Who is the Shrinking Man?

The before shot, from my birthday in 2009

Shrinking away - Spring of 2011

My name is Doc Coleman, and for most of my life, I’ve been fat. I’ve always been a big guy, but there have always been people around me who were bigger, so I never really thought much about it. I’ve been healthy all my life, so I never thought much about my size. But as I got older, my size has become more of an issue in itself.

Being a big man limits my options in terms of clothes, activities, and entertainment. More and more, things are designed for one size of person, and in the United States, that “typical” person is usually smaller than the average member of the populous. At the time of my life that I began to gain an appreciation for the finer things in life, I also found that many of them were beyond my reach due to my size.

This left me with a choice. I could try and campaign to force the world to accommodate me, or I could make changes in myself and in some way conform with what society has decided to expect.

In choosing to become The Shrinking Man, and loose weight, I’ve had to make a lot of changes in my life. I’ve had to give up many things that were dear to me, and take on new projects, like exercising regularly, and improving the quality of the foods that I eat. When I started this journey in December of 2009, I weighed 420 pounds. I wore size 60 lose fit jeans, and size 64 pants. Since that time, I have lost over 100 pounds and gone from a size 60, to a size 44. I still wear my “Victory Belt”, the belt I was wearing when I started my program. It wraps more than half way around me now. Not only have I fit back into clothing I never thought I would wear again, I’ve continued shrinking until that clothing was too small for me.

I started the podcast to better talk to the many folks who were asking me about how I was doing with my weight loss, and the folks who wanted to know HOW I was managing my weight loss. But it isn’t about me. It is about getting folks who are trying to lose weight sharing ideas and suggestions. What works for me, may not work for you, but it might work for the next person. If we talk about it, and share information, we can all find methods that will work for us.

I am a computer geek, a motorcyclist, a homebrewer, a podcaster (obviously), and a budding writer and voice actor. Three of my stories have been nominated for the 2011 Parsec Awards, so I’ll be watching their progress towards the Parsec Awards on Labor Day of this year. I’ve got four voice acting roles that will be hitting the web this year. And I’m going to be a guest at this year’s Balticon 45 on Memorial Day Weekend.

Maybe I’m a late bloomer. But look out world, here I come!