“Chin down.”

This is a phrase Aleta and I say to each other when someone is taking a picture of us. This means “make sure our fat sacks under our chins don’t show so it looks like we have a neck.” For those of us who gain weight in our cheekbones and neck, this is a perpetual challenge. Especially for guys like me who have big jawbones.

Chin down is the most critical for our annual Christmas picture inserted into those clever letters we send out. This year’s picture in our letter warranted lots of “Wow, you guys look healthy/good/young/thin.” We did not realize the difference all that much, but others did.

With that said, I’ll let the following pictures be proof of the benefits of our 6 month trek eating vegan. The first picture is from Christmas 2009 after 6 months of eating vegan. The second picture is before vegan, our meat eating days.

2009 Born Again Vegan

2008 Meat Eating Glory Days

No tricks or gimmicks or diet fads. We changed our diet to vegan and continued at our same activity and exercise levels like we always have.

We’re not so bent on chin down anymore.