94 days on MFP=54lbs gone. Face Pic.
DirtyStacks
Posts: 179 Member
This is my very first post. I have been lurking on these forums since I started using MFP. I didn’t want to post until I reached at least 90 days. I felt it important for me to put some mileage behind me in order to get a bit of perspective of my commitment to winning this battle to get fit.
I am a 45 year old and have essentially been overweight for nearly my entire life. I did have a short period during high school and then early in my military career where I was pretty fit, yet I was still overweight for my short 5’6.5” height. During my 10 years of service, I hated every workout I ever did, so I basically eschewed nearly all exercise after a honorable discharge. With no motivation to exercise, I embraced the mantra “No Pain = No Pain”. With little output and increasing input, my weight just kept climbing. It didn’t happen overnight…it was a pound here, a pound there. If you put on a pound a month after 15 years of ignoring fitness, you will wake up one day and realize, HOLY COW! I am morbidly obese. MORBIDLY OBESE! I hate that term. HATE IT! It sounds SO FINAL! SO UGLY! SO ME!
Last year, I had an epitome after tipping the scale at 305 that if I planned on living to a ripe old age, I needed to take control. I went to the doctor, had a physical. I found that despite a BMI of 49%, I had somehow escaped the grips of Type 2 Diabetes…at least for now. My blood pressure was normal. I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea 12 years ago. I had a new sleep study, my apnea was worse. I kept telling myself, ok, Monday; you’ll start Monday. Monday came, Monday went. Each week came and went and I just couldn’t get on the bandwagon. The thing is when you are Morbidly Obese, you just get overwhelmed by the shear amount of weight you have to lose. More than half of my weight…are you kidding me? I’ve lost weight before, 20 pounds here, 25 there. But I always put it back on and when you are staring at the reality of losing 150-160 pounds, it just becomes laughable.
Then one day in February, my wife found MFP and showed it to me. I created an account and logged what I had eaten that day. It was nearly 3000 calories and that was a light day for me. I am certain there were days I would eat in excess of 5000 calories. I scoured the message boards and decided this was the tool that will work for me.
It’s 95 days later and counting. I am amazed at just how manageable it has been. I almost never eat all of my exercise calories, but I do eat them if I am hungry. I’ve lost weight every week. Some weeks 1 pound, one week nearly 7.
I am embracing exercise and am now trying to get my brain around the idea of becoming a runner. I refuse to use the only gym in town, so I have been cruising craigslist, picking up exercise equipment for pennies on the dollar. I now own a treadmill, 2 elipticals, a recumbent bike, free weights, benches, squat rack, medicine balls, etc. In fact, my basement is starting to look like a commercial gym. If you know me, you will know this is a completely new kick for me!
I dare to think about setting a goal of running the Chicago Marathon in 2013, but the shear magnitude of such a feat is scary. I am definitely going to start doing 5Ks…. We’ll see how it goes, I just want to loose a bit more before starting any serious efforts at running due to the stress on my knees and joints with so much weight.
My vision is that a year from now, I will be nearing my goal weight. Can’t wait to see the changes then!
I am a 45 year old and have essentially been overweight for nearly my entire life. I did have a short period during high school and then early in my military career where I was pretty fit, yet I was still overweight for my short 5’6.5” height. During my 10 years of service, I hated every workout I ever did, so I basically eschewed nearly all exercise after a honorable discharge. With no motivation to exercise, I embraced the mantra “No Pain = No Pain”. With little output and increasing input, my weight just kept climbing. It didn’t happen overnight…it was a pound here, a pound there. If you put on a pound a month after 15 years of ignoring fitness, you will wake up one day and realize, HOLY COW! I am morbidly obese. MORBIDLY OBESE! I hate that term. HATE IT! It sounds SO FINAL! SO UGLY! SO ME!
Last year, I had an epitome after tipping the scale at 305 that if I planned on living to a ripe old age, I needed to take control. I went to the doctor, had a physical. I found that despite a BMI of 49%, I had somehow escaped the grips of Type 2 Diabetes…at least for now. My blood pressure was normal. I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea 12 years ago. I had a new sleep study, my apnea was worse. I kept telling myself, ok, Monday; you’ll start Monday. Monday came, Monday went. Each week came and went and I just couldn’t get on the bandwagon. The thing is when you are Morbidly Obese, you just get overwhelmed by the shear amount of weight you have to lose. More than half of my weight…are you kidding me? I’ve lost weight before, 20 pounds here, 25 there. But I always put it back on and when you are staring at the reality of losing 150-160 pounds, it just becomes laughable.
Then one day in February, my wife found MFP and showed it to me. I created an account and logged what I had eaten that day. It was nearly 3000 calories and that was a light day for me. I am certain there were days I would eat in excess of 5000 calories. I scoured the message boards and decided this was the tool that will work for me.
It’s 95 days later and counting. I am amazed at just how manageable it has been. I almost never eat all of my exercise calories, but I do eat them if I am hungry. I’ve lost weight every week. Some weeks 1 pound, one week nearly 7.
I am embracing exercise and am now trying to get my brain around the idea of becoming a runner. I refuse to use the only gym in town, so I have been cruising craigslist, picking up exercise equipment for pennies on the dollar. I now own a treadmill, 2 elipticals, a recumbent bike, free weights, benches, squat rack, medicine balls, etc. In fact, my basement is starting to look like a commercial gym. If you know me, you will know this is a completely new kick for me!
I dare to think about setting a goal of running the Chicago Marathon in 2013, but the shear magnitude of such a feat is scary. I am definitely going to start doing 5Ks…. We’ll see how it goes, I just want to loose a bit more before starting any serious efforts at running due to the stress on my knees and joints with so much weight.
My vision is that a year from now, I will be nearing my goal weight. Can’t wait to see the changes then!
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Replies
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Awesome!!! great post! congrats!
Wonderful success in 90 days! No doubt if you can maintain the motivation, dedication, and hard work that your end goals can be reached! And yes, you can run the Chicago Marathon, don't let go of that dream!
To get into running try the C25K program. Set your sights on a 5k later this year and train for it. Best of luck!!!0 -
Way to go!
I'm glad to hear you are 'embracing' exercise. While I've been doing it routinely since January, I'm not sure I'll ever embrace it. I hate it! :-)
You CAN do the marathon. Don't be afraid and don't drop that goal at all. Try the C25K program and get to the marathon. You don't have to win, you just have to participate (and train)!!0 -
Good job0
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You look incredible! Great job!0
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Great story, and Im glad to see MFP is working for you.
If you aren't comfortable running yet because of your knees, you might be surprised by how much more gentle a good treadmill can be on your joints. Alt, cycling is much less stressful on your knees and will help build that cardio and endurance you'll need for a long run when the rest of your body is ready for that.
Good luck, and wow - huge progress based on the pics / measurements.0 -
Congratulations! You look great!0
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Awesome work!!! Good for you for committing to this healthy lifestyle! Very impressive results.0
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:drinker: Wow! Congrats. You can see a BIG difference. Keep it up0
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You're doing an awesome job! Keep it up!0
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Very impressive sir!!! I am so proud of you.... I know what it's like to yo yo up and down, and to look at the feat of loosing 100+ pounds, and feel like it's impossible. But YOU did it. You signed up, you logged on, you tracked you calories, you exercised, and you have had amazing results!!! Well done!!! Keep it up!!!0
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Congratulations for sticking to this, thus far! If you can come this far, imagine in just 3 more months, and another 3 months, etc. One thing I learned is to keep mini goals so that the end result goal doesn't seem so difficult to obtain/reach (because you focus more on the mini goals). Before you know it.....you'll be in maintenance mode
Keep up the good fight! You have made it this far; I KNOW you can do it!! :flowerforyou: 0 -
Well done!0
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AMAZING!!! Keep up the great work! This was a very inspirational story...THANK YOU!0
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Look at you! You have made amazing strides! Helped me out too - I have been wanting an eliptical and never even thought about Craigslist! DUH! Thanks for the inspiration and the ideas!0
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Kick *kitten* job.0
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Thank you all for your words of encouragement. I greatly appreciate it. As a lurker, I suppose that is one aspect of MFP that I haven't utilized. So thanks!
I plan on using the c25k program to train for running long distances. I like it because if I find one week I am not ready to move up, you can simply repeat a week. We have a walking/jogging path around a lake in our neighborhood that we seldom use to take our dogs on a walk. I've never used it for jogging, let alone running. I expect it will get alot of use this summer.
My weekly weigh in is on Saturday mornings. I was pleased to find that I had lost another 3.2 pounds this week! This brings my total to 56.8 pounds. I'm actually quite surprised I lost this much this week because my work schedule prevented me from working out as much as I had in previous weeks and I had lost nearly 7 pounds last week. I think maybe my metabolism has awakened.
Time to hit the bike for a while to celebrate losing 3 pounds!
<a href="http://www.myfitnesspal.com"><img src="http://badges.myfitnesspal.com/badges/show/1717/5315/17175315.weight-lost-md.gif" border="0"></a><p style="text-align: center;width:152px;"><small>MyFitnessPal - <a href="http://www.myfitnesspal.com">Free Weight Loss</a> Tools</small></p>0 -
Amazing! I can relate to so much of what you say. I hope you post more. It was great to read. Continued success to you. 0
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Wow - you look great! The exercise will get easier as the weight drops off, until one day you wake up and discover you are hooked. Well done, have a happy new healthy life :flowerforyou:
C25K is great, just do what you are doing, and go at your own pace.0
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