ruthieo7 wrote: »

Radii thank you so much for sharing that.

I ditto that!

Now that I am finally at a computer instead of my handheld, I thought I should answer my own questions in hopes of encouraging someone else who needs it. One question that I should have asked was, "Where are you now?" I'll answer that to help give more merit to what follows.

I am 41 years old and been overweight since I was 20. All the men in my family are overweight so I just figured it was the genes. There is (was) a joke in the family that when a man meets the woman he is supposed to marry he gets fat. It was certainly the case for each and every one of us. During the summer of my 39th year, I officially weighed in at 315 pounds. It was the highest I've ever been. I lost 100 pounds in 14 months and been maintaining for 3/4 of a year. I am not getting the last of it off an aiming for 190 pounds.

What brought you to living healthier?

Since my dad, uncles, grandfather, and older cousins were all overweight I knew I had a crystal ball in front of me. I saw the complications and frustrations that my dad had and didn't want that. Twice in my life I made serious attempts to lose weight. One was on a Medical Weight Loss thing which took me down to 235 but it didn't last. The second time was a supervised exercise and diet plan following the standard government sanctioned standard diet and exercise routine. I traveled 1 1/2 hours one way every week for my check-in. It just plan didn't work. The program was sponsored by my insurance when my employer closed down, I lost my insurance and the program with it. I spent 2 years unemployed and I truly believe my weight was the biggest factor. I did countless phone interviews and get flown all over the country to interview in person and then nothing would happen. I just wasn't impressive in person.

After moving my family 800 miles away, I was able to find a decent job. At that time all my focused turned to financial matters and after trying a couple of different programs I found Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. What made the difference was the Baby Steps which taught me that little, but consistent action achieves a lot. After achieving several successes to the point where the program was a habit, I turned my attention towards my weight once again.

The timing worked out with other factors in my life. My wife had started to process to get the gastric sleeve surgery. I was happy but nervous for her, but what really struck a cord with me internally was that I wanted to show our kids there was a different way. That gave me one of the two internal flipped switches that would motivate me.

The other switch was the bible passage from 1 Corinthians 7:4: "The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife." Now this is a very hot button passage. Women look at it as sexist and men look at it as a right, but like most things in religious texts when you use it at someone else you really need to reflect it on yourself. Once I did that I started to realize, "This is the body I give to my wife" and I was taking horribly care of it. Who was I to ask her to find me attractive sexually when I looked like my dad!

How did you find LC?

I went the one place I always go when I need information. The library. Since I have a bit of a commute I look for audio books and found Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat (and What We Can Do About It). For some reason this audiobook version (unlike every other copy of it I've seen) has a picture of a belly sticking out over the button of a pair of jeans, looking amazingly like my own. I started listening to it and it just made sense to me. Since I had the audiobook, I didn't know there was a meal plan at the end of the book until I checked it 6 months later. I just aimed to keep my carbs below 30g and eat as much meat as I could whenever I was hungry. I did not count calories at all! I stayed away from sugar and all grains which had basically BEEN my diet before. I lost about 20 pounds in the first two months.

How did you keep on at your first plateau?

I tend to plateau through the holidays starting from Halloween through to about Valentine's day. Shorter plateaus of a week or two I just kept going but a 4 month one was killing me, but I knew it was my fault. I was eating sugar here and there and getting off the plan. One problem I run into is I start to doubt the process thinking, "Maybe it was reduction in calorie and not what I was eating? What if I need to go more extreme low carb?" so on and so on. As the longer plateau happened I started to look back at the emails I would send my wife telling her what I weighed in at (I used to use a freight scale at work!) and I used that to chart how far I had come. That and remembering the reasons I started in the first place. I knew if I was consistent it would happen, but sometimes I would doubt it was just a fluke or I was misguided.

How do you keep on during difficulties?

I blog. I do it for two reasons. One as a record of going through it. I am a bit of a Self Help Junkie and one thing that has always bothered me is Self Help Gurus like telling you what they accomplished but never give a step by step what they did to accomplish it. That has always left me wondering if they had some innate trait that lead them to being successful. I want someone who did nothing for 20 years and then made a change to write about every up and down. The other reason was to "Blogging as Therapy" as I call it. I write about the questions I have and the doubts. I also write about the "up" times and what is working. A key thing is I write about things so I can go back. Sort of letters to myself. I write about how I felt 2 hours after eating a box of Thin Mints so the next time I want to do the same, I have a "don't do it" letter.

How do you manage your stressors?

I have two big stressors that get me off course: Financial and Sleep Deprivation. I am working on the financial with the Money Makeover program. I still hate it when the family budget goes array (because there are 5 people involved) and I have to somehow make up the difference, but it also keeps me from having extra spending money to run out for lunch each day. It is more economical to plan out your meals and brown bag it. It helps me stay on track, but I do have that conflict between my financial and health brains ("I don't really want to eat this, but I don't want it to go to waste!")

For Sleep Deprivation I really just had to put my foot down. I get up at 3 for my job. That means I need to go to bed around 8 in order to get 7 hours of sleep. My family wants me to stay up and spend time with them, but in order to do that I end up eating more (and usually carbs). I finally had to tell them, "When I need to go to bed, I have to go to bed!" I got kick back in the beginning, especially from my wife, but they eventually understood. If you ever hear that I killed someone, you can rest assured that I was extremely tired. I have control over myself when I am tired.

What tips and tricks are uniquely yours?

I have two tips I give everyone.

1) Find a plan that makes sense to you and stick with it. Block out all others for at least 3 months. If nothing has changed in 3 months look for a new program. If you don't block out all others you will get little bits of info here and there that make you tweak or question what you are doing. If you knew what you were doing you wouldn't be in the situation you are in. Let someone else make the map. You follow it for 3 months. Then make a choice. Stick with it or find a new one.

2) You need to stay motivated. The best way to do that is to listen to motivating stuff. Listen to motivational speakers. When you are at the gym, listen to motivational videos from youtube instead of music. The one caveat is not to listen to conflicting information (for example simply search on "How to get big arms" and you'll find everyone who ever lifted a barbell will have a completely different theory) which makes you question the program you are on. If you simply want motivational speeches I recommend Les Brown. His voice itself is powerful. When I started Dave Ramsey's program I started to download his podcast, which is really just his radio show, and that kept me motivated. The base strategy was the same so no conflict there, but the questions were always different so it kept me interested. Also the daily debt-free screams that people came on the show to do are really motivating in the, "I can do this too" sense.

Tricks that I use are mainly to deal with my sweet tooth. I chew Extra gum and drink Crystal Light (or the Aldi's knock of brand since I am a cheapskate now) Fruit Punch to help curb it.

Who motivates you? What motivates you?

I think I covered this above and this is already getting WAY TOO long, but you know who else motivates me? YOU! I want to be an example of how it can happen. I lost 100 pounds! I don't have amazing will power, I just did slow, but steady. A year from now is going to come faster than you realize. Think about how fast last year went. Every step you take is towards a goal, the question is what is your priority? Each time you eat something, is your goal to lose weight or curb anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation? Which goal are you putting first. They are YOUR goals! You tell them which one is more vital.