Starting Over the Right Way. My Weight Loss (and gain and loss!) Journey.

Well there I am! On the left I am at my heaviest - about 370 pounds. In the middle I am at my lightest - about 220 pounds. On the right is where I am working to get back to - about 230 pounds. Right now I am back to about 328 pounds (I will upload current pictures to my daily progress posts on my personal site here).

What a strange journey it's been from obesity to skinny (for me) and back to obesity again. I have learned so much about myself over the last 2 years that it could fill a book - hopefully it will fill a blog!

I am writing this blog for a variety of reasons:

1. To journal the most interesting time in my life.
2. To offer practical advice to others who are struggling to lose weight and keep it off.
3. To show that you MUST have mind mastery before you can have body mastery.
4. To help build a business that will allow me to work with and help as many people I can get healthy - for good!

Reason #4 may turn some of you off, and that's OK. Feel free to stop reading and go do something else. I happen to believe there is nothing wrong with trying to earn a living while helping others. Besides, we are a LONG way away from the time that I am earning any money.

Back in February 2013 I started down the road of losing weight and trying to take it off as fast I could. Some warned me it was unhealthy, others said that it couldn't be done - but a mere six months later I had lost 117 pounds, my blood pressure was normal, my joints no longer ached, and I was walking several miles a day as well as using an elliptical machine - full-bore - 90 minutes a day, five days a week. Of course I made a lot of other changes as well - I was meditating, eating only 3 small(ish) meals and 1 snack a day, only drinking water and sometimes non-fat milk. I will say something that might sound amazing - IT WAS SO EASY! It really was. I struggled with food for the first 2 weeks or so and then it became my routine. The exercising was hard at first and then it just became something I did to sweat because it felt good.

So what happened? Why did I gain the weight back?

Because none of this happened in the "real world". Oh, I really lost the weight, but I did it in a secluded environment. I had a leave of absence and used the time to get healthy by going away and surrounding myself with like-minded people. There were no family pressures (aside from being away from family and friends), no work pressures, no "real life" pressures at all. All I had to do was meditate, read, eat, and exercise. The rest of the world moved along just fine without me in it - and I got healthy. But it was doomed to fail.

Once I got back to my daily life the weight starting coming back almost immediately. I wasn't meditating - who has time to meditate?- my eating habits all reverted back to unhealthy foods and stress eating. Exercise faltered after a month or so - I was starting to feel bad physically already - lethargic and lazy and besides (I'd tell ask myself) who has time to exercise 90 minutes a day? Certainly not me. Not any more.

When I hit 300 pounds again, reality came crashing back on me. I never thought I'd see that number again - in fact I proudly proclaimed that fact to anyone who would listen. Yet, here I was less than a year removed from 220 pounds tipping the scale at 300+ I got depressed. Then I get angry. Then I got philosophical. And then I got real...

What was the real reason I put the weight back on. After much soul-searching (I re-read my old journals and letters from the time I was away) the only conclusion I could make was that I was lazy mentally. I had given up meditation immediately after getting home. I just stopped. I was busy enjoying time with my wife, with my kids and pets. I let my mind slip back into old patterns of thinking - and the rest of me followed. Some of you may think there is more to it than that, but I'm telling you there isn't, and this blog, this journey of mine - to get fit after 45 and in the real world - will prove it.

I am committing to you to blog about my progress every day (barring emergencies of course), to meditate every day, to get back to my healthy eating (one cheat day a week), and to exercise 45 - 90 minutes every day of the week. I will also support my lifestyle, work my full-time job, and strengthen my relationships. I know this can be done because I have lived it before and I have seen it in my mind's eye. Good food, herbal supplements, teas, mediation and exercise all lead to brain health. Brain health leads to a healthy mind and MINDFULNESS leads to control of the mind. Once you control the mind, the victory has been won. Skeptical? Well stick around - in 6 months you won't be!

Peace, Adam