My weight loss/fitness journey thus far! PICS!

jblackjr
jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
in Success Stories
Ok, so to get started my name is Jimmy. I'm currently 29 years old, married, have one child (3 year old daughter) and two boxers (2.5 and 1 year old). I use to be overweight. I was never considered obese but I was starting to have complications with my health, mainly high blood pressure. I'm sure this stemmed from weight gain + unemployed + newly married. Getting married and losing your job one month later can't be healthy for anyone. My blood pressure was usually in the 140s-150s / 100s which is high and my doctor told me that if something wasn't done I would be classified has having hypertension, something I didn't want to be labeled. For the first year of marriage I was unemployed, very depressed and ate whatever, whenever.

Once I finally found a job and really got to looking at myself I realized that my wife and I both had put on some weight. This was from the above mentioned as well as the fact that we decided to get pregnant while I was unemployed with the idea that surely I would have a job within 9 months... took me a little bit longer. Once Ella Kate got here I had a "come to Jesus" meeting with myself and realized I didn't want to be the overweight, out-of-shape parent that idley sat by and watched there kids from the sideline. I wanted to be the in shape Dad that got out there and kept up with his kids and never missed a beat. I wanted to be the Husband that keeps his body healthy and in shape for his wife. I didn't want to be labeled as fat and lazy. So I decided to do something about it.

My wife and I started off with fad diets, trying this and that and through all that I lost about 20lbs, gained about 10 back and hung out there for a bit. We had tried running in the past and attempted the C25K but we just couldn't seem to stick with it. Months went by and our weight really wasn't moving one way or the other. Once we bought our new house I told my wife I wanted to run and I wanted to stick with it. So we did, we started all over in May of last year and I'm proud to say that I have been running ever since and have a love/hate relationship with it. More love than hate, but I really have my days :)

When my daughter was born I was knocking on the door of 250lbs!
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Once we finished our C25K we decided to run our first race. It was a small little 5K race right down the road from where we live. Weight was somewhere around 225-230
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Our next race I had lost down to about 220lbs
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Here I am weighing in at somewhere arould 210lbs!
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The last picture I have is me at 198lbs
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My current weight as I write this is 194lbs and the plans are to lose about 14 more lbs.

My wife who is in several of those pictures is also on a weightloss journey and so far she has lost around 35-40lbs and her goal is to lose about 70 more. I would love for her to get on here and post but she just don't get into this whole forum thing like I do :)

Edit : Also for anyone interested, my wife and I are not the only ones that run. We have since drug our best friends into it as well :) So we decided to start a blog and since we are all pretty big nerds we named it accordingly.

http://therunningnerds.blogspot.com

Feel free to check us out maybe you will read something there that will inspire you to give it a try.

Replies

  • Marcillene
    Marcillene Posts: 484 Member
    Amazing results!! great job well done!
  • Marcillene
    Marcillene Posts: 484 Member
    did you strictly run, or did you do any kind of weights or gym workouts?
  • cherio256
    cherio256 Posts: 219
    You look great! Keep it up. Btw, I loved your story :)
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    Just up until recently all I did was run. I now do body weight workouts and made me a suspension trainer much like what you would get from TRX. I have a boflex at my house which I keep telling myself to start using again but haven't got around to it yet :)
  • Marcillene
    Marcillene Posts: 484 Member
    Did you start changing your diet and eating clean or healthier as well as running?
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    We started eating a lot healthier. We try to eat as clean as possible but sometimes that is hard to do and keep a social life with your friends, but for the most part I eat as healthy as possible and I try and do my best at counting my caloric intake and being as accurate as possible. My two biggest weaknesses are Sweet tea and a good beer.
  • Marcillene
    Marcillene Posts: 484 Member
    I do agree that i think those are peoples biggest struggles!! :P lol. How long did it take you to achieve these results?
  • YoYo1951
    YoYo1951 Posts: 370
    great job and what a change in your appearance and health. Keep up the great work
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    Marcillene - Probably a lot longer than it should had, but again as long as I was seeing the scale drop I really didn't try and force the weight off you know? But really we didn't start "trying" until we started running which was May 2012, so its been a year since we started and we had a really really bad holiday eating forenza last year. I would say 95% of the people on both sides of our family are overweight to obese so the amount of food and type of food that we had in that 3 month period really did a number on us, I think I gained about 10-15lbs during that 3 month period...
  • Marcillene
    Marcillene Posts: 484 Member
    Marcillene - Probably a lot longer than it should had, but again as long as I was seeing the scale drop I really didn't try and force the weight off you know? But really we didn't start "trying" until we started running which was May 2012, so its been a year since we started and we had a really really bad holiday eating forenza last year. I would say 95% of the people on both sides of our family are overweight to obese so the amount of food and type of food that we had in that 3 month period really did a number on us, I think I gained about 10-15lbs during that 3 month period...

    Oh definitally! well i actually have seen that people that have taken a longer period of time to drop amounts of weight, their bodies adjust better to 'droppy or looser' skin than those that drop it quickly. and i think it tends to make it more of a lifestyle change instead of a dieting era in life.

    Great job.. and im sure it will help your maintaining time in life easier if you use a longer period of time to achieve your results! but even in 1 year thats an amazing result you have!
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    Yea I have always heard losing weight slowly helps you keep it off better and so far that has held true.
  • vanessamcinnis
    vanessamcinnis Posts: 204 Member
    Amazing job! Be proud!
  • maryannelk
    maryannelk Posts: 707 Member
    Great progress! You look great! Glad you and your wife get to do this together!
  • meggyshae
    meggyshae Posts: 357 Member
    You look great!!! Awesome job!!!
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    Thanks all!
  • kjaybee
    kjaybee Posts: 1
    Great story with good results. This is a great encouragement for others who have recently started C25K.

    I'm in week2 myself. I got enough motivation to finish C25k.

    How did you get your wife to join c25k?
    I am having a tough time trying to get my wife to get healthy and loose some weight.

    -K
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    I really didn't have to do anything. I told her I wanted us to start running and since she was wanting to lose weight anyways she just said OK. So far it's really worked out for us.
  • reneegee23
    reneegee23 Posts: 232 Member
    Wonderful story and fantastic progress!! That's a lot of hard work and dedication. Way to go! You and your wife look like such nice people.
  • stu1102
    stu1102 Posts: 129 Member
    A really truly inspiring story. I was very moved by it. More importantly you have realised the dangers that lay ahead for you in being overweight and taking back control of your life in what you eat effects not only you but your family as well. Your family has a great dad

    My wife often tells me of people breaking down in her clinic when she tells them of the complications of their current diabetes (amputations) or high blood pressure complications etc.

    Hope you dont mind but I am going to print off your story and show it to her (my wife) to show that people all over the world are changing their lifestyle for themselves and ther loved ones for the better as I know she gets down having to currently prescribe meds for what is sometimes a lifestyle issue.
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    I am sure that is very difficult for your wife seeing people come in with all those health problems. My BP has came way down since I have lost weight. Typically its in the 120s/70s range now. I think for the most part diet/exersice can fix most health problems that arise. I know it won't solve everything as some things I think are just hereditary and your going to have issues regardless what you do, but even then I think you can at least control the severity of it.
    A really truly inspiring story. I was very moved by it. More importantly you have realised the dangers that lay ahead for you in being overweight and taking back control of your life in what you eat effects not only you but your family as well. Your family has a great dad

    My wife often tells me of people breaking down in her clinic when she tells them of the complications of their current diabetes (amputations) or high blood pressure complications etc.

    Hope you dont mind but I am going to print off your story and show it to her (my wife) to show that people all over the world are changing their lifestyle for themselves and ther loved ones for the better as I know she gets down having to currently prescribe meds for what is sometimes a lifestyle issue.
  • sglaser06
    sglaser06 Posts: 4
    Hi jblackjr -

    I'm just curious how many days a week you run?

    I am in a very similar situation to you. I started this at 256 pounds. I am now down to 233 just strictly running. I am running my first 5k timed race in July and I'm hoping to get down to about 200 by the end of the year. I'm currently running about 3-4 days a week. I'm just curious how much you ran a week when your first started and if that number has changed at all.
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    Hi jblackjr -

    I'm just curious how many days a week you run?

    I am in a very similar situation to you. I started this at 256 pounds. I am now down to 233 just strictly running. I am running my first 5k timed race in July and I'm hoping to get down to about 200 by the end of the year. I'm currently running about 3-4 days a week. I'm just curious how much you ran a week when your first started and if that number has changed at all.

    When I first started C25K I just did the recommended 3 days a week. Once I finished the C25K I would not run anything less that 3.1 miles, I soon bumped it up to 4 days a week and started slowly increasing my miles one of those days. Since that point I have ran 6 5Ks improving my time from 34:13 to 25:46 and I have ran one 10k at 56:14. Currently I am training for my first half and I run 5 days a week. This week I have scheduled to run 24 miles and I will increase that by roughly 2-3 miles a week until I peek at 40 miles for the week.

    It's tough starting out but stick with it and you will notice huge improvements in your running as you increase your mileage and lose more weight.
  • sglaser06
    sglaser06 Posts: 4
    Hi jblackjr -

    I'm just curious how many days a week you run?

    I am in a very similar situation to you. I started this at 256 pounds. I am now down to 233 just strictly running. I am running my first 5k timed race in July and I'm hoping to get down to about 200 by the end of the year. I'm currently running about 3-4 days a week. I'm just curious how much you ran a week when your first started and if that number has changed at all.

    When I first started C25K I just did the recommended 3 days a week. Once I finished the C25K I would not run anything less that 3.1 miles, I soon bumped it up to 4 days a week and started slowly increasing my miles one of those days. Since that point I have ran 6 5Ks improving my time from 34:13 to 25:46 and I have ran one 10k at 56:14. Currently I am training for my first half and I run 5 days a week. This week I have scheduled to run 24 miles and I will increase that by roughly 2-3 miles a week until I peek at 40 miles for the week.

    It's tough starting out but stick with it and you will notice huge improvements in your running as you increase your mileage and lose more weight.

    Thanks for the info! I am running about 2.5 - 3.1 miles at a time currently. I have to walk for about 20 seconds maybe twice in that distance span just to slow my heart rate down a litte. I know this is pretty much just mental, but I haven't gotten over it yet. I ran a 5k by myself two days ago and finished in 35:45. I'm hoping to get that down a bit for my timed race in July.
  • jblackjr
    jblackjr Posts: 89 Member
    Hi jblackjr -

    I'm just curious how many days a week you run?

    I am in a very similar situation to you. I started this at 256 pounds. I am now down to 233 just strictly running. I am running my first 5k timed race in July and I'm hoping to get down to about 200 by the end of the year. I'm currently running about 3-4 days a week. I'm just curious how much you ran a week when your first started and if that number has changed at all.

    When I first started C25K I just did the recommended 3 days a week. Once I finished the C25K I would not run anything less that 3.1 miles, I soon bumped it up to 4 days a week and started slowly increasing my miles one of those days. Since that point I have ran 6 5Ks improving my time from 34:13 to 25:46 and I have ran one 10k at 56:14. Currently I am training for my first half and I run 5 days a week. This week I have scheduled to run 24 miles and I will increase that by roughly 2-3 miles a week until I peek at 40 miles for the week.

    It's tough starting out but stick with it and you will notice huge improvements in your running as you increase your mileage and lose more weight.

    Thanks for the info! I am running about 2.5 - 3.1 miles at a time currently. I have to walk for about 20 seconds maybe twice in that distance span just to slow my heart rate down a litte. I know this is pretty much just mental, but I haven't gotten over it yet. I ran a 5k by myself two days ago and finished in 35:45. I'm hoping to get that down a bit for my timed race in July.

    Timing yourself and actually participating in a 5K are still very different. You will find yourself running faster in the 5K. Plus you still have a few weeks. Given your time you just gave me I'm going to say you will run it somewhere in the 33-34 min range. So be sure to udpate me :) Also feel free to come on over to www.runningahead.com and do a search for the user group Beginners and beyond. A lot of good info can be found on the runningahead site and all the people in the user group I am in are very supportive and nice.

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