The thing about visiting your doctor when you are a middle-aged man who carries a keg around the middle is, the doctor no longer laughs at your jokes.

For years I could laugh it off with a “but chick still dig me,” or a lame “I’m working on it” line, but when you hit the mid-stretch it’s reality-check time.

That’s what happened to me last spring when I got a new doctor after years of a rotating batch of indifferent and uninterested health care professionals. After taking my weight and some calliper testing Dr Takar looked at me and flatly told me I had a “33% chance of dying in the next 10 years.”

One in three. Dead before my 68th birthday.

My dad died when he was 64, not from being fat, he died from leukaemia, but having him as a frame of early-death reference, that is way too fucking early to shuck of this mortal coil.

So, my doctor asked, “are you cool with that?”

Who would be?

He suggested a plan. First, he wanted to know precisely what was up with me physically beyond his initial examination. Over the course of the spring and summer, he booked me for ECGs, EKGs, ultrasounds, stress tests and monthly blood scans. There were also appointments with cardiologists, internal medicine and haematologist specialists. This was by far the most extensive use of the Ontario medical system of my life – and it was singularly impressive. Our health care system takes some serious grief. From my very limited experience – beyond all the poking, prodding and personal humiliation – amazing!

All of that, about 10 appointments in total, took about four months and the results were the same from every examination. The reason I was going to die in the next decade with the same probability as Mookie Betts hitting a baseball, was fat. And the reason I was fat was mostly because of my prefered choice of beverage.

Beer

I love drinking beer because I love the taste and love being semi-tipsy – but don’t like the taste of strong alcohol. Beer is diluted enough for me not to notice the booze, so I could crush cans like a champ. As a result, I was taking on a daily calorie load my body couldn’t handle. What I wasn’t peeing out – I was storing around my ever increasingly ample middle. My liver was also hard as a rock, and pushing past my rib cage, furthering my Sicillain “of the belly” look.

Topping scales at 310 lbs on my 6’1″ frame was taking its toll with side effects like sleep apnea, chronic joint pain from osteoarthritis, bouts of gout and the lack of ability to walk from here to there without getting winded, never mind being able to run anywhere. All of this had been going on for years.

Also, the fatter I got, the fewer of my clothes fit – and my face was perma-flushed. In other words, I was a hobbling, red-faced pile of jiggly goo.

Not a real attractive guy.

So, the week before my 58th birthday in November I had my final appointment with my doctor to go over all the results. After confirming the “why” was the beer talking, (it wasn’t a big mystery, but it was concrete proof that I needed it seems), we talked about the “how.”

We reviewed different diets and settled on Keto as it wouldn’t be too dramatic a lifestyle change.

But what about the beer? Was I an alcoholic? Probably a functional one, so how hard would it be to stop? I had never really tried to stop drinking before, but living life in my oblivious way, it never seemed to be a thing. He suggested, since this was going to be a big change, that I don’t quit drinking (he’s a great doctor!). Instead, switch to vodka and sodas, as they are about 1/5 the calories, or at dinner, a glass of red wine instead.

Instead of a thorough lifestyle change that I knew would fail from the start due to being an oblivious 58-year-old man, instead, we set out a plan to lose the pounds through incremental change. First, no more beer. Period. Second, beer is heavy in carbs so why not try out the keto diet to see if I could stand staying on it for a while, and then see how I do after four months.

Using this cool excel sheet I found, I picked a target weight of 220 lbs. That was the weight I was at the end of university 35 years ago. Although that still comes out as overweight on the BMI scale for my height, (I am a large framed and muscular guy under all the flab), when I weighed 220 in university I wasn’t fat. At all. Using the Total Keto Diet app on my phone, I easily figured out what I could and couldn’t take on board, and I limited myself to under 1800 calories a day. Shooting for 220 meant I was going to have to lose 90lbs in total from my original weight at my first appointment, with a targeted end-date of June 1st, 2019. That pace would be mean losing about 2lbs a week, which – when it’s put in those terms –
didn’t sound too hard to me.

Starting on November 12th, the Monday after my birthday so I could have one last beer filled weekend, I started.

In November I lost 14 lbs – mostly due to water weight and bloat loss I suspect. December, another 14 lbs, despite taking a week off Keto at Christmas because, Turkey Sandwiches. No beer though. January was a slower month, only losing 9lbs, but it was brutal weather wise and I was cocooned with the rest of Canada. Same with February frankly, but still managed to lose another 10.

So, here we are in mid-March the four-month tally is in – from a starting weight of 294lbs on November 12th (I’d managed to lose 16 lbs over the summer from my Spring weight of 210 mostly because, summer) to March 12th, I was down exactly 50 lbs, and weigh in at (a still hefty) 244lbs.

Twenty-four pounds from my target goal with 2 1/2 months to go, or in other words, right on, if not slightly ahead of target.

Can’t wait to see the doctor.

As I continue, I’ll post some more on what it’s like to basically stop being an alcoholic by switching beverage choices – and my ridiculous diet plan, (Caesar salad is my friend).

But the bottom line is, just like when I quit smoking, for me, the hardest part is the deciding. Once that part was done, the rest has been easy.

Which is so annoying.