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My friend Peter was showing me something like this he made earlier tonight, and I thought it might be fun to try it out myself. What Pete did was made a picture chart, showing how he looked at his biggest, how he looked at different stages during his diet, and how he looks now. Granted, the difference you will see in my photos isn't as monumental as those you would see in Pete's, but there is a difference.
We start out with my senior year of high school (well, the end of it, anyway). In this particular photo, I am at my biggest. At one point during the following summer, I dropped some weight, only to put it all back on in the winter months I spent at WMU. I like to tell people that WMU is where I reached my max weight, but in reality I had reached it long before I got there...
That's me in my marching band uniform just a couple weeks before the end of the year. Right after I saw this picture, I was so disgusted that I started working out and watching what I ate right away. It worked for a while. In this picture, you can notice my lack of an actual jaw line, the gut I seem to have going on under my jacket, and how those pants look like I had to do some serious battle with them to squeeze into them (I did...amazing how much weight can be gained in a few months). Let's forget the fact that my hair is also too long and it's TOUCHING MY FRICKIN COLLAR!
Here we have a picture of my mom and I in Cleveland AFTER my year at WMU, and shortly after I had started running nightly and cutting some of the garbage out of my diet. I'm still no beauty queen, but if you look closely (which I know is hard in this picture), you can see that I have more of a jaw-line now, but my gut is still quite there...
In this photo, we have a bad hair day and bad posture. My head and neck, however, no longer look like a toe, and my facial features are slightly more defined than earlier in the summer. Still not quite happy with my weight, but it's livable.
Last summer. My gut, though still kind of there, is mostly gone. I looke like someone my height SHOULD look. The lighting in this picture isn't great, but if you look back into photos from Europe, you'll see that I have a defined jawline now. Generally, I'm happy with how I look and feel now that my extra weight is gone.
Leave the fact that I look really creepy in this picture out of it - I just got off a cross-country flight and I was EXTREMELY tired. This was just this past fall, shortly after I added weight training to my work-out. At this point, I would say that I think I look pretty good.
Last week. Man-boobs = gone. Gut = not quite a gut anymore. There is a difference between my neck and my head...a pretty clear one. According to the scale, I'm still "overweight" for my height, but my body fat % is right where it should be. I feel great. It's been a while since I've been sick. Pants that I bought at my heaviest look like uber baggy rapper pants now. After years and years of wearing XL shirts, I have to adjust to the idea of actually having to simply buy L. Most importantly to me, thank GOD I lost that pudgy fat kid face! *Kipp voice* Now maybe I can FINALLY start picking up the babes All. Day. (my voice) Meh...I can dream, eh?