mother worried about me, but I knew I was in control. I was so strict about my eating that I would exercise hungry and go to bed hungry, soothed by the thought that I could eat again tomorrow. That didn't last forever. At age 16 I was depressed and binging at night, and I packed on the weight. My pubescent tendency to overweight resumed control and I struggled my way through my adolesence and 20's, never able to become as thin as I desired.

Now at age 41, I've spent more than a decade watching my weight blossom out of control. I can blame it on the meds (one of them increases appetite) or my genes (my mother too is a large woman) or on upbringing (ditto). Mostly, I think that it's a misguided interpretation of personal freedom. I eat therefore I am free. Free to eat whatever I want whenever I want. But like other freedoms that are taken to the extreme, overeating has become a danger to my health.

My hope is to become more moderate in my exercise of freedom, and more moderate in my self- flagellation, so that losing weight doesn't become painful either physcially or psychologically. Hopefully this blog will help me stay on track... becasue fear for my life doesn't seem to be enough.