My plea for help to a local radio station

Thanks for doing this. Yesterday as I listened I began to reflect and cry as I pondered past choices, and memories. My Life Changing Decision occurred in 2006 when I left my stable job to embark on a journey to pursue my passion and ultimately cost me my marriage.

To understand this a little better let me give you some background. I weighed almost 600 pounds and was hospitalized due to an injury I received while trying to lose weight. It was during that stay that one of the doctors asked me what I did and after hearing my response and lack of purpose suggested if I didn't make some real changes to both health and career I'd be dead in 5-10 years because of my weight. I was married for almost eleven years during which I added three incredible children and ballooned almost 300 pounds.

Eventually I topped out at 667 #! I tried out for The Biggest Loser 4 times and finally one of the local producers told me candidly I was too fat for the show. I have a passion to help motivate families make healthier choices and change the increasing trend of childhood obesity, the only problem is I can't motivate myself to get to my "after"

As I listened I realized I lost all my support with the divorce, and have finally gotten past the excuses. I'm asking, no i'm pleading for your help, I want to help others but can't seem to help myself.

Why the self sabotage .... argh! Any good therapist out there?!

It's been a bit rough lately, I am going to try a new old method of weight loss.  That being a nutritional shake fast/meal replacement.  I am officially going on a family cruise Nov 27th for a week, it's a blessing and a curse, the blessing obviously being a week long cruise, the curse being it will be my first post divorce "family function" and the last one prior to that was with my wife kids and her family. The quotes are due to the fact it is going to consist of, my father, brother and his wife, sister and her husband, and nephew along with wife and my two other single nephews (both in early twenties). As far as the cruise goes i'm sure it will be splendid, Royal Caribbean 7 day Western Caribbean, you can't go wrong with that. However being a self professed "man of size" I must confess there are some logistical issues. Now for any non obese individual you may want to check out to the next paragraph for everyone else i'll share the details. On a cruise the bathrooms are EXTREMELY tight, I mean shower right next to the commode, which is one of those wall mounted jobs (weight limit 350 lbs) which I literally do a semi squat so not to rest my full weight on the commode/break it. On my last cruise (which was in 2007 or 2008) I weighed in at a tiny 465 lbs (please note sarcasm) and was on an weight loss mission, we're talking I used the gym on the Disney Magic and even worked out with a trainer!

For me to get to that weight it would require right at a 100 lbs weight loss in 12 weeks. That's manageable/realistic right (again with the sarcasm), now I must confess when I did the program before (circa 1994 and 2009) I did lose right at 100 lbs in 12 weeks, however I was 24 and 39 not 41! This time is different, I never had issues of non eating/binge eating like I've been suffering from recently. The frustrating part is I know the nutritional steps I need to be doing eating wise and still don't do it. I've even taken graduate level courses in biochemistry, organic chemistry and nutrition and know the scientific undertones.However that doesn't seem to trump the lacking mental aspect i'm now dealing with. For the first time I really am starting to feel the desire to retreat and not leave the house.  I went to get the newspaper and a guy rides by on a Harley and yells "lose weight" I felt like yelling hey a$# hole I've lost over 100 lbs from my heaviest weight! I know I just have to "do it" but am frustrated and want to know what's changed, i've tried starting this a couple of times and can't make it though a day, i'll blend a shake, drink it then at midnight or later go to Taco Bell or WhataBurger, and drop $20 on a meal.  This after me doing the same plan twice in my life, both times over months each duration and losing over 100 lbs each time, that's another story :)

Well i'm going to get started officially on Tuesday with my weigh in, and tomorrow/later today i'm going to go for drinking 8 glasses of water and skipping the $20 meal tap at insert fast food restaurant of choice. I'm also going to shoot to start updating blog at least three times a week, we'll see on that one :) Hope you have a safe and great Labor day!

Some hard truths I'm finally ready to accept.

I'm working on a really exciting new project that will be huge when it comes to fruition, however it's going to require me to lose weight, a lot of it for it to happen, since it's in the fitness industry. I want to become a personal trainer, however this project is much bigger than that. It's really scary thinking about it, but I realized this weekend it's going to come down to me, nobody else can do it. I know that sounds so obvious but ultimately that is the case for all of those trying to be healthy or lose weight. Regardless of how much support you have it boils down to me or you, we make the choices on what we eat or whether or not to exercise. It's an excuse and crutch i've used for over ten years when I was married, my wife didn't support my efforts and ultimately helped me add 300 + pounds.  That was my excuse, it's easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility, well today i'm going on record, I was lazy and chose the couch over the gym. I needed a cheerleader, and unfortunately that wasn't my wife, now after a year being divorced i'm gonna fess up.

I went to Dallas this past weekend to try out for Biggest Loser,  maybe the fourth time would be the charm... well nope it wasn't.  The last time I tried out was with my wife about 2-3 years ago.  I have told myself I needed to have someone to push me and hold me accountable, this is true, but they're not gonna do it.  It sucks, but I can either "Just do it" or die prematurely, it's that simple. Don't want to be a downer but it finally clicked, even with friends, nobody can do it for me. So i'm going to do it this week, i'm going to write down some goals and get back too the basics, I know what I need to do, now I've just gotta do it. Hope you have a great week, drop me a line if you need any encouragement i'd love to help.

"You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. "

What iconic movie is that from? It's from one of my favorite movies A Knight's Tale, and as I was pondering its meaning I thought it pretty well sums up most past of my weight loss attempts. Even recently if I were to take a critical look at my recent efforts it would still be quite fitting.  I'm done making excuses, at this point I could dwell on the things that have not wound up quite as I'd liked them to have; or focus on what I can do to change things for the better, just like you can.

I was going through my list of bloggers I follow and as expected there were probably over half of them that were no longer active or updated, just as my site had not been updated for so long. The pessimist in me  can only assume the people probably got tired/failed and moved on. However I'm going to choose to highlight those who are either continuing the battle to regain their health or to maintain their successful weight loss. Bloggers like Stephen Vinson whose blog WhoAteMyBlog.com details his incredible journey from 632 to his current weight of 362 pounds, a weight loss of 270 pounds in 29 months. Or Dustin AKA LosetoGain on Youtube who has lost over 236 pounds in two years. He has been vlogging for over three years and I still remember crying when listening to his reasons he is doing it, and thinking of my reasons I needed to.

It is such a daunting task when I think of how much weight I have to lose, at my heaviest I weighed 667 pounds.  It embarrasses me that I could let myself get to that point, but in my almost 11 years of married life put on over 300 pounds, which when you think about it is only a little over 30 pounds a year, but when you are apathetic about food choices or excerise it's easy to see how it happens. The good news is i'm currently around 560 pounds so that's still down over 100 pounds from my heaviest!

Anyway I just wanted to drop a quick line and let you know today I am going to focus on one thing, that's it, and build. Today I am going to get in my water, at least 8 glasses, and go from there. I saw a TV commercial recently that is so fitting, it said, "It doesn't matter how you do it, just do it" easier said than done. With one step forward that's a step in the right direction, and it continues today. Keep up the good fight guys! 

A couple for personal victories.

Well as promised I went and weighed in last Friday, and am proud to say that despite me avoiding the scales for the past six weeks managed to lose 6 pounds, which is quite remarkable since food logging ( or any conscience healthy food choices for that matter) was the the furthest from my mind! The biggest difference i've noticed since embarking on this journey again, is that I will go basically all day without eating, then go on a drive thru binge at (enter fast food restaurant name here) That is going to be one of the first things I change, because i've got to stop putting garbage in and expecting good results. Which brings me to a victory of sorts, that is overcoming my fear of what others think of me.

This past year has been rough going through the divorce but this was the first time for me to have the kids for an extended period, 11 days straight. I know my ex was concerned but I wanted to do my best to enjoy my time with them.  One of the things they really wanted to do was to go swimming. When I was married I was a member at Lifetime Fitness, and had always taken the kids there with me to swim, and they loved it, but right now I wasn;t a member and was going to have to find a new pool.  That wasn't the biggest thing, it was me and my self conscientiousness of 1. not only my size, but 2, embarrassing my kids because of hearing the remarks of those less considerate kids made toward their dad we've all had to endure. Well I had put it off for 8 days and finally decided I was going to suck it up and face the remarks. I loaded up the kids, sunscreened them up and made it too the water park. The kids loved it, were there remarks, yes, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of my kids enjoyment.  Did they hurt, sure, but I knew that was one more reason for me to do it this time.  I had faced a personal dragon and slayed it, at least for that day, showing that despite personal negative self talk and reservations I could do it!

I'm going to make it a goal to post at least two updates a week on here, regardless of whether or not they are good, that should help me stay focused on sticking to my goal of getting healthier and losing the weight. Feel free to drop me a line, i'd love to hear from you.

Tap Tap is this thing on ?!

Okay well it's been a while since i've been around, and I could make a thousand excuses, but since we've heard them all i'll skip that for now.

 

I'm going to weigh in today, for the first time in a month, i've been a member at Weight Watchers but haven't had any desire to see how i'm doing. I know i've been in a bit of a funk lately and probably just need to go get some happy pills from the dr. but I haven't been able to muster the motivation. I've been looking for resources on improving my feelings of self worth, and how to overcome the negative self talk, so any resources you might have seen would be appreciated!

 

It is so frustrating to know what I need to/should be doing but be overcome with apathy, and lack of desire, that has to change for my sake and my kids.  My ex gave up on me and after almost two years since the separation i've finally accepted it is what it was and moved on. I know I have a ton to offer to my companion, now it's just a matter of working on improving myself and letting that next chapter come when it's time, which is so much easier said than done!

 

Well enough for now i'll be back later with weigh in update. remember a quote from Harriet Tubman

 

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

The Fitblogger 30 day Challenge, I'm In are you up for it?

I'm really glad I came across this challenge (link here), and it couldn't have come at a better time for me.  I've never been a big believer in New Year's resolutions, not to say I don't believe in goals; quite the opposite I'm a huge believer in goals, just not the short fading "resolutions"so many people make at the beginning of the year.

One of the cool reminders I found while surfing around the Fitblogger site were setting SMART goals, that is goals that are Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented,Realistic, and lastly Timely. I had heard this acronym in a kinesiology class I had taken, but it was a great reminder. One of the goals of the challenge is to set goals and blog at least once a week preferably on Monday about how we did. So here are my goals:

There are to rewards I'm working towards, the first is the Fitbloggin Conference May 17-20th in Baltimore (link to conference info) It is as the title suggests a conference for health minded bloggers, from novice to professionals in the health care field.  I want to take this blog to a new level and this would really help.

My next motivator is a family cruise Nov 25th-Dec 3rd.  The biggest motivator here is the fact I want to participate in many of the excursions, and at my current weight it isn't feasible, for that matter the bathrooms in the stateroom are about 5 x 5 and are definitely not "fat friendly", and personally the last time I went on a cruise was back in 2009 and at the time I weighed less than now, and was barely comfortable, but I don't want to miss out on going to the shows or dining at a particular resteraunt because they only have chairs with arms, or booths! Plus many of the activities have a 350 pound weight limit, and I'm nowhere close to sniffing that today, and even if I don't reach it I want to be much closer than i am today.  So how am i going to get there?

First off setting some goals so here they are:

1. Drink 96 ounces of ice cold water or flavored low calorie drinks i.e Crystal Light,Gatorade G2 etc.
2. Attend my weekly weigh in
3. Log at least four days worth of food / excersize
4. Eat less than prescribed amount of food/calories daily
5. walk at least three days
6. Start a resistance.weight program
7. Do at least three blog updates a week.
8. Drink less than 2 regular sodas per week.
9. Document my measurements once per month
10. Work on learning to cook, and discover how to cook healthy for my kids and limit/eliminate chicken nugget "meals" 

I also have weekly weight loss goals, but the fitbloggin challenge suggests non weight related goals so i'll keep it to myself for now :) Hope you enjoy and look forward to the journey!