I am, however, someone who has been there. I’ve felt the stares and heard the whispers and the jeers. I know all too well the desperation and depression that comes from being significantly overweight. I know firsthand the excitement you get when you find that diet or magical pill that you know is going to work- and the sadness that follows when it doesn’t. I am someone that cares, someone that has genuinely been there and wants to help.

 

There are a million things that I want to tell you, but a lot of it you are going to have to figure out on your own. I don’t have “the answer,” but that’s why I made this website – so that you can connect with others who are struggling with their weight as well. You can make friends, share ideas, find support, research and information. You can find inspiration. You are going to have to do some research, ask some questions and find some answers to figure out what works for you. Use the information you find on this website as a guide, your guide to Overall Health.

About Me

 

I lost over 300 pounds in 2 years without surgery. I have managed to maintain my weight loss for the last 8 years. 

 

For the most part, I was overweight all of my life; I think there might be a picture or two where I don’t appear to be “that” fat. (Like from when I was 4). But as far as I’m concerned, I was fat all of my life . . . When I graduated High School in 1997 I weighed about 375 pounds. Yes, seriously. I was tall though, maybe about 6’4’’ so I had that going for me. I knew I was heavier than, well, most everybody else, and for me I kept looking for that one diet or pill that would solve all of my problems. You know the one that we’re all looking for- the one that lets you eat whatever you want and still lose weight. Many of the diets I tried actually worked, but I would soon find myself falling back into old habits and gaining more weight than I had lost from overeating to compensate for all the food I had missed out on.

 

I was always aware of my weight, even in grade school. In fact, my classmates made it a point to make sure I was aware of how big I was. Taunting and teasing was something I had to put up with all through school, as I’m sure many of you have experienced.   

 

But you don’t want to hear about my childhood so we’ll start a little later in life. I graduated high school and moved to Houston, Texas. Houston allowed me to try out quite a few interesting jobs, and was still close to the town I finished high school in so I had a few friends close by. Things didn’t come too easy for me back then, so from about 1997 - 1999 the only thing I could afford were those “99 cent value items” at places like Wendy’s and McDonalds. I am sure I could have bought real food and prepared it, but I was already fat and lazy so for a couple years I lived off fast food. Needless to say, I gained a lot of weight after high school- and if you are paying attention you know I was pretty fat in high school. Being fat, and then gaining a lot of weight, well, it's just not good.

 

The most I’ve ever weighed was in the mid 500’s and I wore a size 56 pants- that was a couple years after High School. I wish I could be more specific in terms of weight and time frames, but conventional scales back then didn’t go above 300 or 400- and you know my trips to the cattle scales were few and far between. I suppose if you want to get technical- I weighed a couple rotations or an error message depending on if it was an analog or digital scale.

 

I’ve always been a pretty intelligent guy just two years out of high school I managed to leverage my intelligencies into being offered a position at a brokerage firm in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Moving to Fort Worth presented a big decision for me. Growing up, my family would relocate every few months and it wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that I ended up in Texas. My family moved to Indiana my senior year of high school and I stayed behind to finish out my education. I didn’t move with them because I wanted to graduate with my friends. For the first time I felt like I had roots, I had great friends and leaving them would be really hard. I was never one of those bigger people with personalities that everyone likes. Friends have always been hard to come by for me- chalk it up to insecurities or self-esteem issues, but I never had many friends.

 

But things in Houston were not so good so I decided to go ahead and take the position in Fort Worth. I also managed to go see my mom and sister in Indiana during my transition between jobs. I moved to Fort Worth to start my new job. Little did I know that that decision would change my life.

 

When unpacking at my new apartment in Fort Worth I came across this picture:

 

 

I remember looking at the picture above and realizing I was fat as all hell. I mean it’s not like I didn’t know I was hefty, but I really had no idea I was as big as I was. We all have mental pictures of what we look like and mine, well, my perception of what I looked like was far from the reality. The moment I looked at that picture a plethora of thoughts and emotions flowed through my head. It was one of those indescribable moments- one that I now have to try and describe for you. In that moment I recognized the root cause of many of the problems in my life was my weight. I was incredibly lonely, terribly depressed and it was obvious to anyone looking at that picture that I was on the road to an early death relating to some kind of cholesterol / heart related illness. As a bigger person, I had always avoided mirrors whenever possible. I stood in the back when it was picture time. I always had “something else to do” when any activity involving someone looking at me presented itself. I avoided sports, social interactions- I avoided anything and everything that would have made me insecure about my weight. I managed all of my life to avoid the reality that this picture ultimately presented me with.

 

Maybe you’ve experienced the same thing, maybe you haven’t. But for whatever reason you have decided that you need to change your lifestyle to become healthier. This picture played a huge part in my motivation to change my life.  

 

I started really examining what I was eating during the day and how much exercise I did. I kept a journal of my eating habits and any exercise or activities for a week.  I knew that in order to get to where I was going I had to know where I was- so documenting what I ate and did on a daily basis was the first step in figuring out where I needed to go. I always blamed my weight on family history and any other convenient excuse. It really was not until I saw what I was eating on paper- the tremendous amount of fat and calories I would consume in a day, and how little exercise I was doing that I recognized the true reason for my obesity. How I was going to get there I had not figured out quite yet. ..

 

Once I figured out what I was eating and doing on a daily basis, I had to decide where I was going to go, and how I was going to get there. I did a tremendous amount of research on diets, anatomy, calories, fat grams, etc. Even back in 1999 the internet was an invaluable resource of contradictions and promises that ultimately could not help me make a decision. What my research did do was educate me- which I suppose is the purpose of any type of research. It provided me with the knowledgebase needed to make an informed decision on how exactly I would go about really losing weight. I understood how nutritional content is measured and what it means. I researched every aspect of food from dietary substance to how it’s processed by the body. I read many different explanations common dietary terms like calorie, carbohydrate and fat grams, and how many we burn in a day- and what it takes to lose a pound. I researched the research then researched it some more.

 

What it all boiled down to is this:

 

 

I’m sure you’ve figured it out, but if not… the term gas is a metaphor for food- more specifically fat or calories. I chose to limit fat grams because it just makes sense- fat makes you fat.

 

Using my journal I had a starting point for how many fat grams and calories I consumed on a daily basis. I was able to research what the recommended amounts were, and what amounts would cause the greatest amount of weight loss. Because I did not foresee myself counting calories or fat grams I made it a point to just eat significantly less than what I was presently eating. 

 

Breakfast

2 Bacon Egg and Cheese Biscuits 31g fat 480 cal each
4 Hash Browns 8g 130 cal each

 

Lunch

Country fried Steak Sandwich & Fries 56.5 g fat 1180 cal
Cheese Sticks 22.3 g fat, 452 cal
Chocolate Shake 16.3 g fat, 538 cal

 

Dinner
Large Pizza with Everything 2623 calories 112g fat
One Topping Pizza 2808 cal 121g
8 breadsticks 16 g fat 1120 cal

 

Snacks and other

8 sodas 2000 cal
3 candy bars 210 cal, 13 g fat each

 

So while I won’t bore you telling you what I ate for a week, the above was an average day for me. Apparently, if you add all that up it comes to 12,831 calories and 477.1 grams of fat a day. When you look at what you're eating and how little you are exercising the answer becomes simple.

 

I was grocery shopping one day had my first idea on how I was going to really start losing weight. Walking through the frozen food section, and found several prepackaged meals labeled “healthy” or “low fat.” I picked one up and started reading the nutritional information. This is the first time I could ever remember stopping to read what was actually in something I was thinking about eating. From that moment, I decided that these meals would be the basis of my diet. I think it was the easiest choice for me because of how convenient they are and how easy it is to keep track of what exactly is going into your body.

 

“Healthy” huh? Man, that’s a scary word. I put a lot of thought into this and here’s what I came up with:

 

When we are younger we are subconsciously conditioned that things that are 'healthy' or 'good for you' taste like shit. Think about it, how many times growing up were you asked to eat something that you did not think tasted very good simply on the basis that it was 'healthy' or 'good for you'?

 

Surprisingly, though, these meals did not taste bad at all. Though they were quite smaller than the normal meals I was accustomed to. In fact, most anything you can think of these days comes in a “healthier” or “low fat” version. Modern day advances in technology have allowed our society to replicate the taste of something unhealthy in a newer healthier version. There are a lot of really cool, healthy, good tasting healthy alternatives available that you may be avoiding because you or someone you know has some preconceived notion that it is going to taste bad. Do you know there is even imitation salt now?

 

Check out the Grocery Store section of the Reviews portion of OverallHealth.com to check out some of the best healthy foods on the market today.

 

For the first few weeks I decided that I would eat nothing but the healthy meals four times a day. I also realized that I drank too much soda- which was nothing but calories. I cut soda completely out of my diet. Well, that’s not entirely true. I drink as many diet sodas as I want in a day now- yeah that’s probably not good for you- but I do it anyway. I also drink only skim milk and can also drink that Crystal Light stuff, sugar-free Kool-Aide, and there is also sugar-free Tang now (it’s what the astronauts drink). I substituted a lot of eating for a lot of drinking. Yes, I drank a lot of water, too.

 

I also needed to exercise. I’m a pretty self conscious person (even more so back then) and there was no way you were going to get me in a gym. I didn’t even want to walk outside. I had one love in my life at that time- TV. So I decided I would buy a treadmill and make myself be on it anytime I wanted to watch TV. I would just walk- maybe 1 to 2 mph. The treadmill is interesting because if you’re not paying attention to the little time or calorie ticker time goes by pretty fast. When you’re bigger and don’t exercise, the smallest increase in this can produce pretty dramatic results. The first month I ate nothing but healthy prepackaged meals, walked all the time, and I lost roughly 50 pounds. Of course, you don’t need a treadmill; you can get a cinder block and do steps in your living room while watching TV- losing weight doesn’t have to cost you anything.

 

There are a lot of prepackaged diet meals, and many other products that aren't labeled diet but are still healthy. After the first couple months, I started eating some normal food. I began cooking my own healthy versions of my favorite things. I did a lot of research on healthy eating. I knew the healthy items available at local fast food places and restaurants.  I was quite surprised on how much my stomach had shrunk, and also how I was choosing healthy things on the menu- almost like it was instinct.

 

So I lost the first 50 pounds innocently enough. I had legitimately taught myself the proper choices to make when it comes to food, and incorporated exercise into my daily routine.

 

Even though I could not weigh myself I saw that I was losing weight at a tremendous speed and I had never been happier. People work began to ask me what I was doing to lose so much weight so fast- and I thoroughly enjoyed making stuff up each time they asked. I started to notice new muscles in my arms and changes to my body. These things coupled with my knowledge of food and how my body processes it motivated me to make unhealthy decisions in order to increase my speed of weight loss. I started experimenting with diet supplements, and this time coupling them with exercise and proper diet actually worked. 

 

It took about 6 months to lose another 50 - 100 pounds.  My weight loss was way too fast and believe me if I could do it all over again it would be much slower. In fact, I made this one of my 10 Keys to Weight Loss.

 

“Slow and steady wins the race – I learned this one the hard way. In today’s world we all want it yesterday. It’s never fast enough. Never mind that it took you 20 years of steady gaining weight- you have decided you are going to lose all that next month. Yeah, uh, not so much. While I will say that the heavier I was the faster the weight came off, at first I did it all wrong (way wrong) and I lost A LOT of weight WAY TOO fast. So fast, in fact that I had to have excess skin removed. I would not have had this excess skin if I would have taken my time and slowly lost weight, allowing my body time to adjust. Now let me just tell you that there is nothing more disappointing to have lost a tremendous amount of weight only to have some disgusting skin all floppin’ around everywhere. Seriously, I looked better fat. Then you have to save up for the surgery, and then have the surgery. Ok, moral of the story is lose weight slowly.”

 

Within the first year or so I was able to buy a scale that could actually weigh me and as I recall I was not happy with the results. The scale was a new tool to further fuel my desire to lose weight. I began weighing myself every day. I would exercise all of the time and severely limited my dietary intake. If I ate beyond what I had planned, I would exercise to the extreme. I was able to calculate what I would need eat and exercise to lose a set amount of weight in a day. I became completely obsessed with food and my weight. Though I would see the changes to my body every day in the mirror, my brain still showed me the large me. No amount of weight that I would lose seemed to change my perception of what I looked like. I realized that I needed help, but refused to get it. I continued to diet and exercise.

 

In 2 years I had lost over 300 pounds. It was Christmas and I decided to fly up and see my mom and sister in Indiana for Christmas. During the past 2 years, I had not told them that I was trying to lose weight- mostly because I did not wasn’t them to have to hear me complain about another failed diet. I took my moving to Fort Worth as a chance to reinvent myself. I actually can’t remember seeing any of my Houston friends during the 2 years I lived there. Right after getting off the plain I immediately saw my mom and sister and started walking towards them. I realized that they had looked at me several times, but continued to look at the passengers getting off the plane. They didn’t recognize me! I walked right past my mom and she just let me. So I turned back around and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around all startled and looked at me with this “can I help you sir?” look on her face. Suddenly she realized it was me and the tears started streaming down her face. I’ll never forget that moment.

 

Shortly after my trip to see them the dot-com bubble burst and I found myself without a job, and decided to move in with my mom in Indiana. This was a pretty big upset for me, not because I didn’t like it there, but because I felt like I had accomplished so much in terms of my career and achieving my weight loss goals- and it seemed like I was back at square one. I went into a deep depression and rather than doing anything about it I simply continued to lose weight. It had become the one thing I was good at and the one constant in my life.

 

After about 8 months of living in Indiana I had become too skinny- I was a skeleton with a huge skin blanket draped over it. I weighed somewhere around 160, a weight I had not seen since middle school. I remember putting on a dress shirt one day and looking in the mirror and seeing all of the bones across my chest. I realized that I needed to stop, that I once again needed a change in lifestyle. I should have seen a doctor or psychiatrist, but I decided to solve the problem myself- A problem that could have been avoided had I seen a doctor in the first place. I should have had a doctor to monitor my progress all along, but I did not.

 

Always consult a physician prior to starting a new diet or exercise routine, and continue to see them to monitor your progress.

 

I managed to move back to Houston and resume normal eating habits. I still cooked healthy meals and exercised daily, but began to slowly return to a healthy weight. It was funny that for a while I was actually trying to gain weight.

 

After about a year in Houston my weight stabilized and I was very happy. I moved away once again. My weight has remained within the same range for the last 8 years. 

 

I still eat an occasional prepackaged healthy meal from time to time, but I am much more into cooking my own healthy things these days. I taught myself how to make healthy eating choices, but still enjoy food and life in general. I go out to eat, I drink beer, I have a good time. These days maintaining my weight is second nature. 

 

My diet is more about reducing the amount of fat I intake on a daily basis, and increasing my amount of activity. 

 

I consistently monitor my weight and food intake. If I start feeling my pants fit tighter I will start increasing my exercise routine. If I know I am consistently eating unhealthy meals I will join a diet program to limit my caloric intake until I am back at a comfortable level. My main problem in losing weight was the feeling of hunger. There are many different supplements available to limit the feeling of hunger. I would caution you to always research what you are putting in your body. 

How Does this help me?

 

Well, it tells you a little about what I did and sets the stage for what you can do…. Just remember to apply common sense to everything you read. Always consult a doctor - there is a reason they tell you to always consult a physician before starting any type of diet or exercise routine. How do you know if what you are planning to do is safe? How do you know running a mile won’t kill you? Seriously, seeing a doctor could identify an underlying cause to your weight other than a sedentary lifestyle. The most common underlying cause of obesity is depression. Your doctor can help you with or refer you to someone to assist with depression, or whatever your underlying cause (if any) might be. 

What You Can Do

 

Plan your Lifestyle Change

 

First, you have to decide if you need a diet or a lifestyle change. A diet (as I use the term) is a temporary change to your lifestyle (exercise and eating habits) diets are good for losing small amounts of weight that will come back over time. If you want to lose ten pounds because you have a reunion or event coming up, you probably need a diet; hopefully, you find one that works. A lifestyle change (which is what most of the articles I write focus on) is a complete overhaul of what you eat and how you exercise- it can incorporate an underlying “diet” but focuses on the long-term. A lifestyle change is required for those who are significantly overweight. Because it’s not just enough to lose the weight- you have to lose the weight and keep it off. 

 

1.            Examination

 

The first step in making a lifestyle change is to examine how you currently live. You can keep a journal; maybe make a blog – whatever works for you. Record what it is you are eating and everything you are doing in terms of exercise. You have to be honest with yourself in order for this to work. So if you normally drink a regular soft drink but decide to write down a diet drink because you think that is somehow going to help you while you’re recording your current lifestyle, it’s not.

 

This step really worked well for me because I am a visual person. I kept a notebook and for a week I wrote everything I ate and what all I did that could be considered exercise. I usually didn’t carry it with me, I just remembered what I ate and wrote it down at the end of the day. For the exercise I really didn’t do much, walked to the car and walked around work. Nothing too major.

 

2.            Research

 

Taking your journal look at what you ate and what you did during that week. If you really want to have some fun look up the calories, fat, and carbs in each of the things you ate. You can do this on the Internet or on the packaging of most of the items you eat. If you eat out a lot, there are many sites that offer this information for anything you order, including most websites for the restaurants themselves. It just may surprise you how many calories you consume normally.

 

You are also going to want to research the different types of diets. There are all kinds of diets out there. The most of them involve at least one of three components. There’s low calorie, low carb, and low fat. You’re not necessarily going to go on a diet but at the core of your lifestyle change is an underlying diet that you need to stick to. Personally, I chose low fat because it seemed easier than counting calories and well, I love me some carbs. Plus, I have never understood low carb diets- I know lots of people that have had success with them but really, I don’t understand how you can eat bacon and lose weight. It’s just not natural.

 

Looking at my first weekly journal, I focused on problem areas and made small changes at first. I continued to keep the journal to aide in my healthy lifestyle efforts and continued to make healthier changes as the weeks progressed.

 

3.            Planning

 

Take a look at your journal and make a conscious decision to adhere to making healthy lifestyle changes. Once you accept that you need to make some changes, the better your efforts will be. It’s ok to start out slowly at first and make a couple of simple changes. For instance you may switch from regular soda to diet soda, and then eventually cut soda out all together. In terms of exercise you should set your goals small at first if you are not used to being active. You can make simple changes by taking the stairs at work instead of the elevator or perhaps park at the back of the parking lot so the walk to your building is a little longer. Maybe you have fifteen minutes during lunch that would allow you (and even a co-worker) to take a short walk around the building or parking lot. Walking is one of the easiest and best exercises you can do for yourself.

 

I started exercising slowly. I literally took it one step at a time. I bought a treadmill and started out walking slowly while watching television. As time progressed I was able to walk much faster for longer periods of time, and eventually jog. Keeping with my routine I was ultimately able to run on my treadmill. So, sticking with a routine no matter how long it takes—you will eventually see some type of progress.

What about dietary supplements, pills, etc.? I would say there are a lot of effective programs out there that can help you. I would also caution you to do as much research on anything you decide to take. Remember that there is no magic pill that you can take that will let you eat whatever you want and still lose weight. If you are planning a lifestyle change and are looking for a diet to implement into it make sure it is something you can do for the long haul. If your diet is too restrictive you are going to lose interest and eventually falter.

 

4.            Follow through and maintenance

 

Once you’ve realized your need for change--stick to your plan. It’s ok to falter once in a while. Go ahead and have that scoop of ice cream! Just make sure you get back on track right away. There’s nothing wrong with having ice cream every now and then. You’re going to want to have some of those “bad” foods from time to time, and that is quite alright. The key is portion control. You can’t expect to cut out everything you’ve indulged in previously and never crave it or eat it again. That’s not being realistic. Limiting yourself to only a select few foods is not good and will just lead you to cheat on your lifestyle plan.

 

Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t seeing progress on your scale. There are probably going to be days or even weeks when your scale doesn’t register any change. Chances are you are progressing in other areas. Perhaps your scale says you still weigh the same, but you noticed your pants are fitting better. You’ve probably lost some inches! Maybe when you first started your exercise routine you couldn’t make it up three flights of stairs without being out of breath, but a few weeks later you have no trouble with them! Remember that this plan isn’t just a temporary change in your habits.

 

This plan is for you. This plan is for life—your healthier life.