LOST OVER 50 LBS!

Today I officially lost more than 50lbs since I started getting healthier on March 1st.  

My start weight? A whopping 280 lbs.

As of this morning I now weigh 229 lbs,

but it won't stop here... 



History: For those who’ve known me for many years this change may seem like a shock, or possibly a long time coming. I’ve been overweight most of my life, noticeably since I was in fourth grade (9 years old) and continued to bounce back and forth through high school and college gaining and losing without real effort. As a freshmen in High  School I weighed 200lbs. By my sophomore year I weighed around 240lbs… the weight continued to add on until I graduated at 260lbs. By the end of my Freshmen year of college I weighed 270lbs. However, this upward trend reversed in my second year of college. My body had some relief when I began losing weight under the heavy stress of full class schedules as well as 50+hours of work per week. By the time I had my associates degree in Fall of 2005 I had lost nearly 30 lbs, then weighing in  at somewhere around 240 lbs. By the time I got married in 2006  my weight rose to 250 lbs. Waiting tables kept me active and somewhat trim for the time but when I got an office job my weight began to climb even more rapidly, peaking at 285 lbs. Again, I’d go through periods of minor loss, losing 10 to 15 lbs, only to gain it back over the following months. That is until my current loss.


Motive: I have so many reasons for wanting to lose weight. Obviously health is a factor, but I didn’t feel sick or tired, so it didn’t seem to be an urgent issue. I wanted to look good, but I am already married and she doesn’t seem to care if I’m fat or thin.   Really, my motive came down to 3 things.


 1.      Be an example: This weight loss isn’t just about me, but about being an example to friends and family to prevent them from getting to where I was and encourage them to get where I am going. We know being overweight is stressful on the body and is dangerous, but we are at times too careful with feelings, shouting comforting phrases like “Big is beautiful” to tickle the ears, rather than offer help. Too often, real concern about weight and health falls on deaf ears. This was something I did as well... and yet, I'd also deal out health advice and  felt completely hypocritical suggesting things for other people to do when I should be doing it myself. So instead of pushing others, I pushed myself.

2.      Honor God: I want to Honor God with my body. The Bible says to love God with all your mind, body, soul, and strength. To give God the best offering I need to ensure that all of these factors of my being are the best they can be. I try to keep my mind sharp, meditating on His word (The Bible) and diving in to some heavy topics concerning objective truth. My body, I am working on losing weight and getting fit while carefully selecting the things I put inside my body. My soul, I try to worship often, singing loudly in the car and calling out to God and give him glory which feeds my soul… and I pray, leaning not on my strength, which can never be enough, rather putting trust in God’s strength and Will.


3.      Be taken seriously: Lastly, I want to be taken seriously. This may or may not be something people acknowledge much openly but there is a bias against fat people. I’m not pointing fingers because I admittedly do it too. Fat people are often seen as lazy, sloppy, unhygienic, dumb, goof balls and while I admit to being these things at times, it seemed that no one wanted to take me serious because they had a disposition in their thinking that fitted me to that mold. I was fat, so I always had to be the fat man. Heck, watching any movie, TV show, or anything as kids… if there was a fat guy in it, I knew I’d be assigned his role. “The fat one is Jay!”.  99% of the time, that character was comic relief and not taken seriously.  I’m not saying this disposition keeps me up at night, but I want to be done with it. I want the words I say to matter and for people I care about to recognize that I’m not just a dumb fat guy.


Method: I think most people have a good idea of what they need to do to lose weight, Eat better, workout that sort of thing. I didn't do anything revolutionary to that approach but will specify some of the key parts that may be helpful. My method has three points to it... My diet, my workout, and a ton of prayer.


1.     Diet: My diet consists of ridiculous amounts of spinach. I want you to understand this point. I EAT A LOT OF SPINACH! I’m fairly strict on the below lists but afford myself small treats from the bad list from time to time. If I go somewhere for dinner and all they have is something I shouldn’t eat, I eat a small portion of it, instead of considering it a wasted day and eating mountains of bread and fat.

        o   Things I eat:  Spinach, banana, apples eggs, Fish (Tuna, Cod, Salmon) hummus, yogurt, Ezekiel bread (sprouted bread based on Biblical recipe), avocado, almond milk, unprocessed/non-bleached grains and rice, popcorn, and coffee. If I use oil in cooking it’s a very small amount of Coconut oil, occasionally will have olive oil.

        o   Things I stay away from: bad carbs (white bread, processed flour etc), unnecessary oils (vegetable, canola), anything fried, unnecessary sugars (I stopped adding sugar to anything including coffee and stopped eating candy), and pork.


2.     Workout: My workout changes in duration and intensity based on what I’m able to do. I keep adding time and challenges to make my efforts matter.  I started doing stairs. 3 times a week starting with 5 minutes, I’d climb up and down the stairs at my office.  On March 3rd, I could do 552 up and 552 down in 10 minutes. As of yesterday I did 1564 up, 1564 down in 22 minutes. I also added jogging to my activities. When I can’t do stairs at work, I jog for the time I would be doing the stairs… so I started at 10 minutes, and now am up to 20+ minutes of continuous jogging. I also do push ups, pull ups, and sit ups at night before bed. Nothing in my routine is so complicated I felt like a fool for trying and not doing so much… and I feel accomplished by the progression I’ve made in each new achievement.


3.     Prayer: For those of you who don’t recognize the need for prayer let me say that this may be the most fundamental part of my success. Through my entire fat life I’ve prayed that God would take my fat away from me. He never did. At times I’d even try to diet. However, I realized when starting this current process that I needed to change what I was praying for and how I was praying for it. I was asking God to make the weight go away without my effort or I was putting forth effort on my own strength and continuously failing. When I started this time I remember praying to God, humbling myself before him, confirming all the failed attempts I’d had on my own strength and asking him to give me the strength and will power to do this. I’ve never been able to before, but now with God’s help, my will power allowed me to overcome the temptations of the endless pastries and fried food around me. I’ve learned to say “no” to something I want that isn’t good for me, and though temptation comes up, it is the strength I receive in prayer that helps me to overcome the opportunities to fail.