I started this blog as a way to share my experience of losing weight, keeping it off and how it changed my life forever.
My hope is that through this, you might take away some small bit of information that will inspire you and keep you motivated to achieve your weight loss and fitness goals.
It’s not easy. Accepting that fact and beginning to deal with a weight problem head on is a challenge, one in which I’m confident anyone can achieve.
My name is John. In 2003 at the age of 35, my life changed forever. I fought the battle of being overweight many times in my life and more or less had just accepted who I was. I was busy running my own business, eating garbage, and burning myself out.
I didn’t truly see the effects of what I had physically become until I saw a picture of myself at a trade-show conference I had just attended.
One look at that picture, and I decided to change my life forever. I was weighing in at nearly 280 pounds. Even at 6′4″, that’s still what I consider drastically overweight. In 2003, I took off 100 pounds (98 to be exact) within a period of 6 months. Five years later I still continue to maintain a weight of 180-185 pounds.
In the beginning I tried everything. Drastically cutting back on food, giving up caffeine (that pretty much killed my productivity for three months straight), taking the latest in diet pills, and some exercise. I realized that most of this wasn’t working, was having some really bad side effects, and clearly wasn’t going to help me lose the weight.
What did it for me was, in the beginning, keeping track of everything I ate with some very simple printed out forms I made. I wanted to figure out what it took to eat a ‘normal’ diet of say 2500-3000 calories a day. As I continued with this, I kept track of my waistline, water intake, how much soda I drank, veggies, etc. I needed to get a picture of what I was doing and what I could improve on to at least eat a little healthier.
My biggest motivator was tracking my waistline, a rather rotund 40″ at one point, now hovering around a slim 31″ (or about a women’s size 10 levi’s) (yes, I’ve confirmed that.)
I started exercising and trying sports. Note: I never participated in sports or considered myself a ’sports person’ my entire life.
At first, I was lucky to jog/walk around our one mile block without asking where the oxygen mask was!
But, I kept going, and little by little, I worked my way up to running a 5k run, then a 5 mile run…
As long as I kept up the effort, the pounds kept dropping, my waistline got smaller. I kept buying a new pair of jeans every time I could fit into the next smallest size. This was really exciting!
Then, two of my employees, who had told me of their participation in an IronMan event a year earlier had told me that they just signed up for the next year’s event and they couldn’t believe that registration was nearly sold out within a day. Something in my brain thought it was a good idea to sign up.
(FYI: The IronMan is the ultimate triathlon event, where you swim 2.4 miles, then cycle for 112 miles, then top it off with a full 26.2 mile marathon)
So, having lost a lot of weight, I made the committment and signed up for the Wisconsin 2004 IronMan. I had never done a triathlon before, never run a marathon, hated swimming, and only owned an old-fashioned paper-route style bicycle (which I still love by the way).
So, I took the plunge.
I bought a racing bicycle, took swimming lessons (I knew how to swim, but didn’t really know how to swim freestyle properly), started reading more about other people’s IronMan experiences and began coming up with some goals as to what I would need to figure out over the next 12 months to make this happen.
I was so inspired by reading the accounts of many seasoned and average athletes that had completed this event before. I needed something to keep me motivated to stay fit with exercise and this turned out to be the ultimate challenge.
Everyday I had something in my schedule that I tried to achieve, whether that was adding a few more laps in the pool at the health club, riding my bike a few more miles or running just a bit longer, it was all good. Some times there was a little stress in thinking that perhaps I bit off a little more than I could chew, but I’m always up for a good challenge, and just kept fighting to increase my overall fitness and capabilities to prepare myself for the Ironman.
I signed up for a marathon and my first short triathlon to get an idea of what running that kind of distance was all about and see what a triathlon really involved.
Every step I took along the way was incredibly exciting. Finishing my first marathon was such a sense of accomplishment. Back when I could only make it one mile I thought, how on earth can anyone run a marathon?
Moving forward…
On September 12, 2004, in Madison, Wisconsin, I completed the IronMan Wisconsin challenge in 13 hours and 57 minutes and was still full of energy!
Yes, my legs were a little tired, but I finished it and did it with what I would say was relative ease. I went from being an overweight, 12 sodas a day, stressed-out fatty to “IronMan John” in less than 18 months. While I don’t expect that to be everyone’s goal, what it proved to me that what I once thought was impossible was truly possible with some hard work.
Since then, I’ve went on to complete 4 more marathons (6 in total now), and love every minute of being active and what it does for me. It helps clear my mind, it’s great to put on just about type of clothes and not try to cover myself up with ‘fat clothes’ to hide what I don’t want to see. (FYI: I still own a size 12x sweatshirt that I use to wear to ‘hide’ myself in.)
I’m still not a ’sports person’ by any means, and this comes as a shock to many of my friends that know me. They think that I’m totally into running, biking, whatever. Well, no, I’m not. I enjoy the benefits of challenging myself to do things I’ve never done and finding ways to keep myself fit. I find all kinds of interesting things to make running/cycling/swimming/or anything else fun, and I’ll tell you about these things later on.
What I’m trying to say here is that even if you’re not (or you think you’re not) into running, cycling, hiking, swimming, rollerblading, whatever it may be, let yourself go and give something new that you never imagined yourself doing a try.
Running, when you’re just beginning is a real pain in the you-know-what. Keep at it and it will get easier, and you’ll start to see the benefits, it will become easier, and you’ll have found yourself a new way to stay fit and lose some weight. Apply this idea to any sport or fitness related activity.
I absolutely love step aerobics now (yes, I’m a guy that loves step aerobics.) In the beginning, it was entirely embarassing being in a room full of women and having a hard time following all of the moves. Today, it’s one of the hardest and most enjoyable workouts I do because I make it that way. I jump as high as I can and push myself hard during every class to get the most out of it. In the end, the hard work always pays off.
I do eat junk occasionally now, but don’t gain any weight at all because I continue to work at keeping it off.
Over the past five years, those that knew me as the ‘former fatty’ still ask how I keep the weight off and if I have any tips for them. I enjoy telling my story over and over and it also keeps me thinking of things that I can do for myself to stay motivated. With this blog, I hope to share some of my thoughts and hope you’ll find them interesting and perhaps inspiring.
I’d love to find a way to help motivate you to achieve your fitness and/or weight goals.
Nothing makes me happier than to see the success of others, especially when it comes to achieving fitness related goals.
With that said, I’m hoping to do my best to give you some insight from someone who’s fought the battle, lost a lot of weight, kept it off, and also knows it’s a lifelong commitment of ‘keeping up the fight’.
I wish you the best of luck in your fitness and weight loss efforts!
-John
