It's my first birthday

...marking one year of my lifestyle change

It's hard for me to believe now that just about two years ago, I was an overweight, pack-a-day chain-smoker. I had sleep apnea, a CPAP machine, and I took a variety of prescription drugs for my health-related ailments, like heartburn. Oh, I used to have killer heartburn. My wife actually endured a year of the head of our bed being elevated, because my heartburn would have me waking up at night gasping and choking. Often we'd just slide right off the bed in the middle of the night, due to the fact that I need plastic sheets and all, but that's another story...

And speaking of the middle of the night, my snoring used to be legendary. I have to laugh as I recall the night of my stag - 11 years ago. After a long night of terrifically heavy drinking, my buddies had previously had the presence of mind to rent a hotel room for us to crash in. And at around 3 or 4 in the morning we all did just that - crashed in the room. The next morning my soon-to-be best man and I woke up at roughly the same moment as I, both of us with crushing hangovers. He said to me, "Man, did you ever snore last night! If I was marrying you and had to listen to that, I think I would slit your throat!" And my snoring only got worse after that :-)

I also had high cholesterol. My number was eleven, which is just insane. My doctor put me on Lipitor and Crestor and told me that I would be on it for the rest of my life. That meant I would be enjoying drug side-effects for the rest of my life as well.

And though everything described above is no longer an issue for me now, remembering serves as a nice motivation for me to keep it up.