Weight loss and Impossible Diets

byLBurke

122 followers

7 years ago

Hello everyone,

I am writing this blog because I have noticed that there are quite a few people within our community here who are struggling with weight loss. I know this may seem a bit off topic for our community , however maybe its not as far off track as one would think. Maybe I just found the niche I have been looking for. I decided after reading the struggles some of you are having to go ahead and share my story with you.

I am a former US Army veteran who is father of 4 wonderful children. I have 2 boys and 2 girls. My oldest son and daughter are out on there own now and my oldest daughter has now made me a happy grandfather of two as well. I have to tell you that you are not alone in your struggle with weight loss. The numbers of obesity are drastically rising year after year. The amount of people that are being diagnosed as being morbidly obese is a very scary statistic and one that is extremely hard to over come.

I am a 45 year old man who went into the military when I was 17 years old. Every day from the time I was around 13 years old was packed with fitness and staying in shape. I was a high school athlete who played Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey and also Threw shot and disk in Track and field. Immediately after I left high school I had joined the US Army. for the next 10 years every day was a routine of running , jumping, doing push ups, sit ups, weight lifting etc.

So you are probably asking me at this point why someone like that would be writing a blog about weight loss and obesity? Well here is the answer. I was on top of the world so to speaK. I was in very good shape, very healthy and rarely ever became sick. I suffered a very traumatic injury that changed all that in the blink of an eye. I suffered a devastating amount of damage to my left leg that had me bedridden for quite some time. I basically had to learn to walk all over again. The doctors said I may never walk again, to me that just wasn't an option.

My whole world had changed in just the blink of an eye. My life as I had known it was over. I had to basically come up with a whole new playbook. I went through a stage where I just was basically feeling sorry for myself and asking why me. I had all but given up and I really hated the person I had become. Depression came along with many bad habits, The biggest bad habit I had picked up was eating. I would try to fill in the void of the things I was missing with junk food and soda.

I would sit down and eat two big bags of potato chips and a container of French Onion dip without batting an eye. Then my worst mistake happened, I became addicted to caffeine. Worse than the fact of my caffeine addiction was that I was addicted to Soda. I found myself at one point drinking over a case of Mountain Dew or Pepsi every single day..

i really didn't have any idea that I was slowly killing myself. it started off me just noticing the clothes getting a little tight and eventually escalated from there. I noticed myself getting sick a lot more often and I would have less and less energy. Still even after all this and the big change in the way I felt I still didn't realize how serious the problem was. A few years went by and all the sudden I was in a serious state of depression. I began to not be active with my children any more and I rarely ever liked to leave the house.

It finally had gotten so bad that I found it difficult to even tie my shoes. I was so embarrassed to have to ask for help just putting my shoes on. I realized I was a lot more serious than I thought so I made the dreaded call to the doctor to set up an appointment. I had known I had gotten a good bit bigger and was a lot less healthy but I never realized just how out of control I had gotten. The time had come and first thing they have me do at my Dr. appointment is step on the scale.

Immediately tears began to form in my eyes when I stepped on the scale and had to physically face what I had become. I looked down at the numbers on the scale which read 467 lbs and just couldn't believe what I was seeing. I tried telling myself the scale was broken , however it was me that was broken. I was broken in a big way and I was on a path to an early grave.

The reality set in after a few Doctors visits and some blood work being done. The results finally come in and I had to face the music. I found out I had extremely dangerously high blood pressure, I had Diabetes and I suffered from severe sleep apnea. The doctor looked me in the eye and he told me this. " I really don't know how to go about telling you this in way other than being upfront and to the point." " If you ever want to see your children graduate from high school you have got to make some drastic life changes" If you don't make these life changes you will most likely not be here 5 years from now" Talk about an eye opener.

Well the last thing you want to do when you are almost 500 lbs is bring yourself to a gym with a bunch of fit people. You just know you are the reason for all the snickers and whispered comments. It really takes a lot of courage to force yourself to walk through them doors and start making that change.

Now, you finally have worked up enough nerve to walk through the doors and you face a whole new set of challenges. When you weigh almost 500 lbs everything and I mean everything is hard to do. Just walking from your car into the gym is a workout in itself. Then the real challenge begins.

The best advice I can give each and every one of you is never let yourself give up. You are going to feel like it is impossible at times and your body will get sore, your feet will hurt, you will even feel like you are going to die at times but just keep pushing yourself through it. Set yourself reasonable short term goals rather than focussing on the Big picture at the end. Most importantly keep yourself moving.

Start off slowly and work your way up. You do not need to spend 8 hours a day 7 days a week at the gym in order for you to lose weight One thing that absolutely drives me crazy is all the excuses people use as to why they can not get themselves in shape. Trust me there is not an excuse you can give me that I can not over come.

One of the biggest excuses I hear all the time is I do not have the money to join a gym. Well let me just say that there are planet fitnesses all over and they are only $10.00 a month to join. You mean to tell me that something that costs less than a cup of coffee a day isn't worth saving your life? I honestly think you are asking yourself the wrong question, You are asking yourself how you can afford it Well I think you should be asking yourself how you can afford not to. Just getting yourself up and moving is going to save your life. It will also give you a much better quality of life. You will be able to enjoy time with family and loved ones. Think about how nice it will be to be able to take a walk on a nice spring day and enjoying the fresh air. Let's just say for argument sake that you absolutely can not afford a gym membership. I understand times are hard. Here is a few Ideas that you can implement in order to still accomplish your goals.

1. When you are watching TV at every commercial break get up and move. Take a short walk, do a few jumping jacks, bend over as far as you can and try and touch your toes. You can do anything as long as you keep moving.
2. Don't expect to be able to go out on your first day and be able to get yourself back in shape to run a marathon. It is going to take time to get back where you need to be. rome wasn't built in a day.
3. Do not be overwhelmed by all the eat this, don't eat that stuff you will most likely read about. My heartfelt advice to you is Do not try and remove things you enjoy eating or you will become miserable and your diet will fail. Learn to eat foods you enjoy, just teach yourself discipline to enjoy them in moderation. Instead of that full plate of pasta have a reasonable portion and then throw in a salad and some veggies on the side. You will still have your craving met, you will cut calories , you will get full and you will lose weight. It's just that simple.

Find things that you enjoy to keep you active. Find a friend to walk with. Get yourself a nice music player, you will be surprised what a difference that will make. Listening to music you enjoy makes the time fly by and before you know it you will be able to walk for an hour or more and think nothing of it.

Let me start by saying that everyone is going to be a little different as far as their work outs are concerned. Some people have a higher tolerance for certain things than others do. losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. The most important thing to do however is keep moving. Let's say you like to dance. Dancing is a great way to burn a ton of calories. Find yourself a zumba class or maybe a country line dancing class. Whatever you will enjoy . You will have a great time , you will burn a ton of calories and you will watch the pounds of fat melt off.

As I told you at the beginning of the story I started out at almost 500 lbs. I am pretty sure you are wondering how far I have come in my own personal weight loss journey. Well I started out by getting my membership at a local community center. They have a program that helps low income families with low monthly dues. In my case I was able to get the whole family a membership for $22.00 a month. My particular Community Center has pretty much anything you could hope for on a weight loss journey. The building has 2 full size basketball gyms, a swimming pool, an indoor walking track, A cardio room with all the machines and tread mills , rowers, stair climbers, bikes etc. It also hosts machine weights in 2 areas as well as a free weight room , several class rooms for Yoga , various other classes most of which all are free to members. I highly recommend taking classes. It is like having a personal trainer for free.

When I first began my journey I was a bit overwhelmed and felt hopeless. I would get on the treadmill at no incline and a mere 2.0 miles an hour and I would walk for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and my legs would just feel like they were going to explode. I would be completely soaked in sweat and breathing heavy and feel like I was about to pass out. I wasn't trying to do anything major or set any records, my main goal was to each day do just a little better than the day before. The first day I would maybe walk 10 minutes and then take a small break, go get some fresh water, catch my breath and then go back and do it again. The next day my goal would be to improve a little on the day before. The second day for example maybe shoot to still walk 10 minutes but this time instead of walking at 2.0 mph you up it a little to maybe 2.3 or 2.5 mph and add in maybe a 2 degree incline.

The end of the first week rolls around and I pushed through it even though it got hard and felt hopeless at times. By the end of the week my 10 minute treadmill walks had turned from 10 minutes at 2.0 mph and 0 incline to 15 minutes at 3.0 mph at a 6 degree incline. I kept upping it each time by just a little and I would do this at least 3 times daily.

The first few weeks are the hardest to push through but you will start feeling a little better the longer you go. I personally am not a big fan of cardio. I am the type that you put me in the weight room and I will lift weights all day long without batting an eye. I truly enjoy lifting weights. I know however that without cardio I will never reach the goals I have set for myself and I will never achieve the health that I am looking for. I found a love for swimming to make up that void. I love being in the water. One thing I found when doing pool workouts whether it be swimming, pool walking, aerobics or whatever the case may be, it can get to be quite boring. One of the first thing I did was researched waterproof music players that I could bring with me in the pool. I ordered my Syryn MP 3 player from amazon and I still use it religiously to this day. i spend a good 3 or 4 hours in the pool at least 4 times a week along with about 2 hours every other day in the weight room.

I started my weight loss journey back in August of 2016. Today is February 11, 2017. I have went from 467 lbs when I started down all the way to 306 lbs at my last doctors visit monthly check up. I have lost over 160 lbs in less than a year. I promise each and every one of you, you can do it . It is all in your mindset. Do not let your mind control your body. Humans are a resilient species and you will be amazed at what your body can actually do if you push it . Don't ever give up !!! Last but most important, My #1 rule. Get up off the couch or chair and KEEP MOVING !!! I have facebook and anyone that needs any kind of support or help with your weight loss journey please feel free to reach out to me. I apologize for such a long post but I hope it may make a difference to at least one or two of you with your struggle.

Larry