LeahAndMark.com

This is the short run-down version of me being fat, losing weight, and on/off obsessing about the whole thing. How I feel. How I look. How I can keep up the transformation (whatever it is this-go-’round). I was a fat kid throughout my childhood and then two months before graduating high school, I realized that I needed to change things.

I was working at McDonald’s at the time. I immediately stopped eating any food while I was at work. Then I stopped eating most foods everywhere else – believe me, my mom really noticed. I mean, I literally stopped eating – you can imagine how it was to notice that all of a sudden the leftovers were piling up in the fridge. She yelled at me but being her son – I was too stubborn to listen. So.

After graduation I started riding my father’s old mountain bike through the cornfields of West Phoenix – back when 91st ave was the edge of town and from that point on it was rows and rows of desert and corn fields. I eventually got up to 20 miles a day and kept my calorie intake to 1,000 or less – this was also in the dead heat of a Phoenician summer. Since this was the first time I had really lost weight – it came off really fast. I went from 240lbs to 150lbs in roughly four months.

I lost 90lbs in four months. And I looked like this:

Okay. Blame my friends for allowing me to have that hair – and obviously looking back – I was sickly thin – at least for me. But at the time, I still wanted to lose more. My thoughts were that I had never been down that low before and I wanted to see exactly how far I could go. Fortunately, at the same time that my weightloss was occurring, I was also gaining confidence. Both from not being self conscious about my size and a sense of accomplishment from having done what I had never done before. All this confidence led me to a real social life. I started hanging out with my friends again and all of a sudden I didn’t need to be the hermit that I was. In fact, I wasn’t nearly as shy anymore because I didn’t have the same hangups. So that weightloss kick ran its course.

Like a normal person, I have fluctuated back and forth over the years since that initial kick and then almost a year and half ago from this writing, I did something different. We were leaving Phoenix and moving to Atlanta. Leah had left a month earlier and was in Atlanta while I stayed behind in Phoenix. The mortgage bank I was working at was shut down the week of Thanksgiving but they continued to pay me thru the end of year. All of a sudden I had lots of free time and the only thing I needed to do was sell all of our furniture and pack.

So. I started working out. I decided that I needed to drop some weight before moving to the Deep South – having only a slight idea about how awesomely good the food is in Atlanta. I had 26 days before Leah was to return and we would leave Phoenix.

Like any person obsessed, I rather meticulously created my plan. I think I did the math and decided that 20lbs was possible. The trouble though was that I had some considerable muscle mass (I had been working out, but not with the main goal of losing pure weight, but building muscle). So I decided that I would just drop weight. Whatever weight I could – no matter whether it was fat or muscle. I decided to run. And run. And that’s all. I even stopped doing ab work. All I did was run.

Now, you have to understand that I played high school football and I was the right guard (offensive line, beside the center). Offensive linemen are not known for their long distance running ability. I had 26 days. That first week of running really really sucked. I also had set out a goal of burning 1,000 calories from exercise per day during that time period. I ended up running an average of 7 miles per day. Or I would also throw in some time with the tread climber and elliptical machines. Sometimes I ran with techno-pop-remixes and sometimes the only sound I listened to was my heaving breath. I spent an hour at the gym on a good day, and on the worst, about 1 hour 45 minutes.

The math went something like this:

3,500 calories to burn a pound of fat. 20lbs = 70,000 calories to burn.

26,000 calories burned from exercise in 26 days.

An extra 2,000 calorie deficit per day = 52,000 calories (with the high approximation that I required 3,000 calories a day to “maintain”)

So. 52,000 + 26,000 = 78,000 calories. Theoretically 20lbs. Of course I knew that I wouldn’t be losing only fat, but also muscle – and at the time I didn’t care.

To keep track of everything, I took a photo every morning:

In the end I only lost about 14 lbs, but it seems like about 9-11 lbs of that was pure fat. I had achieved some success and in a very short period of time – on my own without a personal trainer.

I played a lot of mental mind games during that time and I actually look back on it with a level of admiration.

Then I moved to Atlanta and what started out as a short break from working out, turned into a break from working out while fully experiencing the best food that the South has to offer. Even after I joined a gym down the street I didn’t really let up on the food regimen. The stuff down here is SO good.

Once we joined yelp and writing ‘reviews’ of everyplace we ate at became an excuse to simply eat out more often – an obvious plan for weight gain.

Then China – and I was not about to restrict myself from fully experiencing that trip simply because I didn’t want get fat, or other silly notions that stop a person from experiencing life the way they want to experience it.

But now I’m back. After such a long break I’m ready to get back to the gym, to eat less, eat right and generally get back to fit. And while once it was all about simply dropping the weight, more and more it’s now just about being as fit as possible. As insanely fit as I can possibly be – because while it’s a nice feeling to look great – that general feeling of knowing that I choose to do this, that I had the ability to transform my body, and guide my mental thinking in a way that I can overcome the regular, lazy thinking that often takes over.

The voices that tell me to stop running, to take it easy, that I don’t need to work this hard. Whereas others choose the moderation route, I’ve never been very good at that when it comes to working out and achieving a goal. Leah will tell you that in many areas, I’m either on or off. Good or bad, that’s how I approach working out and fitness. It’s why I go to the gym to work and I actively seek that mentality when I’m there. Although it could be a bad thing, I’ve never made a friend at any of the gyms I’ve been a member of. I’m just not there for that.

So. Tomorrow (04.29.08) I start running. I start losing weight. I start getting fit again. And while this isn’t a fitness blog and I won’t turn it into that, it’s significant enough for me to mark the beginning of this session. The shoes I bought are only good for about 100-150 miles. So once I reach that milestone, I’ll buy a serious pair of running shoes.

Me in 2003

SO while I’m not trying to drop insane numbers of pounds and generally be a Spartan Warrior in the 300 – I’m aiming for my best – but on a slightly longer time line than 26 days. Like everything else, my weightloss/fitness journey has been evolving ever since it began – and these days I’m much more equipped in so many healthier ways.