Imagine, if you can, being a pinch hitter in the leadoff po-sition. The game is just getting started so there’s no pressure.

Actually, to continue the baseball analogy, I suppose you could say this is game two of a doubleheader.

Health Quest One was a life-changing event for me. I sup-pose you have read here previously that I managed to be the “winner” of the last years Health Quest journey. I would sug-gest that everyone who lost any weight was a winner.

I had more to lose.

The sad problem is, it’s not the first time I’ve lost a lot of weight. I can count at least five times that I’ve lost at least 80 pounds. Then dad gum it, I manage to find it all again. Usu-ally, I’ll find some that someone else lost along the way, too.

Nutritionists and physiologists refer to people like me as a yo-yo dieter. This time, the yo-yo has to break while the string is down.

There are a couple of reasons why I believe that this time was the charm and I want to share a few of those thoughts with you.

Accountability

My experience has been that losing weight for myself was never good enough. I have five grandchildren who range from 9 to 2 years of age. I love them all dearly, but they have way too much energy. I simply weight too much. I want to be around long enough to watch them grow up and have their own children.

Doing it publicly

This goes hand in hand with accountability. By telling our little corner of the world in the newspaper that I intended to lose weight, I put a little pressure on myself. I’ve always loved sports, am a competitive person, so that helped too. I hate to lose.

Older and wiser

Since I’ve done this so many times, I have been to school, post-graduate school and ought to be close to a doctorate. The one thing that I have really learned this time around is that I must, repeat, must, get on the scales everyday.

I used to think if I didn’t know how much I weighed, and then I wouldn’t worry about it. Wrong, wrong. Wrong. When I weighed this past Monday after going to a couple of birthday parties over the weekend, I saw that I had gained three pounds.

I now know what I’ve got to do to compensate.

Exercise

This is probably the biggest key to my success. I try to walk every day. That’s right, every day. I have to make time for myself. Nobody else is going to do that for me. If I just find 30 minutes, that’s almost two miles. The residual effects are, psychologically speaking, amazing. I sleep a lot better, too.

I feel like I’m beginning to scattershoot so I’ll wrap this up.

Intentionality

Weight loss doesn’t happen by itself. It’s a battle that ex-perience has taught me has to be waged every day. The key is winning more days than you lose.

It’s also got to be a lifelong commitment. You can’t just lose weight, reach the end of Health Quest in August, and think it’s over. That’s why I signed up again this year.

I need that public accountability to reach my goal, which is to lose another 10-15 pounds.

While you’re holding me accountable, I’ll be glad to return the favor.