Dave Duncan

We’re around the halfway mark, so this should be a better indication of what all of this is doing to my body. As I said on March 4th, I’m keeping detailed notes about how I’m feeling from day to day, but I’m starting to regret not having taken pictures of myself along the way.

Generally, my health is GREATLY improved. I have more energy, and I have it consistently. I wake up more alertly in the morning, and I’m finding that I can think more clearly throughout the day. Pretty cool, eh?

At the start of the challenge, I dropped quite a bit of weight… I mean a significant amount… and it’s not like I had a lot kicking around to throw out. Recently, I’ve noticed that my weight is slowly increasing and I have no visible body fat. As near as I can tell, I’ve dropped all my ‘fast food fat’ I’d built up over the last few years (honestly, it was all just in my gut) and it’s starting to replace with a bit of muscle… mostly in my legs (I walk a lot). I’m still grossly underweight, but that’s pretty normal for me. I guess my next challenge is going to be putting on some healthy mass… pecs maybe? ha ha ha.

Probably the most noticable difference isn’t in my weight, or in my disposition… it’s in my face. My skin-tone has changed so much in the last few weeks, that people have started to comment. I’ve even noticed that my eyes look healthier, as do my gums. Weird stuff. Not only do I feel healthier, but I look much healthier.

My appetite has changed somewhat as well. I’m still pretty consistently hungry, but I just want to graze all the time (eat bits and bites through the day) rather than having a big meal. I think part of that is adjusting to eating a lot of healthy food. My appetite is slowly increasing, likely in response to my increased and consistent energy needs.

Here’s the coolest thing I’ve noticed so far… part of our deal was that my birthday was a day of grace where the rules didn’t apply, and I was looking forward to cheating my face off with a fast food burger or two and tons of unhealthy food. Not only did I still eat all my servings of fruits and vegetables (without even thinking about it), but the only cheat I pulled was to have a club sandwich on white bread instead of brown… and that was a concious decision… just to take advantage of my hard-earned day of grace. So, this is how healthy habits get started?

In summary, I feel great… I look better… my body is reacting well… and I’m such a fan that I’ll keep this up well after April 1st. Thanks Jay.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 17th, 2005 at 9:45 am and is filed under Challenges.