As I've commented elsewhere, I've become a bit of a butterball in the years since graduating from university. As much as it pains me to say so publicly, my maximum weight since college was a hundred pounds over my average weight during my senior year of undergraduate work. That is not a typo. One hundred pounds. And the last time I was at this fabled maximum weight? Oh, a few weeks ago or so.

I also grew an inch in height in the first couple of years after graduation. Alas, alack, one inch in height does not correspond, in any healthy way, to ten or so inches added to the waist.

A few interesting twists and turns have cropped up recently, and I appear to have accidentally begun a turn-around on this journey of a thousand pounds. It started with the coincidence of my most recent bout of vertigo (which has not gone away yet), my recent birthday (which was horrible, by the way, but for reasons having nothing to do with me being fat), and running out of Pepsi at home (even though I still had plenty at the office).

The inner ear problem I've been experiencing includes not only occasional vertigo, but also headaches. Having been in a foul mood on the weekend of April Fool's Day (and, sadly for me, having no inclination to play any pranks on anyone this year), and already experiencing headaches, and having run out of Pepsi at home, I accidentally ended up going a few days without any carbonated beverages at all. The caffeine withdrawal headaches can be a bitch but, well, I was already having headaches. And after I was a few days into this pattern, it became easier to turn it into a new habit.

I'm kicking the soda (can) habit.

It's a modest change, but combined with a few other minor tweaks to my eating habits, it has so far accounted for a ten-pound loss in weight. [And yes, this kind of weight loss is much too fast and it neither could nor should be maintained for any prolonged period.]

According to a recent study, diets do not work in the long term. The only way to successfully lose weight and keep it off is to make 'lifestyle changes.' What is a lifestyle change?

I posed this question over dinner recently with some extended family, and their response was the same as my original thought: if I never have a can of soda again, it's a lifestyle change. If I ever do have another can of soda, then kicking that habit was just a diet. Voila!

When I read the article on the failure of diets more closely, however, they seem to indicate that the only real success can be managed by incorporating more exercise into one's "lifestyle".

(Great. Now exercising is a "lifestyle choice.")

So I guess if I'm to build on any progress I'm making now, I'm going to have to start introducing tweaks to my patterns of physical activity before my 'diet' attains its maximum statistical threshold (ie, before I've lost 5 to 10 percent of my total weight).

I do know this: I don't want to go back to swimming three hours a day like I did when I was in high school. Uh-uh. Not only is it too time consuming; I've simply gotten sick of the smell of chlorine. Literally, I get sick from the smell. Oh, and swimming is boring, especially when one is no longer in high school, swimming alongside attractive and physically-fit high school girls. [sigh]

But according to that study, I'm going to have to do something. Otherwise, I'm doomed to gain all that weight back. Doomed!

Behind every diet silver lining, there's a dark lifestyle cloud.

[And for your information, NO, GOING OFF OF CAFFEINE HAS NOT AFFECTED MY MOOD, OKAY!? SO BACK OFF!]