All the military recruiters shared one giant office in a plaza over by the mall. I drove by there fairly often and would look over at all the posters. The place where I used to get my hair cut was in that same plaza so I used to cruse past like a stalker. I had decided on the Army but had no idea what the weight limit was or anything about joining. One day walked up and looked in the window after my haircut. There were different displays with pamplets for all the different branches just inside the door. So I stepped in and grabed some for the Army and stepped back out without anybody seeing me. I took those things home and read them over and over and over again. At the time I weighed 215 pounds and I knew that as way too much. I didn't dare step inside at that weight and ask. So I decided that once I had gotten down to 165 I would go in and talk to the recruiter. I didn't really know anything about weight loss at the time. The only thing I knew was that a pound of fat = 3600 calories so to lose weight you had to do without 3600 calories. At the same time my mom had purchased some brand new light frozen meals, I flipped one over, 300 calories. So I decided to eat one of those a day and fill out the rest of the day with beverages. Since I was basically starving, I started losing a ton of weight approx. a pound per day. I thought this was a great diet. The fat melted away. It didn't take that long and I was under 170 so I went by the recruiters office and had a chat and got the ball rolling. All I had to do was lose the additional weight. I pretty much lived off of cigarettes, coffee and 300 cal per day. After a while I added exercise to my daily routine. I knew that I would have to run and exercise and I wanted to already be in shape. This also aided my weight loss as I went through periods where nothing happened. I didn't know this at the time, but I was setting myself up to fail, only it seemed to be working like a charm at the time so I started working out twice a day. (the thought of that boggles my mind today) and before the year was out I had my appointment to go get my physical.
