One year ago today (well, the actual date would be Saturday, but it was the third Friday in May), I stood on a scale and set an Augusta's Biggest Loser record with a 143.4-lb weight loss. Others lost more, both in season 2 and season 3 - but no one had surpassed losing 41% of their body weight. There was a lot of pressure (including some from myself) to push down below 200 pounds by weigh-in time on that Friday night. The last eleven days were a furious push to the finish - my trainer gave me a four-hour per day workout routine; the weight loss center had me on about 600 calories per day. I started that eleven days at 208 pounds, and lost 9 pounds by the final weigh-in.
Extreme? Yes. Recommended for everyone? Categorically, no. But for me, in that moment, I learned that I could do anything that I set out to do. And that was totally worth it!
Where am I at, one year later? Well, to be quite honest, I weigh about 18 pounds more than I want to weigh. I'm fighting the "spare tire" along with all of my middle-aged friends. I don't exercise as much as I was exercising last year; I'm not quite as strict with my diet. Last year I bought several pairs of denim shorts with a size 34 waist, and I am still wearing them this year. (Before ABL, I was wearing size 48, with elastic or drawstrings, and that was a stretch.) In November of '09, my shirts were a 3X, and my girth at my navel measured a staggering 59 inches. When I began writing about my experience, I wrote a list of things I couldn't do when I started. These included rolling over in bed without running out of breath; squatting down to pick something up off the floor; and climbing the stairs to my office without getting winded. It has been so long since those things have been hard that I don't even remember what it felt like to live life so restrained. The only thing on that list that is difficult is the squatting, and that's due to creaky knees!
I keep mementos of my weight loss journey around me all the time. I still have the pictures on my desk of myself and my teammates; on the wall is a copy of the article in the Augusta Chronicle about ministers and obesity, which featured my picture on the front of the religious section; and I still have the notebook that I put together with photos, my blog entries, and other things that remind me of where I was and what I did. (I also still have half a box of CSRA Active magazines with Nandy and me on the cover, if anyone wants one!)
I'm always conscious of what I eat; if I cheat, I'm aware of what I'm doing, and I try to compensate for it. I am still very careful with carbs, sodium, and red meat. One of the things that surprised me when I was finished with ABL was how much I had learned without realizing it. During some of our sessions at PHC Weight Loss Center, we were given a lot of information - almost too much to absorb in one sitting. I still have notes from those sessions, but I no longer need to refer to them. One year later, much of it is just second nature. I have a whole new set of "defaults" - things that I do automatically. If I'm at a restaurant, I'm looking at salads and grilled chicken. I have not eaten a fast-food burger since October of 2009. I don't think in terms of "going on a diet" - to me, going on a diet meant putting myself on a self-depriving regimen of specific foods in order to lose weight, and that at some point in the future, I would no longer have to be "on a diet". Everyone is "on a diet" - your diet is simply what you eat. There are just certain foods that my diet no longer includes, as well as some that it shouldn't include, but that I still sneak a little of, anyway. My weaknesses? French fries, candy, and portion sizes.
I had a conversation with a friend recently about body image - for a very long time, there was a huge disconnect between the "me" I saw in photographs, and the "me" I saw in the mirror. The guy in the pictures was skinny; the guy in the mirror was fat. I wrote about this in my blog last March or so... since then, I have learned that body dysmorphia is a common condition in those that lose large amounts of weight. I "feel" fatter at 230 pounds than I did at 350 pounds.
Many of you who followed my journey and read my blogs last year have said to me that you don't have "the willpower" to lose weight. Overcoming bad habits is NOT easy - in any area of life - but it's totally worth the effort! Don't give up. On the night we all found out that we had been selected, they had the previous year's winners talk to us about the competition. Bernard got up and said, "if I can do this, ANYONE can do this." I thought he was crazy - but he was right, and I extend the same advice to you: If I can do this, you can, too.
