In the News(paper)!

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the main Atlanta newspaper, believes in promoting good health. To that end, they run a weekly "success story" about someone that has managed to lose weight and get healthier. Can you guess who last week's person was?

Did you guess me? Wrong! It was Alex Respess...he was on the show Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition.

Now guess who THIS week's person is!

You got it right! It was me.

If you're interested, you can run down to you your corner newsstand (assuming you live in the Atlanta area) and buy a copy...or you can just click HERE to read all about it!

Fun stuff!

Back to Basics!

 "1 Meal - 1 Workout"...you may have seen that name/phrase bandied about lately by me on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or any of another number of places on the world-wide-interweb. But what does it really mean? Maybe it's time to revisit the basics.

Last June when I made the decision that I needed to lose 100+ pounds, I really didn't have much of a plan, but I did know one thing. As a 42-year-old fat guy, I had tried and failed to lose the weight multiple times over the course of my life. The way I had approached getting fit in the past hadn't worked, so I need to make a fundamental change. As I thought about it, I kept thinking back about my past failures. It usually went something like this:

1. Sit up late at night for no reason.
2. See Tony Horton selling P90X (or some variation thereof).
3. Get disgusted with my current condition and decide "it's time to do something about it".
4. Day 1 of my new lifestyle: Make drastic changes to my eating habits and activity level. 
5. Day 2 of my new lifestyle: Discard all changes and continue life as before.

(The reality is that half the time I never got past step 3.)

So what's different this time? What's sustained me for the past 14 months? It's really a simple, fundamental shift of thinking. I started to think that I didn't need to try to lose 150 lbs. I needed to lose just one...one pound...and then do it over and over.

From that, I decided to break it down even further...all the way down to a single meal and a single workout. All I needed to worry about was eating as healthy as I could, making the best choice I could, at my next meal. I didn't have to train for a marathon or try to get six-pack abs, but just concern myself with getting to my next workout.

Sounds too easy, right? Not necessarily EASY, but very SIMPLE. That simple change did a few things:

• It made the task do-able. It was something I could wrap my mind around. Anybody can eat good one day, right? Anyone can put in one good workout.
• If When I failed, it eliminated the guilt and condemnation.  I hadn't "blown it".  There was no diet I had failed.  Instead, I just needed to do better at the next meal, or put more effect into the next workout.
• Procrastination was taken off the table. No more "I'll start over after the holidays", or "on Monday", "or next month", or "next week". Start now!

That's how I did it. That's what worked for me. I put a string of healthier meals and more active days together.  Fourteen months later, I've lost just over 140 lbs. One meal at a time, one workout at a time.

Let me know if you have any questions or if I can help!

Two Months until the Tough Mudder

In just about two months, my friend Joshua and I will be heading north to participate in the Virginia Tough Mudder. If you don't know what the Tough Mudder is, go HERE, to Joshua's blog and read about A) the Tough Mudder, and B) his prep for it.

Now that I've been on my weight-loss journey for about 14 months or so, after 135+ lbs of weight loss, I'm approaching my predicted plateau. If you want to hear my thoughts about all things plateau related, you can LISTEN to our podcast on that topic. For those of you that have already heard that podcast, I won't rehash it here.

That being said, I'm setting an ambitious goal for myself. My goal is to lose 20 lbs more in the next two months.  In addition to ramping up my strength training, I think losing that last 20 lbs will put me where I need to be in order to be successful at the Tough Mudder.

So, there it is...I've put it out there for the world to read, should they choose to do so. Cheer me on...or better yet...join me!

So How Does One Get Really Fat?

"So how does one get REALLY fat?"


This was the question posed to me a while back by one of my close friends.  I had just officially past the "100 lbs lost" mark, and we were discussing health in general.


"I mean, as you got bigger and had to buy bigger clothes didn't you realize there's a problem?"


Of course.  But it's a little more complex than that.


When you're fat you don't like to go clothes shopping. At least I didn't.  It's not an enjoyable experience to be confronted with the reality of your situation.  For me, it would usually go like this. 


I would put off clothes shopping as long as possible.  As I gained weight, my clothes would do their best to accommodate me.  Shirts would get stretched out, buttons on pants would loosen...or pop off.  You get the picture.


Eventually I would be forced to shop.  Either because I literally did not have enough clothes to make it through the week, or I had a wedding or other event coming up.  When I ultimately made it to the store, I'd find out that I crept up a size...or two.  Each time, one step at a time, I progressed down that unhealthy path.  44 inch pants turned into 46s...2X shirts to 3X...


The problem is that by the time you're at the Big & Tall Store trying to buy pants, you can't just say, "Hey!  Whoa!!  Hold the phone!  I believe that I may have gained some weight.  I'm not buying any clothes today.  I'm going to go lose some weight and THEN come back and buy some clothes."  You're at the store, you need the clothes or you wouldn't be there, so you buy the clothes that fit.


Lather, rinse, repeat. It's a vicious cycle. In my case, this was perpetuated by an incorrect body image. 


Most of the time when people think about weight issues and body image, they think about bulimia or anorexia: people that see themselves as fat when they really aren't. Mine was the opposite.  It wasn't really that I was in denial, per se, but every time that I saw a picture of myself, I was surprised at how fat I was.  In my mind's eye, my body image was such that I saw myself 75-100 lbs lighter than I actually was.


So how DOES one get really fat?


Simple.  Avoid buying clothes as long as possible so that you aren't confronted with the weight you've gained in any quantifiable way.


That's what I did, and it worked for years!  By the way...I don't recommend it.  If you find yourself in this cycle, don't wait for the next time you're forced to by clothes to find out the bad news.  Start making little changes today, so that the next time you have to buy new clothes, you get to go down a size...or two!