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This picture really sums things up, doesn't it?  Hi There.  My name is Jason.  I'm 37 years old and fat as hell.

My Niece took this picture of me napping on the couch on Christmas morning.  I usually try to avoid getting my picture taken, mainly because I hate seeing pictures of myself.  Usually, I put the disappointed feelings out of my mind rather quickly, but this one stuck with me.

So now here I am, just south of 350 lbs, and not really happy with what I've done to myself.  I've been pretty lucky so far, more or less.  No real physical problems due to my weight, although over the last couple years things are starting to creep in.  Primarily, my knees are starting to hurt whenever I stand up or sit down. I really don't like that.  Sure, some of that must be part of the aging process, but weighing as much as a bear can't really be helping.

I decided that now, after years of putting it off and telling myself that "I'll do something about it next year", it was time to get my act together and start to incorporate some real change into my lifestyle.

At this point, I really don't know what that means.  Obviously, the two points of this sort of change are diet and exercise, but I don't yet know what form that will take.  I'm hoping to figure that out as I go, and hopefully bring some people along for the ride.

About three years ago, I was actually on track.  Detailed calorie counting and a lot of walking had allowed me to shed nearly 40 lbs.  I wasn't spending a whole lot of time considering nutrition, although I was finding that in keeping yourself between 1200 - 1500 calories per day, it was almost taking care of itself.  Of course, I stopped doing any of that for some reason or another, and a few short years later, I was bigger than ever before.

Over the Christmas weekend, I found myself watching a bunch of documentaries, such as Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Food Matters, Dive!: Living Off America's Waste, Forks over Knives and Ingredients, among others.

Some of these deal with personal nutrition and changes to our individual diets, and some of them deal with issues related to modern agribusiness and food production in general.  I've never been particularly conscientious, but some of these got me thinking about a lot of different topics that I had only been peripherally aware of before.

I'm hoping that keeping a regular blog will keep me motivated with this process of changing myself.  I plan on posting what's going on with me and hopefully getting into my (presumably) changing attitudes regarding food and nutrition.

Tonight is New Year's eve.  I'll be doing the celebration thing with friends, and not really thinking about what I'm eating or drinking. A last hurrah, if you will.   But tomorrow,  and I'm loathe to call this a resolution, I plan on getting started.  At least, starting to talk about it.

So follow along with me, won't you?