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[Zub]

I may have had it worse then you even. I don't recall exactly, but I had about 240 apnea events per hour. An apnea event being I went at least 20 seconds without taking a breath. At my worst, I felt like a zombie. On my 30 minute commute, i was in micro-sleep about 20 minutes. Several times the rumble strips on the side of the road woke me up. The only way to make sure I stayed awake was to elevate my blood sugar by eating crappy jumk food - so my weight skyrocketed

At work once, I had to verify the size of a record in a file, so I tried to count the characters in it, to make sure it matched the spec. I could not count past 20 without falling asleep again. Finally, while visiting my Mom, she saw me fall asleep and the couch and watched me stop breathing, then wake up for just seconds, long enough to take my next breath. Lucky for me, she recognized the symptons of Sleep Apnea.
About a month later, I had my second sleep test, this one with the Bi-pap machine. I can still remember the next morning - I lierally felt like I was walking on air. My movements felt so light.

My weight problem leveled off at that point, but last year it started going up again. Last fall, my weight ballooned to 330 pounds. I decided it was time to do something about it. I didn't really follow any particular diet, but I did do the following:

1) started using my treadmill. We had purchased one several years earlier, but it was never used. What I did was I moved my Tivo upstairs, in front of the treadmill. I made sure that all my faovorite shows were recorded on that Tivo only. The only way to watch Buffy or Angel, or whatever was to start walking. After 8 months, I can now keep a 3 mph pace for an hour and a half, and I can run almost 3/8 mile at 5 mph. This is a *big* improvement for me.
2) I stopped eating second helpings. I had to teach myself all over again how to feel satiated. I knew that even if I felt hungry at the time, that I would feel better later. It took about 2 weeks for that to happen.
3) Cut back on carbohydrates. I don't follow Atkins, but I recognize that a lot of what his diet says makes sense. I cut out all pasta dinners, saly snacks, potatoes, etc. D&D night was my one weekness, though, I always ate like crap on those nights.
4) Cut out sweetened and artificially sweetened drinks. 90% of what I drank was water. At D&D, because of me, my group has gone from drinking tons of sugar soft drinks to nearly all water.
5) Cut out most red meat from my diet. Ate a lot more chicken breast and fish. Still no more then one serving per meal though.
6) Started weight Training. I started by doing pushups - standing against a wall, squats, dips, and situps. nothing fancy, but I started out easy, and worked my way up.

According to my measurements, I've lost 60 pounds and gained 10 pounds of muscle. My goal is to get down to 15% body fat. I figure it will take a couple of years, but so far so good. For further reading, check out Covert Bailey's Fit or Fat books. They are pretty good.

Good luck to you, and also want to re-iterate someone else's point. Clean that machine regularly, or your going to find you get sick more frequently.
Zub