So there I was two years ago, looking like Louie Anderson after a year-long Crisco kick - belly bursting the buttons on my shirts, face enveloped in three layers of fatty casing. There was too much to look at, which meant there wasn't much to look at, at all.

So one night in mid December 2005, as I lay in bed listening to the sound of nothing in a dead town in the Colorado plains, I decided to change. Just like that. No big events leading up to it. No trauma, no guiding light. I was just a 26-year old man nearing 400 pounds, thinking about how I had sabotaged my life through a series of mid-afternoon pizzas followed by late-afternoon pizzas.

I lived out the remaining weeks of 2005 as a fatty boombalatti, made a trip back home to Detroit, saw family and friends, and felt disgusted by how I knew they saw me. I returned to Colorado on January 2nd. The night of January 3rd, I had a goodbye pizza. At 5 a.m. on January 4th, I awoke and finished off the last piece of pizza, and then at 10 a.m. I awoke again a new man.

One hundred days, 70 pounds. That was the first accomplishment. Five months, 95 pounds. That was the second. I stalled there, as my life changed with a new job in a new city and state, but in less than six months I went from 370 pounds to 275. Not skinny, but very close to my first goal of losing 100 pounds. If you are a longtime Blogcritics reader, you may remember the ride I shared with my readers in daily entries and photographic progression. If not, then let me introduce myself. I'm Dan, your not-as-fat-as-he-used-to-be blog friend.

That's where it started, but there's a little more to the story now.

I left the blog behind in July 2006 after accepting a job in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's in California, if you aren't up on your U.S. Geography. I set out on what I called "my own personal manifest destiny," with a new look and a different lease on life. My biggest enemies were recurring stomach pains resulting from fatty foods and the fear that super fat Dan would re-emerge over time. As it was, though, a good looking 275-pound man was better than the greased up, morbidly obese fatty I had been seven months prior.

I came to California and lived a nice year. I am still here, living in the town of Vallejo, about 25 miles north of Oakland, and about 30 miles from San Francisco. Life has been worse. It could be better.