Weight-loss accountability: If you bite it, then write it

Something hit me the other day, and it wasn't just my wife's hand when I tried to borrow a cookie.

I was talking to somebody about my massive weight gain over the past year or so, explaining how draining and demanding my work schedule was during the Utah Jazz basketball season. It was near impossible, my sob story went, to focus on eating well and exercising while I was working so much.

You know the story. Life isn't fair. Woe is me. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Then IT hit me. (The truth and reality, not my wife's hand.)

I suddenly realized the Jazz hadn't played for nearly two months, making my schedule drastically less hectic (and much less interesting, by the way).

Problem was, I had not resumed anything resembling the activity level and healthy habits that helped me lose a bunch of blubber before my workload increased.

My excuse had long expired.

It was a lame excuse anyway. I didn't gain 75-plus pounds in just over a year because of my work. I gained that girth because my mouth was the only part of my body that didn't stop working.

And it's about time I start accepting that fact. I can make all sorts of excuses for not working out, for not eating healthy and for this or that. Bottom line is, they're just excuses. Funny thing, it almost takes as much energy to make excuses and deliver them as it does to actually work out.

Can you tell I'm on an accountability kick right now?

While trying to figure out how to overcome my own weaknesses, this thought keeps surfacing: I need to take responsibility for my actions — or inaction — and deal with the consequences or rewards.

When it comes to my diet, it's quite simple: If I eat right and exercise, I lose weight. A lot of weight. If I pig out and don't exercise, I gain weight. A lot of weight.

This has been the case as my 5-foot-8-inch tall body has gone from weighing 371 pounds to 199 pounds — and all over the place in between.

I need to accept that is who I am and how my body works, and deal with it.

If I end up being obese, it's because I choose to be obese and do the things that make me that way. It's nobody else's fault. And if I end up being thinner, it's because I choose to be thinner and do the things that make me that way.