First step

It all started in 1998.

I'd coasted along throughout most of my adult life, working out with decent frequency, eating pretty much whatever I wanted to, and maintaining a healthy weight of 175. Then my life went through a couple of drastic changes. I became a father, and I started a new job that was nowhere near my health club.

Suddenly, I was no longer free to use my time as I saw fit, and I couldn't swing by the club before or after work to get in 45 minutes of cardio. Plus, I turned 30, and my metabolism began the slow descent toward flatline. All this added up to a slow, but steady, weight gain.

Still, I topped out at around 190, then started watching my diet and figured out ways to fit in a little more exercise, and I settled back in the low 180s.

Then all hell broke loose. In 2000, I started another new job, this one requiring extremely long hours. Fun, but long, and many of them stretching into the wee hours of the morning. I "retired" from playing baseball after that summer, thus eliminating my one incentive to remain in decent shape. (Please keep your John Kruk comments to yourselves.) And my metabolism -- once fueled by decent sleep and regular exercise -- slowed to a glacial creep.

And the pounds came.

My goodness, did they ever. Before long, I was buying new pants, wearing baggy clothes and generally living the sad lifestyle of the fat guy. My eating habits went to hell ("Hey, I'm already fat -- might as well eat that donut") and ... well, if I were a little more touchy-feely, the phrase "shame spiral" might be invoked right about here.

By the time I tried to grab the reins the first time -- two years ago -- I had ballooned to 240 pounds. I signed up with the local LA Weight Loss chapter, because I liked their no-nonsense approach. It boiled down to this: write down everything you eat and drink, control your portion sizes, weigh in three times a week to encourage accountability, and watch the pounds fall away!

And it worked ... for awhile. I got down to about 225, then hit a wall that I just couldn't break through. I still don't know why it didn't click for me. My guess is that I still wasn't exercising enough and I wasn't sleeping enough (do a little research on the correlation between sleep and weight loss if you're skeptical about this), and as my frustration mounted, I just sorta gave up. A year and a half later, I was back up to 240.

Fast-forward to a month ago. I was back in Minnesota, reconnecting with my roots in my hometown. I noticed that my old baseball club had a home game that night and figured I'd swing by the ballpark to watch a few innings. When I got there, I discovered that night's opposing starting pitcher was ... my age! He was an old teammate and opponent of mine, and he was still out there getting it done. While I was sipping a beer and eating popcorn in the stands, he was battling "kids" 10 and 20 years younger than us in the heat and humidity of an August night.

And that's when it hit me. I had to do something, because there was no way I could have gone out there and even run out a grounder, let alone play three games a week like I used to -- and like my old friend and foe was still doing.

So, the day I got back to Nevada, I got online and signed up for a sprint triathlon. For the uninitiated (like me about a month ago), a sprint triathlon is like the junior version of the big event -- it's a 5K run, a 12-mile bike ride and a 150-meter swim. The one I chose -- the Tinsel Triathlon in Hemet, Calif. -- is actually held in reverse order. Usually you swim first, but I guess because their swim takes place in a pool instead of a lake or ocean, they have to swim last to stagger the number of people in the water at the same time.

I've long been interested in triathlons, because they seem like a great test of general athleticism, as opposed to marathons, which just seem twisted and cruel. I always said that I'd sign up for one "as soon as I lose a little weight" because of course 240 pounds can cause a lot of pounding on the old joints.

But there comes a time in life when you've got to put the cart before the horse, so to speak, and this is one of those times. So I'm signed up for a triathlon that will take place on Dec. 14 -- you can refer to my handy-dandy countdown clock to see just how much time I've got left before my Day of Reckoning. And the fact that it's three days before my 40th birthday ... well, I'm a sucker for symbolism.

Along the way, I'll tell you all about my goals, how I plan to get there, what this process will entail, who's going to help me get it done, and everything else related to this journey of self-improvement. And of course you'll still get the same riveting discussion of sports, music, politics and gambling on football that you've come to know and love from What Happens in Henderson.

T-minus 98 days and counting ... let's get it started.