I am currently the executive chef at a local country club and have been cooking professionally for the last ten or so years. I have always struggled with my weight and I don't think that my profession really helps with that at all. I probably eat about 500 calories in just tasting food to ensure consistency, but back to the weight struggles.

As a pre-teen I was chubby and teased for it, but it didn't change the behavior. One year I spent my summer at a dude ranch in west Texas doing dude ranch stuff: riding horses, rock climbing, hiking etc...low and behold I gained 4" in height and stayed the same weight so I looked a lot skinnier. I pretty much stayed the same through high school. Football 2-a-days, working out, and mini-camps in summer helped keep the weight in check. However life after sport catches up eating the same calories and doing literally ZERO exercise. My "freshman 15" was more a freshman 45, and it stayed that way until I started cooking, 10 here, 5 there, 15 there and boom 280lbs.

One day my lovely wife (kppgreen on here) found a Dr. who could help us. We have done the HCG protocol 3 times over the last year and I have lost 50+lbs. I am here to learn how to keep it off.
I know that for some people keeping it off is easy, but for others like me it is a constant battle. No, battles are single events that are won and lost. This is a war. The battles are the decisions to have the cookie or not, having only one of the chocolate truffles you just spent 4 hours making, making the right decision when the poor one would be so much easier.

I am here to find the strategies and tactics to win the war. Everyone on here is fighting the same battles, in the same war. We all have different tactics and strategies on how to defeat the enemy within. We're all in this together.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"
--Sanskrit treatise on statecraft 4th century B.C.E.