Success is anything but a straight line.

EpicMedic wrote: »

January 16th, 2014. I was laid up with yet another back injury... this time, thank god, it was just muscular in nature, and I was unhappy. I couldn't figure out why, I had my own house, a great wife, an amazing job that I love, and aside from this momentary setback with my lower back I was pain free (Two years prior I had surgery on my L4-L5 and L5-S1 for bilateral herniations with significant nerve impingement.... the months prior to the surgery were the darkest of my life.)

As I lay in bed, my wife began pestering me. "What's wrong?" and "I can tell something is wrong." were met with the obligatory reply of "Nothing, dear." and "I'm fine, really." My wife, God bless her, knows me too well and wore me down until eventually I told her that I was just unhappy... Not with her, just in general. The line of open ended questions continued in an endless barrage. "Why do you feel that way?" and "What else?" were repeated over and over as she laid there, listening to my "verbal vomit" of nonsense until I finally blurted something out that clicked.

"I have a vision in my head of who I could, and who I should, be. I'm not that man, and I'm ashamed of it."

At the start of the conversation I don't think I had really understood why I was so unhappy. It was there, underneath layers of other crap, subconsciously eating away at me. I was the quarterback in the big game, in the red zone, and I was failing to make the play. I was failing at life, I wasn't living up to my full potential! My wife opened me up like a sardine can and let me talk my way to a "Eureka!" moment, and then it was game on.

We talked a lot that night, and when I say we, I mean "I." All of my dreams, my aspirations, the traits I envisioned myself having when I pictured the "perfect me" all came spilling out. My house was a mess. My weight was higher than it had ever been, creeping up over the last 4 years. I was wasting my life away with what I know know was my addiction and escape from reality: video games. I've been a gamer my entire life, and it never dawned on me that it was so easy for me to escape to a virtual world because it was easier than manning up and owning my life.

I quit playing video games. My late night/early morning marathon sessions were over. I quit eating fast food, quit drinking soda, and I started tracking everything I was consuming. Holy mother of shock factor, you mean to tell me that those 12 wings I had at Buffalo Wild Wings are close to 2000 calories WITHOUT the ranch I was slathering on them!? I was religious about tracking my caloric intake and eating "cleaner" and I saw amazing results almost immediately. I've always been a big guy, and not always in the chunky monkey kind of way. 6'0" tall and built like a brick shithouse, people always told me I should have been playing football instead of chess for the chess team.

Starting weight: 265lbs

First Month: 17 pounds. A lot of this was water weight since I had been swimming in a sea of sodium prior to my diet change, but I was happy to see the numbers fall.

Second month: 10 pounds. At this point I had bought a Bodymedia Fit and I was shocked at how many calories every day I was burning doing normal things. I had consistent readings of 3200-4000 calories burned! The Bodymedia is supposed to be 90% accurate, and I have a feeling I was one of those it was overestimating by 10%. Regardless it kept me accountable, and between logging my food and keeping up with my Bodymedia, I was kicking *kitten* and taking names in true Duke Nukem fashion.

Third Month: 8 pounds. 35 pounds down total and my clothes were finally starting to fit differently. I was originally a size 40 waist in my jeans, at this point I'm baggy in 38s and can squeeze in 36s. I started cycling in March, I love to ride, but it wasn't as frequent as it needed to be.

Then my willpower train ran out of steam. The title of this post I reference success not being a straight line, and here is when my line started to look like the stock exchange. I stopped counting calories. I stopped wearing my bodymedia. I felt so good, I thought I didn't need them. For the next five months I relied on my new habits to keep me where I wanted to be, and as the months went on, those habits slipped and my old habits returned. Fast food was back, sodium consumption was through the roof, and I wasn't working out as I had been. My bike rides went from twice a week to once a week, then once every 2 weeks, then once a month, and the last two months my bike sat in the garage collecting dust. I stepped on the scale and found that I had gained back 7 pounds, and I about had a high speed come-apart!

I tried to get back in to things, logging my food, wearing the bodymedia, but those things only lasted a few days. I didn't have the same motivation I had before. I was making healthier eating choices again, though not as strictly as before, and soon the scale was back to around 230.

Fast forward to a month ago, still hovering around 230. No progress, but that should be expected seeing as how I also was putting next to no effort in to it. I was back to playing video games until crazy hours of the night, back to my same old tricks. I guess old habits really do die hard, dont they?

In the last month I haven't been at 100% effort, I'll be honest. I have slipped up many times, and I have seen my weight fluctuate by up to 7 pounds just by binge eating fast food for a few days. Despite those slip-ups, I'm proud to say I weighed in last week at 220 pounds, 45 pounds lower than I was in January.

I'm at 223 right now and monitoring my diet with the same tenacity I had in February. I'm determined to hit my 200 pound goal (I had a DEXA scan done in March showing I had 174 pounds of lean mass. 200 pounds puts me at 16% or so body fat, something I think I will be comfortable with.) These last 20 pounds are going to be tough. I imagine the first 20 pounds I lost as some young, inexperienced soldiers just out of boot camp. I imagine the 20 pounds ahead of me as the tough, seasoned veterans of multiple weight loss wars that are going to give me a damn good run for my money.

It's been a tough road. I've been off the bandwagon for more time than I've been on it, failed more times than I've succeeded, and yet here I am.

Success isn't a straight road. It's a winding road through the mountains, complete with potholes, washed out bridges, and the occasional falling boulder that threatens to end the journey right where it lands. I've driven the road thus far and, right now, my foot is on the gas.

The number of times you get knocked down is irrelevant, it doesn't matter. The ONLY thing that matters is that you have gotten back up each. and. every. time.