When I finished my undergraduate degree I'm guessing I weighed about 170 lbs.  I'm 5'9" so for someone my height 170 is reasonable.  I had done some weight training in High School and College but nothing serious and was, for the most part, out of shape, but not over weight.

Right out of College I joined a startup company (Pix) and signed up at the local gym.  I never took it very seriously and for the most part I had no idea what I should be doing.  I was, however, not getting paid much so I only went out to eat occasionally and the general food budget was rather limited.

 After joining the Salem-Keizer Public School district I was was probably up to about 175 lbs, but still doing an okay job of managing it.  After two years as SKPS I had put on about another 5 lbs.  Just before I joined Intel my first daughter was born which gave me the opportunity to pretty much eat anything I wanted, all the time claiming that I was being supportive of my wife.

When I did join Intel I was over 180 lbs and rapidly gaining.  I was drinking coffee all of the time and eating anything I could get my hands on.  Within two years I was easily over 200 lbs. 

At a family Thanksgiving almost two years exactly after joining Intel I was sitting in the living room when my mother (yes, my mother) turned to me to said "you're getting quite the tum there".  I was horrified, I knew I was getting a little heavier but it wasn't until her comment that I realized how big I had gotten.  Just around that time I had also read an article which mentioned that around the age of 40 your metabolism slows down and it becomes even harder for a person to lose or maintain weight.  I knew that if I was going to ever try to get "into shape" it was then or never.

Without consulting a doctor or doing any real research I started to go down to the Intel gym and run on the treadmill.  At first it was just for one mile, then after a week I was up to two miles, then three.  I also started to run outside at home which at first felt like I had breathed in glass shardes because my lungs hurt so badly.  But I kept after it and soon was up to five miles on average.  From just the running alone I started to drop weight like crazy.  It was as if someone had taken a hot knife and was just cutting the fat off me.  

In a matter of about 4-6 months I had dropped almost 20 lbs.  From there it took me another 4-6 months to drop back down to my College weight of down to 170lbs, but now I was in better shape.  I started to compete in races and most notably I ran in the 2004 Hood-To-Coast relay race.  Slowly I also started to incorporate lifting weights into my routine.  

For a while I followed the MAX-OT training as I thought my goal was to gain size.  After getting interested in rock climbing I no longer follow this routine as size does not help at all in climbing.  Now I do mostly body weight exercises and try to follow the trainings of Ross Enamait which more closely follow a boxing routine than a body building one.

I don't, however, do as much pure running anymore.  I do more interval running now which I mix in with body weight exercises.  Lately I have been trying to swim and play racquetball to take the place of running for my cardio.  In addition to weight lifting I also rock climb to build strength and endurance.   

The lowest I have gotten my weight down to is just about 161 lbs, but right now I am floating closer to 166 lbs.  I think in total I still have about 15 lbs of body fat to lose which, with my strength goals, will probably put me somewhere between 155 - 160 ideally.