If you would have asked me whether I was happy or not at 534 pounds I would have said proudly "I am happy with everything that I have" it would have been a lie but the funny thing is that at the time I wouldn't have known it. Last year we went to a local apple orchard for a festival type thing and a picture was taken of me and my daughter walking up the road, when I saw that picture I thought about how different I looked from what my minds eye showed me, I was happy with how I looked in that image. Fast forward a year and back to the orchard we went and I stood on the side of the road in the same spot and had a photo taken of me to compare, the second year again I was happy with what I saw but when compared to last years photo I thought "wow I was big in that other picture" and yet can totally remember thinking about how small I looked in it just last year. I see myself today at this weight and honestly feel great about what I see regardless of the fact that I am still a big guy, I wonder if this time next year I will look back at photos and feel that I look big in them once again.
Things change so quickly now that a successful plan has been executed for so long, I have been at this for more than 2 years now and daily life is completely different from back then to the point that thinking back to how it was feels like someone Else's life. Almost as if I was in another persons body back then and I am now returning to the real world, it is that different when a fella weighs more than 500 pounds. Chatting with a friend of mine this weekend we were talking about the weight I have dropped in the past 2 years and how I have lost what he weighs, I joked with him saying imagine how it would feel to carry a whole him around on his back and that's what I was living day to day. I told him to imagine that and here I was the guy that was living it and honestly it was hard for me to imagine carrying that around today, I don't know how I was functioning honestly and the simple answer is that I was barely able to.
This year will most likely be the one where I hit and surpass my weight loss/fitness goals and I am looking forward to the day when I can look in the mirror and see the guy that dropped more than 50% of his body weight. I will have to lose a total of 267 pounds to get to that 50% lost mark and the more that I think about it the more I think that I will go beyond that point because as I lose more and more weight I am gaining double that in strength and endurance and truthfully I could probably get below 267 pounds easily and still be considered over weight according to one of those silly charts. My father stands slightly taller than six feet tall and weighs anywhere between 270 and 285 pounds and one of my goals for this year is to weigh less than he does because at those weights he does not look like what I would consider fat, could he stand to drop a few? sure but not fat.
I have never been at that stage where someone could look at me and say "That guy needs to drop a few pounds" and literally mean a few, somewhere along the way I am sure I went straight past that point and the statement "That KID could stand to lose a few pounds" but I was probably 12 or so when that happened. I have never in my adult life been not a fat guy, I mean I have been at different stages of big, from slightly big to huge and everything in between but I was a 300 plus pound freshmen in high school and it only went up from there. I am already lighter than then and its only getting lower and lower from here on out, yes I just said that I weigh the same now as when I was 12 years old.
Looking back at the past 2 years forces me to realize all of the work that has been put into this whole new lifestyle that I have taken on and the changes that come with it. I hear people debating over the semantics of calling it a "diet" verses a "lifestyle change" verses whatever else you want to call it but I will say this, calling it a lifestyle change is most accurate to me not because of anything other than lives do change because of taking on better eating and more movement when you start out well over obese, and for that reason I call it a lifestyle change. Fast food, video games and missing out on the simple things in life like walking through a garden or missing a ball game or concert have been replaced with healthy whole foods, running around the yard with the kids, working out, riding my bike and never missing out on anything and that is in fact a change in lifestyles at its very core.
Things change so quickly now that a successful plan has been executed for so long, I have been at this for more than 2 years now and daily life is completely different from back then to the point that thinking back to how it was feels like someone Else's life. Almost as if I was in another persons body back then and I am now returning to the real world, it is that different when a fella weighs more than 500 pounds. Chatting with a friend of mine this weekend we were talking about the weight I have dropped in the past 2 years and how I have lost what he weighs, I joked with him saying imagine how it would feel to carry a whole him around on his back and that's what I was living day to day. I told him to imagine that and here I was the guy that was living it and honestly it was hard for me to imagine carrying that around today, I don't know how I was functioning honestly and the simple answer is that I was barely able to.
This year will most likely be the one where I hit and surpass my weight loss/fitness goals and I am looking forward to the day when I can look in the mirror and see the guy that dropped more than 50% of his body weight. I will have to lose a total of 267 pounds to get to that 50% lost mark and the more that I think about it the more I think that I will go beyond that point because as I lose more and more weight I am gaining double that in strength and endurance and truthfully I could probably get below 267 pounds easily and still be considered over weight according to one of those silly charts. My father stands slightly taller than six feet tall and weighs anywhere between 270 and 285 pounds and one of my goals for this year is to weigh less than he does because at those weights he does not look like what I would consider fat, could he stand to drop a few? sure but not fat.
I have never been at that stage where someone could look at me and say "That guy needs to drop a few pounds" and literally mean a few, somewhere along the way I am sure I went straight past that point and the statement "That KID could stand to lose a few pounds" but I was probably 12 or so when that happened. I have never in my adult life been not a fat guy, I mean I have been at different stages of big, from slightly big to huge and everything in between but I was a 300 plus pound freshmen in high school and it only went up from there. I am already lighter than then and its only getting lower and lower from here on out, yes I just said that I weigh the same now as when I was 12 years old.
Looking back at the past 2 years forces me to realize all of the work that has been put into this whole new lifestyle that I have taken on and the changes that come with it. I hear people debating over the semantics of calling it a "diet" verses a "lifestyle change" verses whatever else you want to call it but I will say this, calling it a lifestyle change is most accurate to me not because of anything other than lives do change because of taking on better eating and more movement when you start out well over obese, and for that reason I call it a lifestyle change. Fast food, video games and missing out on the simple things in life like walking through a garden or missing a ball game or concert have been replaced with healthy whole foods, running around the yard with the kids, working out, riding my bike and never missing out on anything and that is in fact a change in lifestyles at its very core.
Which life will you choose?
As Ever
Me
What I think is that you didn't choose "a" life, you chose life, period.
ReplyDeleteI think you've chosen life.
ReplyDeleteThat's a powerful image, you remembering yourself at the same festival. What a great milestone moment!
ReplyDelete