So yeah, check it out if that’s your thing.

But back to the task at hand. There is strong evidence, though I am not ready to call it incontrovertible, that the recent changes in the diet are working exactly as I had hoped.

After eating under 2,000 calories for six straight days, and going to the gym for five out of six days, I weighed in on Sunday morning at 267.4. Before I went to the gym around 6 p.m., I weighed in at 266.2 (Don’t ask me how I weighed less. I prefer not to question these things). Since I didn’t weigh myself on Monday, the first day of the changes, I can’t exactly say how much weight I lost. But I know that I am two or three pounds down from Thursday, since I was 269 then.

For the first time, I can see 240 clear ahead. In the distance, for sure, but clear ahead.

While living in the Colorado plains in 2005, I drove to the mountainous regions for work one weekend. There was a moment on that drive that parallels this quest so perfectly and obviously, that I just have to share it.

I drove through the flatlands, past the same cows and crops over and over again. Then, past a curve, there was a single mountain barely visible in the distance. Had it not been a perfect Colorado day, it would have been covered by the thinnest clouds. But it sat there like in a fifth grader’s diorama staring me down from at least 100 miles away. That mountain was at least two hours away by car. But I could see the snow line and the trees underneath it. That was the first time I saw mountains on that stop in Colorado (clarification: I did my internship in the very mountainous Colorado Springs back when I was in college), and it was the first time I realized they were actually there.

I drove a few more hours, and the mountains, sure enough, showed up with all their grandeur and majesty.

Looking back on these past seven days — including a Sunday where my “cheat” was eating two weight watchers meals (600 calories combined), too many blackberries and a nectarine that I probably didn’t need – It dawned on me that this might have been the best week of my life in terms of eating right and exercising. Obviously, I can’t say that for sure, especially since I lost 95 pounds two years ago (and I must have done something right then). But I can’t imagine that I’ve done better than I have in the last seven days. I haven’t been more focused, I haven’t treated this quest with more reverence, and I haven’t performed so perfectly.

But as I said earlier: Success is only in the past and in the future. I sit here now as a man who has been successful before, and will be successful again. For now, though, I am content with just knowing what has been done and what lies ahead.

I leave you today, this official opening day of the baseball season, with one thought that I will be echoing, hopefully, in October: Go Tigers.