DAY 365!!!!!!!!

Day 365 of 365!!!!!

 Well it's the moment of truth. Day 365!!!!!! It has been one year since I made up my mind to get in better overall health. I wanted to work off 75 pounds. I was going to have to change my whole lifestyle of eating and working out. I was going to have to learn discipline.

Weight
July 12, 2011 = 301.9 lbs
July 12, 2012 = 231.8 lbs

That's a grand total of 70.1 pounds in exactly 1 year! I did come up a few pounds short of my 75 pound goal but I am very happy with the outcome. I am not going to tell you all it was easy and that I had no problems along the way. It was fucking hard! I had slip ups, there were days that I ate till I was sick or wanted to quit. But I had set up goals along the way to help me get thru ruts. Even if it was a simple goal as just lose a pound this week or lets try not to gain. Monthly goals of 3 pounds or 5 pounds. I always had to have a goal set, how else was I going to reward myself with some kind of treat haha.

So how did I do it?
I starved myself ha, just kidding. I can tell you what worked for me was starting weight watchers, help from family and friends, and exercise. Seems so simple, why didn't I think of this when I was in my twenties???? Weight watchers was a HUGE help to me. I was leery at first really. I have tried weight watchers before and was successful in losing a little weight but had gotten off it because why pay someone to tell me to eat right. It is much more than that I now know. Yes, I do go to the meetings. Every Thursday you can catch me in the meeting sitting there and mostly listing. Its comforting being in a room with people that go through the same struggles and to hear what they have to say about what works and what doesn't work for them. I found an amazing leader that the program has worked for. Actually a leader that is the same age as myself. I am not saying that the older leaders are not good by any means, I just simply can relate to her more than I could someone that is 20-30 years older than me. What WW taught me was that I can eat whatever I want. If I want pizza one night I can have pizza, by god if I want that blizzard I can have it. May have to work a little harder that week but you know what I can have it. It has taught me what a portion really is. It really gave me that discipline to weigh out my food, to really look ok this is a cup, or this is 4 oz. Not just to throw it on my plate and think well that looks like a serving. Trust me, what I thought was a serving well lets just say it was a serving for a family of 2 or 3. I have learned a lot from them and will continue to do so.

Friends and family have helped me along the way as well. From encouraging words to helpful things they have tried and done over the years, and great recipes that most of you have seen or tried while visiting my casa. Most have taken notice of my change and have asked what I have been doing differently which I will gladly tell them what has worked for me. Everyone is different so you have to make the plan work for you.

Why do I do these things?
Well not far into my challenge, I had one of my good friends talk me into signing up for TOUGH MUDDER. If you do not know what tough mudder is go to their websit www.toughmudder.com and watch the video, its basically a 12 mile race though mud, water, hills, and doing some crazy obstacles and then running through 10,000 volt electric lines at the end. What got us to sign up for this is we ran a race called warrior dash. Which is a 5K though mud, water and some obstacles. Which wasnt so bad. I finished in an hour and ten minutes. Which for me that was pretty good considering I was 300lbs and it was over 100 out. So after the race we start talking about these other races. I am thinking to myself, hell NO. I can barley run half a mile without stopping and you want me to do 12 miles. Soooo of course I said YES lets do it! I think my brain says NO but my mouth didn't get the message. So We sign up to run the tough mudder in early march in Indiana, AND tough mudder in June again. So I thought not bad I can train and get through them both may take some time but hey this will push me to lose the weight.

Well March rolls around and they postpone the Tough Mudder due to it could be freezing and they really do not want us to freeze to death. So I thought not a problem they change the date to June... Well wouldn't you know it is the same weekend as warrior dash!!!!! Well we could have both said hell with that we are only doing tough mudder, BUT what is the fun in that. We thought to ourselves LETS DO BOTH THE SAME WEEKEND.... Warrior Dash on Saturday, Tough Mudder on Sunday. Now while this may not be a problem for some of you, lets recap me=300lbs well I was hoping to be 250 ish by then or lower but hey thats going to be alot for this guy!

Weekend starts with Warrior Dash, its only about 100 outside so your typical Illinois muggy weather and we are about to start the race. Its a 5k with 12 obstacles. Last year I ran it in over an hour. This year I crossed the finish line in 38 minutes. I was really amazed at my progress, I have been running and getting in better shape but I had no clue that I would better myself by that much! So onto Tough Mudder... Well as we were at dinner that night it started to pour down. I guess they got a TON of rain so when we went to bed that night and email came out canceling the tough mudder event for Sunday. So after a little complaining about it being washed out we came to terms with it and decided not to ask for a refund but to just sign up for the Tough Mudder 2013 Chicago. So just when i thought I was going to get out of it I turn around and sign up to do it again... I have been told I'm not right in the head haha. So I am still training for this, which I think is good. It will keep that competitive edge that I have.

I also have started Insanity workouts, along with back to the gym. I am currently in my 2nd round of Insanity and I LOVE IT. It is some intense workouts but it really gives you results. Great workouts can not say anything bad about them at all! Can not wait to really see the results of my hard work!

Keep it up

I know that the scale is not the only measure of success. Yes I have dropped 70 pounds and it feels great. My knees really have stopped aching, my bad is no longer stiff after sleeping or playing softball. My joints feel good and I know that it is only going to get better!

I have gone from a 3xl t-shirt down to a XL in this year
shorts/jeans have gone from a 46W to a 40W
wedding ring slips on and off easily tho the wife may not like that but it feels great to not have it feel like its strangling my finger.

I know that to keep on this track I have to continue doing the things that I have learned. Hard work pays off and I know that now.

So now that my 365th day is over I have a new goal in mind. 

1) Weigh in at 195 by Christmas
2) Keep working hard at it.

I have much more work to do and look forward to it now. Thank you everyone for all your helpful words along the way!

I think its time for some new shorts.....