Hello. :)
I figured it's time to
document my journey. Whether it helps anyone or not, it's helping me to
keep track of what I'm going through. This first post may be long because
I'm setting a precedent for myself. I'm announcing my goals and what
I want to accomplish and where I'd like to be in the next year. I've
always been a goal oriented person, going way back into my childhood. However much I have tried to follow goal
systems in the past, for some reason, they don't work for me as much as just
following what I can to do track things and not stick to someone else's tools
for me. I set goals, I check in with where I am on a daily basis and that
is what works for me.
Where to begin...
I love my life. I may
not necessarily love myself at times, but I do love me life. I have
the most wonderful wife and two great step sons, who I consider to be my sons.
I think nothing makes me stronger than the love I feel from my family and
the love I am able to give back to them. While we battle with various
aspects of life, persevere and come out triumphant every time, I
never lose sight of the fact that we have a strong bond of love between us.
In 1992, I began a
journey of losing weight from my hefty frame of 335 pounds. I succeeded
in using Richard Simmons Deal-a-Meal diet along with his exercise routines from
the various volumes of "Sweatin' to the Oldies". While he is a great marketing legend and a
lot of people (including himself) poke fun at him, he has helped millions of
people get back in shape and lose the weight. He helped me. I'll
post the article from my trek with Richard at the end of this post, so you can
read and see some before and after pictures from that time period that appeared
in his newsletter from 1995.
I lost 135 pounds
total and then made another 20 pound plunge from switching to a vegetarian
lifestyle in 1994. Which was a hard choice to make and eventually I made
the switch back to omnivore in 1998, due to lack of quick foods for busy
lifestyle at the time. I was exercising every day. Walking and
hiking for double digit miles on the weekend and feeling the best I ever have
in my life. I had quit smoking in 1991 and dropped all the weight I had
wanted to, by the middle of 1994. I was 180 pounds. This was WAY
too skinny for my frame. You could see my hip bones sticking out of my
side while I stretched into size 34 jeans. I eventually worked my weight
back up to 195/200 pounds in 1995 and sat there comfortably till I got involved
with a Blues Brother act named The Bruise Brothers in 1996 (but that's a story
for another time). I put on weight for the Bruise Brothers and rested at
the 235/240 weight for the duration of performing. I had picked up smoking
again in 1995 after battling depression, divorce and getting into a scary car
accident. I was back on the road to destruction of my health once again.
In 1999, my body had a
meltdown of sorts. I had heart palpitations after performing in the BB
act at a country club and bowed out of ever performing in this act ever again.
Since I was less active during the 1999 to 2003 years, I shot back up to
265 pounds. I was lazy and falling back into old patterns. I
needed a drug of sorts, and it was food and wine. I broke free for a
while when I got hooked into a relationship that was probably more
psychologically damaging than anything else. I clung to something that
wasn't there and tried to sugar coat it with the word "friendship"
which all it was, was a spiral downward. While spiraling, I realized that
I wanted more for myself so I started to separate slowly from the source of the
problem and cut drinking out (even though I was smoking again from the
depression of the relationship).
I decided to try dating
again, but was not having any luck finding anyone that matched. I was
sent on blind dates by friends who were setting me up with nightmarish women.
I then decided to try Match.com. Why? Because I had friends
who had great results with Match. After a few failed dates, I let the
account sit, until January of 2005. That is when my wife-to-be had popped
up in an email from Match's "best matches" email of the day. We
made contact and a short pause in the infancy of our emails to each other, we
were off and dating. I had never been with someone I have felt such a
great connection with, in my life. We married in 2006 and I have been
extremely happy ever since. At the time both of us smoked the same brand
of cigarettes. Our consumption was around 5 packs a day between us,
depending on the day of the week and any stressful things that were occurring
for us. That was expensive and unhealthy. We decided to quit in
2008 and have never looked back. When we quit, the weight came on faster
than we expected it too. At the time I struggled between 255 and 265 with
very little exercise. Within a year I was up 60 pounds to 320. A
year later I was sitting at 380 pounds. So uncomfortable that I hurt when
I slept and I started to feel like I was having sleeping issues. I
couldn't even bend over to tie my shoes.
In 2011 I was diagnosed
with sleep apnea and have slept with a CPAP machine every night. I have
more energy in my body now than I've had in my life. I have probably been
this way since I was in my early twenties. On the road to this diagnosis,
I started to cut back on high glycemic foods in 2009 and lost down to 330
pounds where I stayed until September 2011 when I had a sever attack of GERD.
My doctor put me on Omeprazole and a strict diet of no caffeine, no soda,
no citric acid and no sugar. Not the easiest thing to give all that up in
one pass, but I did. Plus I needed to drop weight when I got the
"pre-diabetes" diagnosis a month later. We both got on the
calorie counting bandwagon and started to walk more and workout more and drop
the weight. I got down to 299 pounds by February of 2012 and was on the
right track when we all of a sudden, it came to a halt and I got off the diet.
I have since put the weight back on to 325 pounds and am not feeling well
again. My blood sugar has climbed, but is not serious yet.
So here I am, ready to
commit again, in a different way. Ready to get healthy and bring myself
back into balance. This time I'm ready. It was like the smoking
cessation that we did back in 2008. It was time. You just get fed
up. Case in point, Labor Day 2012. My beautiful wife and I, decided
to go on a little spontaneous trip after we ate lunch. We ended up at the
beach in Winnetka off of Tower Rd. We parked at the top of the hill
and walked down the stairs to the bottom and onto the beach. When we got
there, we walked in the sand to the water and stood there enjoying the waves
and the cold water as it lapped at our feet. The walk through the sand
was strenuous for me. I was out of breath and my heart was racing.
When we finished, we had to walk through the sand but the worst part was
coming up before us; the long winding walk up the stairs to the car. I
had to pause and catch my breath and slow down my heart rate at least 3 times
before we reached the car. I hadn't felt that out of control and sad in a
very long time, about my weight, body and situation. I sat there the rest
of the day and fed upon it by eating too much and then having a few glasses of
wine. I just wanted to numb out and forget what was happening to me.
Why had I let this happen to me? All I need to do is to bring in my
lunch, starting eating healthier and stop all the bullshit eating that I've
been doing. "Put down the fork Dave!" is all I keep hearing in
my mind. The day I write this, is the day after Labor Day. I got up
this morning and shook it off and said, "enough of this." Its
now the time to go there. Its now the time to put together my manifesto for a
healthier life.
I want to live.
Standing at the beach yesterday it hit me. I want to go on journeys
with my wife, where we can hike in the mountains, run the beaches of the world,
enjoy the nightlife, dance, swim, run and just enjoy life with each other.
That's what I want for us. To be happy and healthy and loving life
and to share adventures together. So I am taking these first steps of the
equation for myself. Putting the fork down and turning to taking care of
my diet so that I can get this weight off and be healthy one again.
Join me on this journey.
I'll share some funny stories from my past to my present that cater from
food stories, to woes in the gym, to some philosophical diatribes that I might
have reeling around inside my head. I do have deep thoughts from time to
time, so now is the time to share them.
On all my forums, social
sites, music sites and profile pages I've always had this description of who I
am. "I'm a programmer by day; family man, musician, writer, artist,
photographer and videographer by night." Now is the time to add
something to that mix. "I'm a healthy person who is a programmer by
day...." This is where my mindset needs to change.
Namaste
Dave
Richard Simmons Newsletter from 1995
