The Beginning...

I'll keep this short and sweet... sometimes being gay, it eats inside you, especially if you're not comfortable with your sexuality. How did I make myself comfort? FOOD. I could wipe out a large pizza, make that extra large, I'm a very picky eater. I LOVED the extra cheese. Chug it down with some coke, you would have a very happy Petz. And a fat petz too. 2005ish, had this huge crush on a girl over in the east coast, this sounds sappy, but I would write to her every single day, long emails, thinking she would enjoy them, I would be over the moon when I got a response back from her. She must of loved the attention or was clearly annoyed with me. I really wanted to be with her,

I wanted to make it work, it was around January 2006, I needed the answer, after a year of crushing... getting those "mix" signals, seeing her go through some shitty relationships, I thought "Wow... maybe I have a chance." We were in Jersey, at this cute Italian restaurant, I was so happy to be in her company, but I made a promise to myself. Like Regis would say on "Who Wants to be a millionaire?" - "Is that your final answer," I was determine to get my "final" answer from her. There we were in her car, we took one snap from my digital camera and I finally mustard up some courage and asked if we had a chance. She said no, we don't have a chance. I felt my heart drop, but I didn't cry in front of her. When I got back to Manhattan, I cried myself to sleep. I knew I had to make personal changes and think about me.

So here I was at 250 pounds

After 10 months of intense training, changing my eating habits and lifestyle... I went down from 155-160.

I did pretty well for myself huh? Towards the end of 2008, I moved to the UK, I got a cool gig on the radio, my first on air position in London. I was very homesick though, those cadburys crept in, drinking started again, I just wasn't feeling happy. I failed at two relationships with two women I thought I had a solid chance with, but my heart got bruised (I don't believe in a broken heart) the lack of exercise, the depressing weather and so much drama swirled in - it was bad. The day I got back to the states, I was working my ass off (not working out) but trying to figure out what to do with myself. I would work out, lose motivation - feel my heart being tugged, pulling all nighters, drinking the fraps, eating the large pizzas, finally landed another radio job, but a hellish commute and crazy hours. Moved closer to my work, but wasn't making enough to afford rent, getting sick to my stomach when I dipped in my savings. I even hired  a personal trainer but flaked out on her, I just wasn't ready to commit.

There's  a new website, where people can ask you questions, so I have one and someone asked "you used to be so skinny, now you are so fat, what happen?" that really hurt, then a guy friend put me down about my weight and constantly making me feel bad that I wasn't doing enough, when in fact he had no idea about my back story and what I previous accomplished.

My friend Sohel and his brothers reopened their restaurant and I went and the photographer snapped some pics of Sohel and me. Sohel put them up, I actually untagged myself because I was so embarrassed at how I looked, I left one tagged though.

here I am with Sohel at 239 pounds, I'm back to wearing size 40 pants, XXL shirts ... ahhh sucks!

But I'm happy to report, after nearly a month of training, I started at 237, now I'm down to 226ish (pending on the water weight too it flexes between 225 - 226)

I'm going to be participating in a 3 mile marathon in the middle of November, so I'm training for that. I will write another blog of what goes into my daily diet. I love food, but I don't want to use is as a source of "comfort" but a source of "energy"

Like I told my best friend Deeps, we are surrounded by all sorts of choices, but it's up to us as individuals to make the right one.

This is Petz, the fat journalist signing off.

ps. I have to give props to my fellow journalist from across the pond, BBC Asian Network Radio Personality Jas Rao, you can follow him @JasRao on twitter, we are both working on losing weight and he has a fabulous blog, you should all check out. The link to his website is on the right hand side...