Among her many wonderful qualities, I must say that my loving wife is a fan of breakfast. In fact, she’s a fan of the entire “three meals a day” eating philosophy, while I’ve been content to eat only once a day for several years now.

Well, that has changed since our wedding last week. At least for now, anyway. For the past week, I’ve been eating a healthier diet of more than one meal a day, including breakfast. And today is the first day that I’ve eaten breakfast and then come to work with a lunch packed. It’s a new and eye-opening experience, that’s for sure.

I heard this on the radio last week: "There's a reason you're fat -- you want to be."

One night into my 40-day diet of delicious recipes, I couldn’t be happier with the way things are working so far.

Well, today is the first official day of my 40-day Stevens diet, during which I plan to eat 40 recipes by columnist Stephanie Stevens that have run in the pages of the Jordan Independent.

I ate breakfast today. This isn’t exactly earth-shattering news, I know, but it marks a big change for me.

I usually eat about one meal a day, and it ends up being much too large a meal. My family and I decided to start a "Biggest Loser" competition – where the person who loses the most weight in 2007 is the big winner. (You can read about a Shakopee resident who was part of NBC's "The Biggest Loser" reality show in the Jan. 4 edition of the Shakopee Valley News). The competition started in January, and my goal is to drop about 50 pounds by the end of the year. I intend to win whatever it is my sister and I come up with as our top prize. I also intend to win some of the monthly gift certificate prizes.

I was walking through the store the other day, and I passed by the aisle of Halloween candy. I stopped, considered my options, and chose to walk by without picking a bag of candy.

Of course, I’ll be back before Halloween. I can’t help myself.