Jerry Loses His Dad Bod: Some "before and after" photos

I think this was 2009 versus 2013

I'm going to do this a little differently today, at Jerry's request. He's had a rough morning! He had a doctor's appointment at 11:20; the doctor isn't there in the afternoons, which is rough when you work a night shift. So he came home from work, woke up after a few hours, went to his doctor's appointment, came home and slept for a few more. Doing his "Dad Bod" weigh-in wasn't exactly on his mind, which is totally understanding.

Still, though, he had a great week! It was funny a couple of days ago--I'd asked him to make his Beans & Greens, which is one of my favorite comfort foods. I was working on my blog post while he cooked, and it smelled amazing. When we sat down to eat, I took one bite and thought, "Holy salt!"--Jerry made a face and said "Woah, this is really salty."

We both tried to eat it and we managed one bowl, but we didn't even save the leftovers. Bummer! What does this have to do with weigh-in?

Even though I ate really well all day, my weight was up nearly two pounds yesterday morning. And Jerry? His weight was up THREE pounds. We both knew it wasn't from poor eating; it was clearly the amount of salt we'd eaten. (Jerry isn't sure where he went wrong with the salt.)

Instead of posting about Jerry's "dad bod" week, I figured I'd share a little of his past with his weight struggles.

In August 2009, Jerry's weight was 253 pounds. As funny as it, that was MY starting weight, too! Hahaha. It makes sense, considering we pretty much ate all the same things (and I matched or exceeded his portions). (I'm not at all kidding when I say that we would share: a large order of cheese breadsticks with garlic butter dipping sauce, a deep dish pizza with pepperoni and bacon, a six pack of beer, and each of us would have a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Seriously.)

This was how Noah played soccer--the whole game--hahaha.

Jerry didn't start losing weight until until January 1, 2010. I had already been losing weight since August 2009; Jerry saw how good I was doing with it, so he decided to give it a go, too. He likes to say (now) that he "lost weight by default" because he just ate whatever I cooked. He doesn't give himself enough credit, though! He is constantly tempted by food at work when people bring it in to share--and it's not exactly healthy food.

This is when we were both at our goal weights in 2013. My friend Stephanie, who is a great photographer, did an amazing photo session.

This all happened so long ago that it's hard to remember the details. Essentially, though, Jerry started eating the same sort of diet as I did, and the pounds started coming off. And naturally, they came off faster than mine! Don't they always when boys lose weight? So not fair! ;)  He joined Weight Watchers and eventually reached his goal weight there (I believe in 2003--I'll look for the link). He weighed in at 168, which was a total of 85 pounds lost!

An 85-pound difference

For exercise, he started running a little--nothing too serious--and then trained for the Indy Mini half-marathon, which he finished strongly.

Now, over the years, his weight as gone up and down just like mine, only his hasn't been quite as extreme. His lowest weight was 167 pounds (I believe this was in 2013) and his highest (since then) was earlier this year, when he was about 200 (he doesn't remember the exact number).

Considering that the odds are stacked against him, he's done an amazing job keeping off all the weight that he has! He'll get back to his usual post next week!