The first time I really lost some weight was in 1975. I had convinced myself that being 5 foot ten and 280 was great as Paul Anderson, the Olympic Champion had fit that spec. But all good things come to an end. It was a time of "wide bodies" and the Viet Nam war was over. My children's doctor convinced me I had hypertension. I needed to take action. He sent me to a Brazilian diet doctor who prescribed a diet that featured coffee at every meal. I stopped drinking beer. My children's doctor prescribed Diazide, diuretic and from a lab test he prescribed a potassium supplement. Straight forward chemical solution. Chemical Engineers was a better profession. They were more popular and made more money. I had a BS in Physics from a state school. ----- The other items in the diet were lettuce and bologna, with one slice of white bread a day.

I sought out free items, like pickled cherry peppers. Then I threw the potassium supplement away as it was purple and had sugar in it. ???!!! sweetener? I don't use sugar in my coffee. Bologna is half fat. So, I bought packages of Carnation Slender and skimmed milk. My room mate had been the son of a dairy farmer and he made up gallons of powered milk and kept them in the refrigerator. When "bossie" died he had her ground up and kept her in packages in the freezer. I did adhere rigidly to professional advice to not go below 1200 calories a day. I was able to lose about 10 pounds a month. A year passed and I was at 180 pounds. I threw away the fat man suit I had bought at Big & Tall.

Bouncing between 230 and 190 became my curse. Then in 1981 I accepted a company proposal to go to rehab. I saw how they became judges to each other. I had read the Big Book and knew doctor Bob was in town as the adjoining room contained a woman who was going to the national convention at the "Breakers" hotel. Not my thing, one day after the throttle cable on my motorcycle got frayed I carefully rode to the Ste Lucie Nuclear Power plant past all the graffiti and parked under a load of rebar being swung to build #4 . I walked up to the gate in the fence and asked to see a Health Physicist.