Here's how I lost 115 pounds

I am a 40 year old stay at home dad. I have been a stay at home dad for roughly 7 years. Over the years I saw my overall health decline. I gained weight and became less active. After New Year's 2012 I started to have real dread about my 40th birthday in September and what the inevitable doctor check up would show. I haven't been to the doctor in years but it became pretty obvious to me that I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, back problems, and potentially diabetes or pre-diabetes. My last blood pressure test I knew from a few years earlier was 180/110... Not good. My normal daily intake of 4-6 sodas combined with 4-6 beers had really taken a toll. Nightly I would have such bad heartburn/GERD that I would have to take 1-2 medicines just to sleep thru the night. Additionally just climbing one flight of stairs would leave me wheezing and out of breath. So in April 2012 I decided now was the time I needed to make a change in my life. My size 46 pants at the time were getting tight and the thought of going up to a 48 was really upsetting to me. My goal was to lose 40lbs by my 40th birthday, September 2012. I weighed in the night of April 29, 2012 before I started my exercise and diet transformation the next day. I weighed 306lbs and my BMI was 36.3 which put me at stage 2 obese. With my high blood pressure and sleep apnea I was technically "morbidly obese".If I didn't make a change my days were numbered. It would be a lofty goal but I felt 40lbs in 5 months was possible.

I decided for exercise I would use the Jeff Galloway Easy 5k walk/run iPhone Application. My wife had started using it a few months earlier and felt it was the best option to go from years of a sedentary lifestyle to up and moving. For my diet I decided to use my own plan that would be loosely based on Weight Watchers point system. For breakfast, I eat pineapple, some banana and an Activia yogurt. Lunch is usually a ham or turkey sandwich. Lots of mustard, gone are the days of extra mayo. Dinner is a salad, veggies, and a chicken breast. However every night is not chicken. It can really vary. I even will do a hot dog dinner once a week or so. Most importantly though I dropped all the sodas and beer. I only drank water and lots of it. So the first couple of weeks the running/walking app was tough but it was never too much. From the first day I made sure every time I worked out I would take a picture of me when I came home. I would text the photo to my wife partially to ease her concerns that I might not have made it thru the exercise but also to give me a visual of how I looked. These workout completion photos have become an important tool for me. I encourage anyone starting out to take a picture of yourself after every workout. You will not believe the transformation that will take place over time. So after finishing the 8 week 5k app I moved up to the Galloway easy 10k program and then when I finished that I moved onto the half marathon program. On my off days I found that adding time on a recumbent bike helped my legs feel better and improved my running stamina. So between the run/walk program and bike I workout 6 days a week roughly 40 minutes each day with one long run being around an hour or more. Yeah, it's a lot of work but for me it's not overwhelming. As for the change in my diet, well it's also not overwhelming. Yeah, I would love to be eating care free like I did in the past but in reality I am not missing the junk food as much as I expected before I started.

So after seven months shortly after my 40th birthday I hit 191 pounds. Since then I have slowly been adding weight as I change my body composition and add muscle. I currently weigh in at around 200 pounds. I was able to finish my first half-marathon back in January in 1:56,44. Last month I ran my first official 10K this year and finished in 47:04 with a 7:35 per mile pace. Best of all, I no longer have high blood pressure or any health problems. I was able to drop it to 110/68 at my physical back in January. I no longer have any heartburn. I am in the best health that I have been in 20 years. I went from a size 46 waist to a size 34. I have dropped from a 3XL tall shirt to a size L. Overall I feel terrific. So I guess my advice is don't accept defeat before you even start. If you make the long term lifestyle changes of adding exercise and making better food choices it's only a matter of time before the weight will come off. At times it can be frustrating but it's definitely worth it in the end.







Here is a photo from the finish of the Walt Disney World 1/2 Marathon. RunDisney puts on amazing races and I can't recommend them enough. My wife and I are running the Disneyland 1/2 over Labor day.



This is an older photo but it shows 160+ days of post workout photos. I ended up finishing the year with 300 days of exercise in total.