Obesity

America's downfall - obesity. We eat too much and exercise too little. That's right. I'm pointing the finger at the people that dont try to control their weight. Guess what? I'm one of them. In fact, I have proof. Once per year my office offers a free health assessment offered through Lexington Medical Center. It's one of many great services offered through my employer. At last year's assessment I was in less than stellar shape. I assumed going in that I'd have a somewhat high body fat percentage. Little did I know that I'd get a huge slap in the face. Not only was my body fat percentage over 27%, but my body mass index (BMI) was over 30. Whoa! In case you're not up to date on BMI classifications, anything over 30 is considered clinically obese!
Looking in the mirror I did not see an obese person. I saw someone carrying a little extra weight, a few extra pounds here and there. Let me tell you that these extra pounds add up. Looking in the mirror, you see what you want to see. I made a decision to exercise more. A few months later a slightly modified diet followed. I say slightly modified because I refuse to be a hard core dieter. Crash diets work while you're on them, then stop working when you go off of them (as they should). I choose to make slight diet modifications and combining that with working out and running. I can see a difference in my fitness. I'm not sure how much quantifiable change has occurred. but I'll find out soon enough. Tomorrow is the follow-up. At 8:15 I have my appointment. Regardless of the results, I'll post how it went. Keep your fingers crossed.

PS: It's worth noting that a friend of mine (who will remain nameless) was also deemed obese and we made a competitive wager to urge our fitness progress. Of course, since we're such fat bodies, the wager was one of grease! Whomever loses the most body fat gets a free fatty Mexican meal, paid for by the fatter guy. We also added a disclaimer that if both of us failed so miserably that we were both still obese after a year, that we'd each buy ourselves a 2 pound burger at Fuddruckers to celebrate our fatness.
Luckily, we both appear to have left the ranks of the obese. I guess we find out for sure in the morning.