Four weeks in.

It’s been a month since I started the RevEx program and I’m starting to feel like a sexy bitch. I’m down to 208.4 pounds from a starting weight of 223. My pants are getting baggy. The other day, just for kicks, I decided to take my dog out to poop while wearing jeans without a belt. I looked like Tupac. It was awesome.

Today at work, some coworkers and I were talking about our pets. Right in the middle of a discussion about blue heelers, golden retrievers and de-clawed cats, one of them turned to me and said, “You’re face looks skinny.”

Yeah, baby.

It’s so freaking awesome to see the results of all the hard work and sacrifice start to show. Burning 700 calories per workout, five or six days a week while eating 1500 to 1600 calories a day, it turns out, works pretty damned well. It was really hard at first, because you’re huffing and puffing and not eating all the food you love and you want to see results right away.

Once a week I take full-length photos and measurements of myself. I’ve been losing a half inch per week around my belly button. We’ll call it the gut measurement. Although I was losing weight according to the scale, my weekly pics weren’t really changing that much. This was the first week where I really saw a noticeable difference. I was drunk with power.

This program is making me feel so empowered. It’s so gratifying to put in hard work and see results. My friends are giving me pats on the back and sending encouraging text messages. Many of them are extremely fit triathletes, runners and cyclists and it’s great to feel like I fit in a little more.

I used to eat out for 90 percent of my meals. Over the last month I’ve prepared 35 to 40 meals a week for myself. I’m not exactly carmelizing onions over steak tartare with sides of foie gras, but it’s still a freaking achievement. Recipes don’t look like outtakes from the Dead Sea Scrolls anymore.

I know I’ve still got 8 weeks to go. But already I feel like I’m finally in control of my body and no longer a slave to cravings for Papa John’s barbeque chicken pizza. I’m looking forward to taking on the next two thirds of this thing to see what I can accomplish.