Success Runs Uphill

Willie Davis, former Hall of Fame defensive end for the Packers and Browns (and Louisiana native), said that "the road to success runs uphill."  Indeed it does!  It takes real effort and tenacity to achieve success.  The further you go up the "success hill", the steeper the incline and the more ground to cover.   Sometimes you will lose your footing and want to stop, but you have to immediately bounce back and keep going.  Trust me - once you reach the summit of the hill, it will be well worth the effort!

I have created this blog for a few reasons - (1) to share my weight loss journey; (2) inspire you to keep running uphill to reach success; and (3) be a resource for any questions or comments you have along your journey.  Just remember if I can do this, then so can you!  I want this blog to help inspire you to lose the weight that you thought was not possible.  I hope that the details of my journey will let you know that you are not alone.  I wish I could say that there was a quick and easy way to lose weight, but I really can't.  Even with diet pills and weight loss surgery, it is imperative that you change your lifestyle.  It would be great to have a magic pill that you take and immediately lose any excess fat.

You might be thinking - what does this guy know?  Why should I even follow his blog?  I guess I can only say that I lost a lot of weight in a year without surgery or diet pills, and have some guidance to give to you.  My way is the "cold turkey" way of losing weight, which takes willpower, visualization, and goal setting.

Here is a little about me:

At my heaviest in January, 2018, I weighed almost 410 pounds.  My waist size was around a 56, and my shirt size was a XXXXL.  I am fairly tall (6'7), so I can get away with a little extra weight.  However, I knew that a change was needed in the worst way after crossing over the 400 mark.

What had caused this weight gain? I was always a big guy, but not THIS big.  In high school, I was the biggest person in the room, but active.  I played football and got outside a lot.  When I started college at the University of Alabama, I felt that I needed to lose some weight and tried out the "Subway diet," which consisted of eating only Subway sandwiches for each meal. You might remember this diet and the spokesman Jared.  Amazingly, the diet actually worked! I lost around 50 pounds pretty quick, but gained it all back again after going back to regular eating.  The true key to this diet was starvation, which is not the best way to lose weight.  I tried out various other diets along the way with some success, but I would always go back to my old ways of eating and gain more weight than I lost.  Consistency was not my forte.

I moved to New Orleans around 2012, which prides itself as a city of excess in all manners.  It is a haven for foodies and has many James Beard award winners within the City limits.  New Orleans does not scream healthy in any sense of the word.  We have more bars per capita than any other city, and the State of Louisiana ranks last in any healthy measure.  The usual NOLA meal consists of fried seafood with fried potatoes, bread, some variant of a thick fatty sauce, and dessert.  The food is awesome, but the consequences can be drastic.  The way of life in New Orleans is food and alcohol.  When I think of how I got to be over 400 pounds, the one word that stands out is excess.

My diet was terrible.  I would exercise a few times a week beginning in 2017 and 2018, but immediately go and get a double cheeseburger with fries at one of the local burger joints.  The burger was great, but it wiped away any progress I made with exercise.  My diet consisted of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches or biscuits for breakfast, chocolate muffins for snacks throughout the day, fatty sandwiches with fries or wings for lunch, and pizza or take out for dinner.  My wife and I would also go out to eat often.  We had to try all of the good restaurants on the scene, which caused many a "food coma." I was probably consuming 4,500+ calories on a daily basis!

I remember that I loved to go to the Chinese buffet.  There were so many food options.  My wife would always be the beacon of reason and talk me out of going.  However, when she went out of town I knew that I could go without guilt.  I would probably eat four to five plates of food by myself.  Believe me - these plates weren't packed with vegetables!  These plates were packed with sweet and sour chicken, wings, french fries, dumplings, noodles, fried shrimp, and cookies.  There wasn't one healthy choice in the mix.  After eating all of this food, I would go home and feel sick to my stomach for hours on end, but it felt worth it.  This was just one example, among many, that led to my 400+ pound lifestyle.

The Big Awakening:

In January, 2018, I had my annual physical.  I had my weight checked during the visit and the scale registered close to 410 pounds.  My primary care doctor put down on his notes "morbid obesity." Morbid obesity is something that you definitely don't want - it is a diagnosis where your Body Mass Index ("BMI") is 40 or above.  A healthy BMI is in the range of 18.5 - 24.9.  It is well understood that as your weight goes up, so does your risk of complications and chance of dying.  For example, 3.2 percent of new cancer diagnoses were caused by obesity.  Additionally, the American Stroke Association found that having a BMI of 30 or greater contributes to twice the risk of suffering a stroke than those individuals with a healthy BMI.  I could go on and on with additional statistics on how obesity contributes to other health issues.  Suffice it to say, a diagnosis of morbid obesity is scary, and it got me to thinking about the future.  If I kept going the rate that I was going, then I didn't have much time left.

I started exercising 3 - 4 times a week in February without changing my diet.  I lost around 40 pounds.  In August, 2018, I changed my diet and have lost more than 90 pounds to date for a total of 130 pounds in a little over a year.   It hasn't been easy and I have seen some failures.  The key, though, is to fail fast and get back on the wagon.

What's Next?

Now that you know a little of my story and my success, I hope that you decide to continue to follow my journey.  I will write at least twice a month, if not more.  My next blog will be about the first few weeks of my exercise transition right after I got a diagnosis of morbid obesity and what I learned.  Remember, it won't be easy, but it will be worth it.

Mike