That, on the left side of the picture, is me on December 31, 2009. My age: 41. My weight: 295 pounds, the heaviest I’d ever been in a lifetime of being heavy.

I’ve also always been tall — I’m 6’4″ — so people always told me I “carried it well.” I now know they were full of it. How? Because, as of this morning, I weigh 224, and people miles away can see the difference. (Just glance to the right.)

In my family’s house, food was love — and I was loved to excess. My mother, bless her, baked cookies and cakes and shoo-fly pies by the score, and my favorite snack was half-inch-thick slices of Velveeta and pickle-pimiento loaf on white bread slathered with enough Miracle Whip to choke a horse. My high school nickname? “Skinny,” of course. READ MORE