Just as the title says, this is Derrick. I’ve hijacked my
wife’s blog because I’m too lazy and boring to give my own blog the attention
that it would need to survive. Most of my posts would probably be the same, which
would get tedious causing it to wither up and die. So instead I figured I would
just create one post that would sum up what fifty of any small posts I could
conjure up would contain. So here we go.
Let me
start off by saying that his is not a shaking-finger-at-you post this is simply
my experiences in my own personal weight loss, hopefully I won’t ramble too
much. In my life through childhood up to
early adulthood I’ve been known as the “Bigger” guy. What this means is, the
fat guy, but everyone’s too afraid to say anything so it goes a little like
this, “No man you’re not fat, you’re just solid/husky/big-framed.” Now I know,
this is meant to be a nicer non-hurtful way of saying “You could lose a few,”
but I can tell you, even though it may have seemed appreciated, now looking
back on it I realize it only helped enable my problem. Does this mean you need
to call people fat? No! Don’t be absurd! Calling people fat merely breaks them
down further, and de-motivates. While working at a previous job, I had a new
manager come in, this man didn’t know how overweight I had been previously. I
remember one day while discussing a customer interaction with me he describes a
women as “huge” as in “You know the huge women you were talking to?” I was
taken back and disgusted by this remark; I had been raised to respect people, you
don’t know their life situations or what they’re going through. I can tell you
that anyone who is obese, already knows it, they’ve already beaten themselves
down more than you ever could. You adding bricks to the house that they already
have on them doesn’t help the situation .Even if the person seems to be okay
with their obesity, know that it’s just a cover up for the fear that they have.
The fear that they may never be able to overcome their weight, that they’re
stuck with it forever, and that they
will always be seen as just a blurred face walking through the mall on a news
special titled “Large And Not In Charge: America’s fatty’s!” People need to be motivated; better yet
people need to be shown how to motivate themselves, why they want to change,
why they want to put in the hard work. To put in the hard work you must be self
motivated, or else you’re likely to end up giving up when it gets tough. Let me tell you, it’s a lot of hard work.
Growing
up, I lived in a household where fruit and veggies weren’t a mealtime priority.
My parents fed us, clothed us, put a roof over our head, and spoiled us. They
were great parents! They were just busy with the hundred things that parents of
five kids are, and at some point just found the ease of fast food a perfect
solution for kids whining and groaning for immediate sustenance. Then as we
grew older and became teenagers with our own transportation and social lives
everybody had different eating schedules, so we, as young intelligent
teenagers, would just eat as it became convenient and wherever was the closest
dollar menu. This was done with no thought towards calories, or fat, or sodium content,
which equals to 2 double stack burgers, a chicken sandwich, and a value fry,
for the low price of 4 dollars! Awesome deal! Except when you end this hot
streak of saving time, and “saving money” to a 5’7, 26 year old man, with over
40% body fat, and pre-hypertension blood pressure.
So what happened?
Were you always this big for real? Well there was a time in high school, when I
was 16 when I weighed about 165 pounds. How?! Well I got really ill for 2 weeks
during Christmas break where I could barely choke down soup and water, during
this time I also went through a growth spurt. I came back to school, a lean,
mean, angsty teenager, with no respect for the weight I had lost. Why? Because
I didn’t earn it, I didn’t cut back portions, sweat my way to victory, I merely
woke from a 2 week sickly hibernation with a new body. This is how I view diets
(sorry dieters) or magic pills (sorry pill poppers). If you don’t earn it, you can’t respect it,
which means like 16 year old me, from the moment you lose your weight you’re
rolling back down the hill to being overweight again, be it fast or slow. It
took me about 2 years, from sophomore to senior to not only gain back the
weight but to add a few notches. I went from 165 to about 190 in two years! The
truth is, is that unless you make a permanent change to your lifestyle, you
will be doomed to repeat it again, and again. Now I don’t know about you but I
can honestly say that I do not want to do it all over again. Don’t get me
wrong, I love they gym, I love eating a healthier life style, and I love that I
was able to carve 60+ pounds of fat off my rather large-at-the-time body, but
if I had to do it every pre-summer just to have that beach bod? Ugh I shutter
just thinking about it. That’s because there is a lot of work to be invested,
it’s like being a kid and making an incredible sandcastle with a beautiful
glistening moat just to have Boris the bully come and stomp it to nothingness,
then go, “well there’s always next year” bad metaphor? Probably, but you get
the point!
So, how did I get
to where I am now? What was my
motivation? In August of 2012, I went to a wife-forced physical. The reason for
this was because I was feeling tired, sickly, and achy all the time. I am a
paranoid individual, and one of my biggest fears is to die early and not get to
be there for my daughters, or grandkids or so on. To not be able to live,
travel, or grow old with my wife. It was
a time when it seemed that every other young person I knew or heard about had
cancer or some life threatening disease. With all my feeling of illness, and
exhaustion I was worried that if I went in for a physical that I was certain I
would find bad news. So I chose the route of “I’d rather not know” which was
acceptable for me, but completely unacceptable for my wife, and as we all know,
she won and will continue to win those kinds of arguments. So there I was at
the doctor, went through the whole process, my doctor was a younger women with
a sweet demeanor. I could tell that she was uncomfortably trying to state the obvious,
which went a little something like this “You know everything looks pretty good
except your blood pressure… You know when people get near to obesity things can
get complicated... People who are obese can develop sleep apnea… you said you
do some workouts? Well maybe less weights? You should do at least 30 minutes of
cardio at least 3 times per week… (more silence, gathering confidence).. Listen
your blood pressure is pre hyper tension, I want to see you in 6 months if some
changes haven’t been made we’re gonna have to look at putting you on blood
pressure medication.” I nodded and we went our separate ways. I was in shock,
those last few words hit me to the bone for some reason. At this point in my
life I was getting sick of “fat pictures” in which no matter what angle (in
attempt to find a flattering side) would work, there was always a roll peaking
out, I wanted to lose weight and change it but I just didn’t have the extra
little push yet. This was it, I didn’t want to be a 26 year old on blood
pressure medication! I didn’t want to be in that kind of health category,
genetically I was already fighting potential blood pressure issues on both
sides of my family, why was I going to help it out even more by being unhealthy. How would that
be explained to my children? “Sooo your dad didn’t care enough to get healthy
when he had the chance so he had a heart attack instead.” No that’s not how I
was going to live anymore. I was going change and I meant it, I was determined
to get healthy for myself and my family. I decided that I wanted my children to
be raised in a household that valued self respect, good health, and hard
work. It had been put off for way to
long.
In
September of 2012 I began my journey at 217 pounds, and it started out rough. I
started trying veggies, fruits, egg whites, boiled chicken, and raw oat concoctions.
All of it was nasty, well in comparison to fried, processed, and sugary foods.
I cut out soda completely, and attempted to limit fast food runs to twice a
week. I started taking advantage of a
Gold’s Gym pass my father-in-law had gotten us a year previous. At first it was
a half hour a day 3-4 times per week mostly on a recumbent bike. Maybe 200
calories burned each time, and was losing about a pound per week. November came and I discovered and app call “My
Fitness Pal” this was my non-secret weapon. It told me everything about the
food I was eating, all the nutrition facts; I could count calories I ate and
track calories that I had burned. I could even scan barcodes on almost any food
to get the facts about it. I also starting going to the gym 45 minutes a day 5
days a week, burning about 400 calories a day. Now I was losing 2 to 2.5 pounds
a week. I hadn’t notice much of a change in my physical shape but I felt
better, more energized, and healthier. I started decreasing fatty food (fast
foodish foods) to one day per week. People arund me were noticing the weight
change and s was I. When January hit I was in need of new clothes (now about
185 pounds). So while in Vegas spending time with family I spent $300 on new
clothes, this included a new suit, I even made sure the jacket on the suit was
a little on the tight side to allow for more weight loss. (Even though the sales person seemed to think
I was crazy)
Flash forward to
June 2013 at this point I had smashed through my goal weight of 160 and was now
155 lbs. I was spending an hour and a half at the gym, and hour of cardio,
bike/elliptical/ stair climber, and a half hour of weights. I was burning about
800 calories per day at this point. My clothes that I had bought in January
were draped on my body and the nice practically new suit that I had bought a
size smaller now made me look I was a little kid wearing his dad’s suit. So off
the clothes went to a local store that gave us a few bucks for them and off we
went to Vegas for summer vacation where I purchased a new wardrobe, did I feel bad for having to spend money on clothes
when I had just purchased a bunch a few months ago? Yes, and no. Yes because I
had to spend money on it, no because for the first time since I was 16 I felt
confident in myself physically, I wasn’t the fat guy anymore, but more
importantly it was the first time in my entire life that I had felt this good
internally, every health issue I had seemed to evaporate. My bones didn’t ache,
I had severely less anxiety, my horrific stomach acid was gone without the need
of two Zantacs a day. It was incredible, I was rejuvenated, and I was in love
with the gym and what I had accomplished! Food tasted completely different,
fresh veggies, and fruits were so good, and fast food tasted salty, greasy, and
gross. My taste buds had changed
completely, and made for an entirely new food tasting experience, I was excited;
it was like a baby trying foods for the first time.
During this time I
had started a new job and part of my health benefit registration was to get a
physical to see if I qualified for a healthy living discount, they measured my
body fat, blood pressure, and did several blood tests. When I arrived they
checked my heart rate, the nurse looks at it and sees that it’s under 60, she
looks at me a little confused and worried, “Is your heart rate usually this
low?”, to which I replied “I think so, I do a lot of cardio 5 days a week”, she
nods and seemed more comfortable with the reading now. Before she checks my body fat she asks, “Where
would you like it to be?” I told her that at this point my goal would be to
have it at 11%. She checks it and says, “Well you’re at 10.5%!”
When I arrive to
see the doctor he starts to go over all the test, “Everything looks fantastic”
he said nonchalantly. I said “would you believe that 9 months ago, I was 65
pounds heavier with pre-hypertension? “ His
eyes widened a bit, “No way! That’s great! Keep up the good work!” I felt a
sense of victory, I had set out to accomplish a goal and I crushed it, but I
knew that it was important to keep setting goals, so my new goal was to refine
my body, strengthen my endurance and star gaining lean muscle. I went to the
gym later that day, and decide to start the treadmill, I ran at 6 mph, for 3
minutes. I was disgusted. I had come so far, how could this be? How could I only
run at that speed (which felt super fast) for that short of time. It was
depressing, but it allowed me to set a new goal, I was gonna reach a 5k, but
how was I going to do this while trying to gain lean muscle? I adapted, I
studied and found different work outs, started mutating crossfit-type workouts
with classic muscle building resulting in a high impact, high cardio muscle
training workout (Something my Step-pops has lovingly titled the caveman
workout). I did that for 45 minutes, and cardio for 30 minutes. This has worked
for me, and I know it may not work for everyone but I’ve enjoyed it!
Skip forward to
now, I now weigh 158 pounds but have continued to lose fatty inches, by gaining
muscle. It’s an ongoing process and I’m not finished, I still have cuts that I
want to earn and strengthening that I want to gain. I’ve now ran a 5k in 21:30
and am gonna continue to attempt to go faster and go farther. My wife started
her fitness routine in May of 2013, and now has lost almost 40 pounds. My daughter
knows that her parents go to the gym regularly and that it’s just a part of
life, she will eat apples, oranges, bananas, egg whites like nobody’s business but
when given cake she’ll eat a few bite and go “I’m done.”
So to anybody
contemplating losing weight, or for those who don’t want to lose weight but
switch to a healthier lifestyle, I can tell you without a doubt it’s worth it.
Just do it, the longer you make excuses the worse your body and mind are
getting. Just take the first steps; you’ll be glad you fought through it. Going
to the gym/working out is incredible it’s one of the few things where you can
feel accomplished daily. You get recognition from yourself everyday by
destroying goals daily, even if you beat your last workout by one second, rep,
or calorie, you’ve set a new record. It’s like getting a gold star sticker everyday!
Thanks for taking time to read my overly
long ramble!
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