I'm OBESE!

That caught your attention, didn’t it? Who would consider being obese worthy of the “Success Stories” board?
Someone who was SUPER MORBIDLY OBESE, that’s who.

Believe it or not, “Super morbidly” and “Morbidly” are actual medical terms. A Body Mass Index above 50 is “Super Morbidly” obese. I think that’s a medical way of saying “you’re so fat, you can die of being so fat…and soon,” or something else equally painful. It does not come with a cape or costume.

If your BMI is over 40, you are merely “Morbidly” obese. “Morbidly” is hardly a pleasant word. You don’t hear of someone being “morbidly” awesome. No cape or costume for me here, either.

On SuperBowl Sunday, after swimming a mile I weighed myself and did a happy dance because I graduated to just plain’ ol “obese.” It’s not where I want to spend the rest of my life, BMI wise, but I did drop 26.6 points from my BMI to get there and I did it by eating right (most of the time), exercising, and using MFP. It helps that I have AWESOME friends and family, both on and off MFP.

I’ve posted success stories here before too, like when I lost over 100 lbs. and when I got to go rappelling down my buddy’s office building in a fundraiser for Special Olympics Texas. (It was pretty awesome.) I do it because when I started off I read the Success Stories religiously in the hopes of finding people who had lost the kind of weight I needed to lose. It was tough to see people post about how disgusting they were when they weighed 100 or 150 lbs less than me because it made my mission seem that much harder until one day a light went off and I realized that everyone has their struggles.

I wish I had more pics from the beginning, but as a master of the tight crop face pic, I don’t have many. You can, however, see how tiny my eyes were and how pinched my cheeks were and whatnot and with a little imagination you can see someone who is south of 400, but not by a whole lot. Sometimes I still see her in the mirror.


When I started out, everything hurt, all of the time. It hurt to get out of bed. I wheezed when I walked and I moved very slowly, if at all. I couldn’t really bend my legs, so I started off swimming. My motto became “Just keep swimming,” and I swam my way to a personal trainer for some toning and 100 lbs down. When I lost 100 lbs I made sure to get the occasional full body shot, just so I could look back at some point and keep it in perspective. I had plenty more to go. I also bought myself a bike as a reward for losing 100 lbs and forced myself to appear in public in a dreaded, unforgiving bike shirt at a charity event less than a month after buying the bike.

(The shirt is loose now, phew!)

I began trying to do more fitness stuff, AND I was below the weight limit by a good 40 lbs so I got to rappel (I’m on the left. My buddy on the right had my back the WHOLE way).


I started feeling better about my life in general, and got out, got moving, and got living, taking pics along the way for comparison and seeing a person I was proud to be becoming.


I decided to train for a sprint triathlon….followed by another sprint tri and a bike marathon and other stuff so my reward for losing 150 lbs was a bunch of triathlon gear and another book to go with my first triathlon bible, “Slow, Fat, Triathlete.” I may be obese, but I feel like Wonder Woman.


For the record, it hasn’t always been easy. I have dealt with hurdles and setbacks due to my severe osteoarthritis. Everyone has limitations. If you are where I started, in that neighborhood or may just feel like you have some ungodly amount to lose, I just want to say that you CAN do it. If I can do this, anyone can. Change is good.

OK, the end of post selfie with the goofy face is really just because I think my new haircut shows off the fact that I now have a neck and collarbone. Only 58.4 lbs until I graduate to being overweight!