My Story
My Journey of Losing 125 lbs
Losing weight is hard.
A lifetime of persistent dieting had left some serious scars on my heart, soul, and mind and each failed diet left deeper wounds making it harder to start the next time.
There are so many struggles with weight loss that it feels like being asked to slay a dragon armed only with a pencil and carboard body armor. Like you must climb a 20,000-foot mountain in a single step. If I had to summarize how it felt in a single word it would be “overwhelming.”
In my own life, I had done the up and down thing. It was a predictable pattern. I would gain weight, reach a point where I couldn’t take it anymore, go on some miserable diet till I lost some weight, then I would stop the miserable diet and slowly gain the weight back. However, to add insult to injury, each time I gained the weight back I would gain a little more. I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I equated losing weight with failure and more weight gain.
Each time I stopped dieting I would take a little bit longer to go back on another miserable diet. I often had to wait for a massive source of motivation, a triggering moment. Perhaps it would be a number too high on the scale, a picture of me that hid nothing, the feeling of busting out my cloths, an overly honest comment from a young child, perhaps a work competition, or maybe a special event. Whatever the reason, I would latch onto that source of motivation and race to drop as much weight as I could before the motivation ran dry.
Losing weight shouldn’t be a race and yet it was for me every time. Not a race against anyone else, but a race against my own willingness to continue. I needed to lose the weight before I would give up.
I started each diet looking gleefully looking forward to the day when I would get to quit doing it. I would tell myself I was happy with the diet I was doing all along the way, but the truth is I was never happy with it. Sure, it is fun to eat chicken wings, bacon, and steak all the time while I did Keto for the 6th time, but damn it does get old after a bit. You can only eat so many omelets and cheese sticks before it just get's REALLY old.
This battle against my will continued for decades. Sometimes I would only lose 2 or 5 lbs. and other times I would lose over 50 lbs. Each time ended in burnout where I would go running back to the life that made me fat. The moment something unexpected came up I would toss my plan out the window and say I will pick it back up next week. Then I would just sort of…..forget. No one was asking about it and I sure wasn’t going to bring it up.
Failure…..again.........
Every time I gave up there would be this moment where I would be alone with my thoughts and I would ask myself, “what’s wrong with me? why can’t I do this?”
Each failed diet was just another check mark in the “reasons why I suck” column that I kept in my mind.
I felt stuck.
I felt like I would never get this weight off.
I felt like I was missing something that was possessed by others who had been successful at losing weight. I felt hopeless and so I resigned myself to my fate. “I guess I’m just a big guy” is what I would tell myself. I guess I didn’t win the genetic lottery so what’s the point? I’ll just lose and gain forever, so I might as well find a way to be cool with being the big guy.
I would search for ways to be happy with myself. I talked about my love for food and declared my disdain for exercise. I would do everything possible to reinforce the belief that I was okay with being big and of course I did this!! Who wants to live a life being unhappy? I know I sure didn’t.
So I convinced myself I was happy.
But I wasn’t happy. In those quiet moments alone. Looking at myself in the mirror I would feel shame. Shame at what I had done. Shame at my lack of self-control. Shame in my seeming inability to get my weight and body under control. Shame at my long string of failed diets in my past.
I was waiting for something or someone to save me…. and I was losing hope that it would happen.
Before I lost my 125 lbs. I would read, watch, and listen to stories of people who had experienced massive weight loss. As I consumed those stories I would tell myself that it would never be me. I would never have one of those stories.
I used to think that they all had something I didn’t that allowed them to be successful. That there was something wrong with me. Something that was preventing me from achieving success.
The reality is there was nothing wrong with me at all! I had just been trying the wrong approach.
Then, one day, I had enough. I was sick and tired and being sick and tired and I needed to change.
So, I set out on a journey. A journey to lose the weight and to have the body and life I always dreamed of. I decided that I was going to do things differently than I had ever done them before and I was going to get this weight off.
And I did!
I am now on the other end of that journey, 125 lbs smaller and I have now dedicated my life to help others achieve the same results I did. I do so by taking a wholistic and sensible approach towards weight loss. No shortcuts, no bullshit fad diets, no restricting whole food groups categorically. Just good old fashioned weight loss the slow and stable way.
I have had great success with my clients, and I would love to help you achieve your weight loss goals.
I know how vulnerable it can feel to ask for help with this journey. I know how overwhelming and daunting this can seem. I want you to know that you do have the strength to achieve this.
You can do this!