Good for you on the lifestyle change, hog. I think America is trained to throw meds at whatever ails them and not do the lifestyle changes to reduce or try to mitigate the problem in the first place. It's bad for people but good for business.
I gave up alcohol 6 months ago, lost 20 Lbs but lately have been eating a lot of sugar (Ice cream, cookies, honeycomb candy, Whoppers, etc) and gained 5 lbs recently. I figured with out the alcohol and since I ride a bike about 10 hours a week I'd be fine. I'm now looking into anti-inflammatory foods for cycling recovery and going t out out all the treats I've been letting myself indulge in.
Just cutting the alcohol/beer eliminated probably 10,000 calories a week.
