I’ve always been a big-ass dude. I was born at a weight of nearly 12 pounds at just over a month premature. I was wearing toddler’s clothing before I even left the hospital. I can still remember quite clearly my high school football team’s offensive line coach going wide-eyed and mouthing the words “four hundred and one” to the head coach during weigh-ins sophomore year.

Various times over the years I’ve tried to lose weight, but every time ended in failure. Recently I’ve been reading the story of Vainglory, who has cut himself in HALF in just under 90 weeks of diet and exercise, and a post he made just last week hit way close to home. That post and the rest of my thoughts after the break.

Reasons to not start losing weight.

1. Loose skin.
2. Being fat is genetic.
3. I can’t afford surgery.
4. I can’t live without my ____.
5. Unsupportive spouse.
6. Spouse loves me as I am.
7. Unsupportive family.
8. Not enough time to exercise.
9. Holidays coming up.
10. New Years isn’t for 2 months.
11. Asthma.
12. Have too many friends in these video games.
13. The person I see in the mirror will never change.
14. People in the gym stare.
15. It isn’t fast enough.
16. My knees will give out.
17. My back will give out.
18. My heart will give out.
19. Sweating is gross.
20. Don’t want to hurt myself.
21. Dr. Oz says this diet will kill me.
22. Tried every diet and nothing works.
23. This diet has a flaw.
24. That diet is a scam.
25. I have too many cravings.
26. I can’t go to ___ and not order ___.
27. My co-workers brought in candy.
28. My co-workers brought in cookies.
29. My co-workers brought in brownies.
30. My co-workers are bastards.

Real reasons to not start losing weight:

1. Over the years, I’ve developed a way of life that dictates that to avoid pain, it’s imperative that I quit everything before I even start it and that the path of least resistance is the one I will take every time, even if that leads to innumerable health issues and possibly an early grave. And that’s acceptable to me because I hate myself anyway.

Reasons to start losing weight:

1. ^

Eep. That 30-item list is pretty much me in a nutshell. Especially the second one, because before now, I’d always use the “born at 12 pounds” thing to justify weighing 400+ pounds. What the fuck, self. Yeah, I may never be as rail-thin as my father, but 400 pounds is never healthy. So I’ve decided to get off my ass and at least try to do something about it.

I’ve already cut soda out of my life, and even cut myself back on the coffee/tea (which is the one thing I don’t think I’ll be able to give up). At present, my non-existent income precludes me from any form of actual diet, but I feel that I can start seeing change by just reducing the amount of food that I eat from “Adam Richman during a Man vs Food marathon” levels to something more sensible.

The only thing that might be a bit of a speed bump is the fact that I go on winter break here in two weeks, and in the past that would have been enough to stop me. But then I remember the last few times I’ve said “oh, after (event) I’ll start dieting and exercising”, or more specifically, what happened after (event): Nothing.

American Science Fiction TV: Star Trek, Stargate, and Beyond by Jan Johnson-Smith

We, Robot: Skywalker’s Hand, Blade Runners, Iron Man, Slutbots, and How Fiction Became Fact by Mark Stephen Meadows

Both are Amazon Associate links to my account, in the interest of full disclosure for all one of you reading this at the moment.

Westlee Harrington (aka Wes) is the 23-year-old webmaster and general technician of Ghostlight Games. Wes has always been interested in video games and game design in general, but has never really taken a project to full-on production mode yet, instead focusing on web design. He is self-taught in HTML and CSS, and recently has returned to the University of Idaho to pursue a degree in Computer Science and broaden his coding horizons.

This blog was started as a way for Wes to continue to produce content in the face of University of Idaho policy forbidding him from using University resources for personal business gain.

Not unlike Devon, Westlee also plays a whole bunch of video games. He’d play tabletop games if there were many people in his area who also played tabletop games. He’s also a pro wrestling fan.

This blog will contain random posts about my journey through Computer Science classes, and once I code useful things, you might actually see them here. As far as Ghostlight is concerned, in the next week or so (depending on how hectic check-in and the first few days of class are), I do have a slight cosmetic update to make to the site. After that, the site will most likely remain silent until the release of Backstage II, which is currently in production by my good friend and founder of Ghostlight, Devon Oratz, whose blog you can read by clicking here.