My 100 Pounds

 The picture above shows me, on the left, on May 1st, 2003. I'm not quite sure how much I weighed in that picture, but I believe it was around 240lbs. Even in this picture, I had lost some weight from my heaviest. I'm not really sure what I weighed when I was at my heaviest. The last thing that I wanted to look at was the scale. I has a very poor self image. I was living my life with the mindset that I was the "short fat kid in school." I had never really watched what I ate let alone exercised, especially since High School. In 2002 I have left retail for a warehouse job. I needed out of the stresses of being a manager and just go to work, punch a clock, do my job, and go home. The warehouse job was perfect for me. What I didn't realize, how physical this job was going to be. This job kicked my butt! I'm not afraid of hard work, but holy cow. I was even sore after a couple of days. With this increased physical activity, I began to lose weight. Imagine that, losing weight with increased physical activity. So, I decided to start watching what I consumed to help this weight loss along. Sure enough, it helped. Now, when I say, I watched what I consumed, don't get that confused with "dieting." I still ate what I liked, but just ate smaller portions. I limited myself to just one can of soda per day as opposed to the 4 or more that I had been drinking. Over the next year or so, the weight just kept dropping and I soon got to under 200 lbs. I felt amazing and my body was getting down to what I had weighted in High School. The weight seemed to stop dropping at around 185lbs. I was able to maintain that weight for the couple of years. Even though I knew that I was still overweight, I didn't feel obese. I had a different self image. In 2006 I began to realize that even though I had lost all this weight, playing with my son was still a struggle at times. Sure, I had more energy, but I had no stamina. I was out of shape. In early 2007 I decided to purchase P90x. I was going to work on my body and get in better shape and lose some more weight. What I found out was, P90x is not for beginners! Exercise and I had been mortal enemies for so long that jumping into this program insane. To make a long story short, I managed my way through the program the program, not once but twice. In 2008, in order to replace the cardio days of the program with something I could do outside, I began running. Once again, running, a form of exercise, we had been mortal enemies. I motivated myself through it and in 2009 ran the full 6 mile of The Great River Bridge Run in Burlington, IA in just under an hour. Also in 2009, I got down to around 165 lbs. I am guessing that in total I had lost almost 100 lbs. As of today I have put back on about 30 lbs, but I began running again this week and plan on losing 20 lbs. This weight loss journey had many ups and downs. I wanted to give up and I wanted to quit. But what I understood was, all the effort and pain that I am going through today, will pay HUGE in the end, if I just stick with it. I wasn't disappointed.

Dream Big...Pursue Big...Live Big

That's me in the orange shirt crossing the finish line of the Great River Bridge Race in '09.