Matt's Weight Loss Odyssey: Part 3 (Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight)

Say what you will about Morgan Spurlock's methods, his agenda, his truthfulness ... it didn't matter to me. I walked out of "Super Size Me" in June, resolving to take better care of myself.

That I saw the movie at all was a bit of a fluke; my good friend Evan had recommended the film, and if there's one thing you have to know about Evan, it's that he knows his shit when it comes to movies. If I had never seen the movie, I can't imagine how else I would have ever been motivated enough to lose weight. Even though I've slipped and fallen a few times since then, Evan's "Super Size Me" recommendation was really the catalyst for everything that happened over the next 18 months (and counting).

Finally, for the first time ever, I was throwing myself into a diet and committing myself fully.

And it lasted exactly a week.

Five days later, I stopped into Jack in the Box before working a graveyard shift. Even after only five days without fast food, I noticed the difference. It was heavy, greasy and just really unpleasant.

I knew I had messed up and was determined not to let it happen again. Feeling that badly reminded me of what it was like to eat fast food regularly, so I got back up and gave up fast food again.

And for awhile, it worked.

I started eating at home more often and actually cooking (one of my early success stories? Fajitas). My friendship with Brian (my co-editor at the newspaper) blossomed, so I joined him in working out at my college's gym. Three days a week, I used the elliptical machine and hit the weights. Between the gym and the home cooking, I really felt like I was accomplishing something.

I wasn't noticing a smaller stomach, but I saw small bicep muscles appearing. I discovered my calves getting stronger. It was enough to keep me going up until school started in August 2004.

Fall semester started, and I was in over my head. In addition to a full load of classes, I was writing for a fledging alt-weekly newspaper, running the college newspaper and working weekends at Fred Meyer.

So with less free time than ever, I stopped working out and started eating fast food. Yes, I reverted back to my old habits after two months.

At the time, I was too busy to be worried about eating fast food, and I stopped working out. I rotated between Sunrise Bagels (for the cheesy bacon bagel), McDonalds, Burger King and Burgerville for breakfast. Lunch consisted of fish 'n' chips or hamburger and fries. I caught dinner on the way home. If it was a work night, I grabbed something on the way to work, at work and again after work.

This continued through mid-January.

Early in January, I was eating three cheeseburgers and washing them down with a large diet coke on the way to school. By the time I got to school and booted up my computer in the office, I had to use the bathroom. I could feel the crap foods making their way through my system. Something was definitely wrong.

On January 14, I grabbed Burger King for breakfast and headed to the local school district offices for a high school transcript (I was applying for graduate school at the time). I got to the parking lot outside the main office and felt worse than I had at any point in the previous six months (during which I was actually eating fast food regularly).

I wasn't going so far as to start working out, but I was again laying off the fast food. That was January 2005. To this day, I haven't touched Burger King, McDonalds, Taco Bell or any of that nonsense since January 15.

I was eating healthier and feeling good, up until March. I caught a pretty nasty virus around that time, which essentially acted like a prolonged cold. Hoping for anything to help, I went to the doctor's office, where I stepped on the scale weighing 300 pounds.

Before you recoil at that number, know this: I had weighed 300 pounds just after a summer of walking almost 30 miles every weekend in 2001. So, knowing that my fast food binging hadn't caused any weight gain was an enormous relief.

I couldn't believe my good fortune.

As I learned two months later, I shouldn't believe my good fortune, either.

To be continued ...