Backstory Part I

"What the f**k! That scale has to be wrong"

That's exactly what I thought back in December of 2007...it was 2 days before Christmas and I just by chance jumped on the scale to see where I was at. The scale read 315#. Yes folks, that's right I had sped past the 300 pound threshold.

Needless to say, this prompted about 5 minutes of quiet reflection to figure out where I was going to go from here.

Now, to put this in perspective, I'm 6'5" tall. I'm built large, kind of a wide body. I’ve always carried my weight pretty well. In fact, when I tell people that know me well what I weighed, they can't believe it. This in fact was part of the problem...I carried the weight and pulled it off ok.

But the truth of the matter was, that here I sat, over 300 pounds, carrying the bulk of it in the torso, starting down a path toward Type II Diabetes, Heart Disease, and a whole host of ailments that can be avoided with proper care and attention.

The way I saw it I had two choices...

Option 1: Continue doing what I was doing. Keep going along as though I had never stepped on that scale. Keep tucking in the shirt and tugging at it just so in order to hide or "minimize" the ever expanding waist line and belt overhang. Keep on chalking up the fact that I couldn't shop at a regular department store b/c I'm just built bigger than everyone else and I have "extra thick legs". Continue coming up with excuses for why I didn't want to go Hiking/Biking/Snowboarding anymore...sounded exhausting. Keep feeling bad about being too tired to do things with my 3 year old.

Option 2: Fix it asshole…

Needless to say I went with option 2. Which I knew would require a great deal of change on my part. I knew that it was going to physically suck (at least for a while) and I knew that whatever I had been doing so far to "manage my weight" hadn't been working. Then I heard down the hallway my wife and 3 year old daughter talking (they were actually arguing, which is hysterical to listen to) and I realized that really there was only one option for me.

Gut Check Time.

So, where do you start? I was already standing there in front of a full length mirror in my bedroom in gym shorts and a t-shirt...well...take the shirt off and spend a few minutes accepting reality.

They say that if you're faced with a challenge in business you need to stop and take a couple of minutes to face the cold hard reality of your situation...accept it, and devise the plan of attack. Accepting the areas in which you are weak provides clarity, and a realistic view of your issues. I decided to try it for myself.

Off with the shirt...If you haven't done this in a while, it's not an easy exercise. There I stood, facing the mirror taking it all in. First from the front, then the side. No words, no adjusting, no sucking in the gut...I just looked.

Now, it would be easy to say "this is hopeless" or "fuck it, want to order Chinese?", but for some reason, I made a different choice. I decided to make this my "Rock Bottom".

Not many people get this choice, often their rock bottom comes in the form of a doctors office or emergency room visit. Some people even find themselves face down in a urinal after a night of partying (yes, this means you have a problem...and no...I did not suffer this fate, just painting the visual).

Choosing your Rock Bottom moment only happens once...you only get one shot at it...otherwise you're setting yourself up for enormous disappointment. You better be ready to act....now.

I hate the term "stars aligning" because it implies that you had little to do to put yourself in a situation for success. In my case though, I did have a couple of things going for me. My wife had just lost over 50 pounds by managing her diet and doing some more moderate exercise. With her looking and feeling better than she had in years, it wasn't a huge effort to start changing the diet and exercise habits.

No great comeback story has ever started without the phrase “oh man…I think we’re f**ked”.

So 2 days before Christmas I joined Weight Watchers. I had the picture in my head of some bean counter at the WW offices seeing my registration date and thinking..."yeah right" here's one that will drag down our statistics.

But I did join, and I did take it pretty seriously. Watched what I ate, KEPT A FOOD JOURNAL and went to the gym sporadically at best. Over the course of the next 4 months I proceeded to lose about 30 pounds and notice that my clothes were starting to fit a little bit differently.

Then I hit "the plateau". What I have since learned is that the "Plateau" is simply code for...what you're doing is no longer working, time to change things up a bit. No, not me, I decided to keep doing what I was doing and hoping for different results (this is the definition of insanity by the way).

If you're interested in reading about what happened next...part 2 of the back-story is coming shortly...hang in there, the story gets good. Once we get there I'll start making MUCH shorter and more frequent posts.

SRR