Downsizing/A Year Of Change It’S Been A Promising Start Readers Offer Encouragement And Advice

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I went to church.

While standing in a line heading toward the Communion rail, I felt a hand on my arm. An acquaintance, an older man with a sly smile, looked up at me from a pew.

“Those Communion wafers are fattening,” he said.

I’d asked for it.

On Thanksgiving, I declared in print my intention to lose 50 to 70 pounds by next November.

Since then, I’ve lost about 10 or 12.

I’ve cut way, way back on after-dinner snacks. And I’m finding ways to get a little exercise every day.

I suspect things will get much tougher as I go along. Nevertheless, I’m optimistic.

But working out the details of my new regimen hasn’t been the most interesting thing to happen following my big announcement.

After my story appeared, more than 100 readers wrote to tell me theirs. These heartfelt accounts of struggles with weight almost invariably included two things:

1.Encouragement.

2.Advice.

I like to think I’m rather cynical. But the sincere expressions of support for my no-gimmicks shape-up project were genuinely touching.

“You will be an inspiration,” wrote one woman.

We’ll see.

And the advice, well, it ranged from “Never eat standing up” to “Brush and floss immediately after dinner.”

I was offered a spa membership and urged to do something with my hair.

Various diets were recommended or trashed.

Here’s what I’ve focused on so far.

Several times a day at work, I lumber down to the basement and then climb the stairs to the seventh floor. I’ve even slipped into the office on weekends to do that.

That might not sound like much. But I’m breathing like an overworked draft horse, and my thighs are quivering jelly by the time I get to the top floor.

I’ve also become reacquainted with some exercise equipment purchased years ago for previous failed weight-loss campaigns.

I make sure to eat something for breakfast. Usually that’s yogurt, a banana, peanuts and fruit juice.

Then it’s one cup of soup for lunch. And I’m gradually shrinking the portions of what I eat for dinner.

In the past, I routinely ate steaks the size of card tables. Now I’m more likely to down a skinless chicken breast, a green salad with a sparing amount of dressing and an exciting baked potato with no butter.

I’ve pretty much cut out beer, candy and sugar drinks.

But the big thing has been calling a virtual halt to my nonstop nocturnal foraging.

I’m not counting calories or fat grams. But I know that eliminating my nighttime snack-a-thon is what got my weight arrow pointing in the right direction for the first time in years.

It has been eye-opening to confront just how often I think about food, and to silently tell myself “No.”

And I’ve noticed in a way I never had that an hour of TV watching can mean seeing five commercials for cheeseburgers.

But I’m new at feeling hungry. I’ve still got the novelty aspect working for me.

Plus there’s the public spectacle component of my plan. So far, that’s all been good.

Strangers ask me how the diet’s going. Then they tell me to drink a lot of water or avoid cheese.

In the days immediately following my Godzilla-size picture’s appearance in the paper, I got a bunch of thumbs-up gestures.

There are a lot of nice people around here.

And, as it happens, a fair number of them could stand to shed a few pounds themselves. So, if you are in that category, be sure to check out the Sunday, Dec. 31, IN Life section.

You’ll be invited to take the downsizing pledge and sign up to join me in a quest for a lean and healthy 2001.

Me? I’m looking forward to actually being able to see a change in my appearance - maybe by the time I check in with you next month.

Thanks for hiding those holiday cookies.