My story

My heaviest weight was 380 I started in march of 2008 at 355, 8 months later I am now floating at around 240 115 pounds gone!!! From a pant size 50 to a size 36

Here is my story,

I just turned 40 in june. I have a wife and 3 children and drive truck for a living. I have been fat all my life. High school I was 255 pounds and a size 42. after high school I slowly crept up to 285 and a pant of 46 after getting married I slowly gained close to another 100 pounds and wearing a tight size 50. im not going to bore you with how difficult it was being fat I will say one thing though, at age 7 or 8 my son asked me not to come to his school to pick him up. I finally found out he was embarrassed of how fat I was. That hurt!!!

A few things I think everyone needs to lose weight successfully, first you need motivation. Second you need a healthy diet, third you need exercise, and forth you need an awesome support group.

I have been going to the doctor over the years, one doctor referred me to a nutritionist. I asked the nutristionist to help me with my diet. I wanted to eat healthier, she explained she could only help me if she knew what I was eating and she wanted me to keep a journal. Every obese person knows its next to impossible to do that. We eat compulsively, we eat a lot! There was just no way to do that, so sadly to report the nutritionist said they could not help me. Even though all I wanted was her to explain to me how to eat. So from an early stage I knew it was my eating habits that was making me fat. And of course if you eat unhealthy you don't feel like exercising!!!

Since then I have tried many things. Took a lot of diet pills such as phen phen, meridian, redux, and a few more. I lost over 100 pounds with those and when they became illegal I gained the weight back. I never changed my eating habits, I was just not eating...

My Motivation!!!

I have 3 children, a boy 14 235 pounds, a girl 15 275 pounds and a girl 21 225 pounds, At age 39 and 355 pounds, the doctor had convince me to get gastric bypass. I was very very happy and said cool! But after a few weeks I got very sad. I realized I would be thin but what about my children??? They were going to continue to be large and get even larger. I decided I needed to lead by example and teach my children how to eat healthier and hopefully by the time they got to be adults, they would be living a healthy lifestyle and not be obese.

My faith, I got down on my knees and began to weep. I told God I was an abomination and apologized for being so fat. I was sincerely sorrowful and asked for his help. That was the night my life changed. I had tried for 25 years to lose weight nothing had ever worked. I read about people joining the gym, never worked for me. My daily food intake was enormous. I was in the gym 5 times a week for 2 hours plus. 3 days a week were spin class and weight training. I had an over eating problem and that problem was also my childrens problems.

I was one of those people who bought a lot of stuff off infomercials and nothing ever worked. Tony little and abs by jake that kind of stuff. I refused to do that anymore. However that next night I saw an ad for p90x by tony Horton. It was a hard core exercise program. I have no Idea why I was watching it, I honestly believe it was a God Send. I did a google search for p90x and found a forum called Beachbody. I then started a thread and asked I am 355 pounds, will this program work for me? I went to bed, when I got up the next morning I had about 7 or 8 replys. The first reply was 15 minutes after I wrote the message. I was told this program would not work for me that I should try another program called power 90 or p90 for short. P90x was the extreme version of power 90. after seeing how sincere the people were I decided to poke around the website and found a ton of information. I watched every episode of thin kitchen. About 3 mins each. All about healthy eating. I watch several other videos. Found recipes and work out scheduals. Found a suggested 3 week meal plan where I was able to enter in my weight, height, age, gender, and physical activity level and they produced a suggested meal plan which was the bouncing board for my healthy eating. i bought p90 and when it came it also had a small thin kitchen recipe book.

Support!!!

I don't care what you do. Get a support group. Some people find weight watchers I found Beachbody. The biggest loser has a website with lots of people. There are many sites out there and many programs. Do what it takes to stay plugged in.

I found myself on the forum with one of the first people who answered my questions and found out they were a personal coach for Beachbody. She invited me to her normal thread and I have been plugged into this support group ever since. Its like a family there. We talk about healthy recipes and food substitutes my coach is constantly putting up new recipes with all the nutritional information.

Diet!!!

This word always through me for a loop! It was the word why I could never lose weight. I love to eat. Diet to me meant I had to reduce my calories. Which was code word for reduce the amount of food you were eating, which was a code for starving yourself. None of that is true. My doctor made a lot of sense when he explained to me that diet just means what you are eating. So instead of going on a diet. Look at it as changing your diet. Your going to go from an unhealthy diet to a healthy diet. I still eat quite a bit of food. I never ever go hungry. I just eat Healthy meals. I have a daily caloric need, I budget that out through the day. I eat every 2 ½ to 3 hours I usually start the day off with oatmeal or eggs beaters and vegetables scramble. A whey protein shake for snack turkey sandwich for lunch a piece of fruit and maybe something else for snack then a salad with lite dressing or fish and vegetables. The food is unbelievably endless when it comes to healthy eating. my kids get excited now wondering what dad is going to cook next. I have just had to completely re-educate myself on how and what to eat. I did It mostly in the Beachbody forum talking with others that have already done it and getting there suggestions. I never thought I would be able to eat under 2000 calories in a day. But if you knew what I was eating before triple whoppers with cheese now gets replaced with a turkey burger no cheese on whole wheat and mustard. Over 2000 calories for the whopper meal, around 350 calories for the turkey burger and zero calories for a glass of crystal light. Add some veggies your still under 400 calories that's over 1500 calories saved. That's almost ½ pound of fat. Eek!!!! I can eat all day now with the same about of calories that I was eating in just one meal before.

Exercise!!!

Exercise is a key factor. I lost a major part of my weight on diet alone. However, you need exercise to ramp up your metabolism and to build lean muscle and to burn calories. Before I started this weight lose journey, I could not even ride my bike a full half mile before it would kill me. Now, slowly after 8 months I have built myself up to being able to slow jog 4 full miles without stopping! When your eating unhealthy, your body responds in a way similar of that of a race car with bad gas. A race car needs high performance race fuel or it wont even make it around the track once. Once you have added high performance fuel then you can slowly tune up the engine, put new race tires on it. Pretty soon, instead of spitting and sputtering your race car is now fit for a race. That's what I am trying to do. I am trying to get my body fit for a race. I am in the best condition of my life (which isn't saying much consider how bad it was before). The only thing I was racing before, was to be first in the lunch line.

What worked for me was the power 90 program. I incorporated independent dumbbell lifting, Biking, jogging, and a few other programs I found on beachbodys website such as turbo jam. Bottom line is that diet came first then exercise .

In conclusion, It's was pretty easy to lose the weight.

First I ate every 2 ½ to 3 hours, trying not to eat right before bedtime. I kept track of my calories on a website called fitday at fitday.com. Keeping track of my calories was easy since now I would only be eating 3 meals and 2 snacks, rather than eating all day. Keep track of my calories based on a formula based on my age, weight, height, sex, and exercise activity. What I used was found at Beachbody. I am sure you can find free calculators that will figure that out for you all over the internet, or ask your doctor.

Then start out slow with light exercise. Walk bike swim, do something. Over time if you keep eating right, your body will desire you to exercise, that fat will fall off. I lost over 60 pounds in the first 3 months. Now I am 115 pounds lost in 8 months and still losing. I have found a new way of life. My children and wife are eating healthier and exercising more. Atleast 50% of the people I knew before don't recognize me anymore. My doctor was very pleased, my resting heart rate was 56 in his office and 45 when the nurse measured it. He says im going to live an extra 20 years. I just want to be a good example to my wife and children who by the way have lost 70 pounds collectively.