One half way point

matthew_b · June 2013

I start out with my picture from almost 2 years ago:

Here I am at my 40th birthday party. I weigh in at 362 lbs. I'm in pre-hypertension, but luckily due to good genetics I'm not dealing with diabetes or high cholesterol. It's certainly not my lifestyle that's stopping it! My rest heart rate is at 78 BPM. It hits me that I really either need to make a major life change or my 50th is going to see me with MAJOR weight related health problems, if not dead.

I decide to start working out. We get a family membership at the city pool, and I start working out. I commit to doing 3 nights a week. When I start 9 laps is it. By late fall I'm getting close to doing a mile. I'm starting to lose some weight. At nine months in I've lost 18 lbs. I'm definitely in MUCH better shape. My blood pressure is down and my rest heart rate is down into the 60's. But I'm not really happy with doing all that work and only loosing at a pretty slow rate. I'm still eating crap; pop, sugar, refined carbs and just plain TOO MUCH.

That's when I joined MFP. I didn't baseline, I went straight to setting my goals, logging and staying within my macros. If I were to guess, I was eating 3,500 to 4,000 cals per day, with an occasional 5,000+ binge thrown in. I kept up the logging for about 2 months, and then I had it without having to check in. Once in a while I'll do a portion check, but for the most part I'm doing dang good at figuring out what I should have. Gone with the 32 oz Coke with a refill. Gone with the caramel mocha in the morning. Honestly it didn't take long to where I didn't miss it. If I didn't quit, I was going to get diabetes and give it up anyway. I could quit now and delay or even avoid diabetes, or I could keep going and quit it anyway.

I also upped to 5 nights a week at the pool. I started doing tue/thur deep water aerobics and sticking to laps M/W/F. Eventually I'd do some laps on the Tues/Thur nights too.

My goal all along was to be HWP - 180 lbs for a 6'1" tall guy. So when I reached 270 lbs today, I had 90 lbs to go and have lost 92lb. Yep, 1/2 of the way.

BTW: That's a size 56 shirt and a 48x30 pair of pants in the first picture. In the second it's a size 44 shirt and a 38x30 pair of pants.

8 more lbs to go to update this with my 100lbs down picture.