My Story
I hit a series of "rock bottoms" over the course of the last 18 months. In April of 2009 I won a seat on the first run of Kings Island's brand new roller coaster, Diamondback. I told many people and there was a big crowd at Kings Island that day as it was also my employer's Associate Appreciation Day. When the time came, I sat down in the seat and pulled the restraint towards me. Bursting with excitement, I didn't even notice that it didn't click. When the park employees came around to do the seat check, they pulled on my restraint and it flew right up. They pushed it down again and it wouldn't click. A pretty young female associate said, with zero compassion, "Sir, you're too heavy to fit in the seat. I'm going to have to escort you from the ride." I did the walk of shame and repeated it over and over emotionally when my friends and family asked me about the ride over the next few weeks.
The second rock bottom was the next month in May 2009. I was on a vacation to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in TN/NC. My wife was so excited to go horseback riding down there and so was I. When I called to make the reservation, they asked her name, age, and weight. My breath caught. I was next. When I said, "Jon Meyer, 30 years old...it's actually my birthday..., and 360 pounds," there was a pause. Before they could formulate an appropriate response I said, "Just cancel the whole thing" and hung up.
That vacation had a series of further disappointments including not being able to buy any clothes as souvenirs or at the outlet malls, not being able to hike more than 2 miles without feeling like I would pass out, not being able to kayak because I wouldn't fit, and not being able to run around and play with my son because I was so tired.
Enough is enough...
The straw that broke the camel's back was actually a two-fold smack-in-the-face. In February through April of 2010, the church that my family attends went through a series that focused on how figuring out what things are holding you back in life...how to free yourself. Over the course of the 6-week series, we completed assignments in a workbook that helped us to form a sentence that described what was keeping us from being free. My sentence (which turned out to be both a series of words and a "sentence" like that of a judgement laid down by a court) was "My inability to lose weight and keep it off has caused me to believe with all of my being that I can't succeed in anything that I do." That was hard to stomach, no pun intended. The day following my completion of the final assignment to formulate that sentence, I heard one of my coworkers crying at her desk. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that her 35 year-old neighbor had died over the weekend and that his children found him dead in his bed the next morning. That was it. Being able to put a true face to my greatest fear (dying young and not being able to raise my son and love my wife) was palpable.
I called my doctor immediately...I mean like 60 seconds later and asked for an emergency appointment. When the nurse asked about my illness, I said, "I think I'm killing myself." She got me an appointment within about 3 hours and I met my doctor to talk to him about what to do. We decided that I should enter a local hospital's Weight Management Center and he wrote a Letter of Medical Necessity for me. Reading that was just another punch in the gut. Using phrases like "comorbidities" and "recalcitrant to change," he laid out the reason why I was slowly digging my own grave and why I needed to start this program.
So, at a beginning weight of 348.2 pounds, I enrolled in the program. It's a three-phase program that involved some meal replacements, medical monitoring, nutritional counseling, behavioral counseling, fitness consultations, and (most importantly) a peer support group. The first phase involves using the meal replacements and some regular food to help you learn to eat smaller meals spread out over the day. That goes on for 12-18 weeks. The next 6 weeks are used to ween you from the meal replacements, and the third phase is a life-long sustaining program that helps you maintain (and continue, if needed) your weight loss with a new, healthy lifestyle.
I called my doctor immediately...I mean like 60 seconds later and asked for an emergency appointment. When the nurse asked about my illness, I said, "I think I'm killing myself." She got me an appointment within about 3 hours and I met my doctor to talk to him about what to do. We decided that I should enter a local hospital's Weight Management Center and he wrote a Letter of Medical Necessity for me. Reading that was just another punch in the gut. Using phrases like "comorbidities" and "recalcitrant to change," he laid out the reason why I was slowly digging my own grave and why I needed to start this program.
So, at a beginning weight of 348.2 pounds, I enrolled in the program. It's a three-phase program that involved some meal replacements, medical monitoring, nutritional counseling, behavioral counseling, fitness consultations, and (most importantly) a peer support group. The first phase involves using the meal replacements and some regular food to help you learn to eat smaller meals spread out over the day. That goes on for 12-18 weeks. The next 6 weeks are used to ween you from the meal replacements, and the third phase is a life-long sustaining program that helps you maintain (and continue, if needed) your weight loss with a new, healthy lifestyle.
Making the change
Sam & I running on 7/4/2010
I started that program on Tuesday, March 30th and entered the sustaining program on Tuesday, August 24th. On May 5th at 5:10am I started the Couch-to-5K (C25K) running program. I hated the first week. Then, after the W1D3 (Week 1 Day 3), I realized that I had completed a full week of the program and was energized. I saw substantial weight loss over the following weeks and started to crave the running. I scheduled my first 5K for the 4th of July and scheduled out my training from that day until the 4th. The transformation in my mind from "working out/exercising" to "training" was HUGE. Now, I'm preparing for an event as an athlete.
The proverbial "widow-maker" of the C25K is W5D3: Run 20 minutes without walking. I enrolled the help of some runner friends and ran it like a champ. I loved it. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. You hear TV personalities talk about how "...today will be a changing day in your life." At that moment, I believe it. I was no longer a fat guy that was exercising; I was a runner, an athlete, and I my life would never be the same.
Not long after all of this happened I had some great things happen:
(1) I was selected as a Team Trainer for the Team Metabolife "My First 5K" Challenge. I was sponsored! What a feeling...
(2) I rekindled my love of cycling. By selling off some treasured possessions, I was able to buy a good road bike (not easy...I'm tall)
(3) I registered for an event about which I had dreamt in competing for YEARS: The Little Miami Triathlon. (Canoe 6/Run 5.5/Bike 18).
(4) I continued to train and ran my first 10K on August 15th, 2010...AT KINGS ISLAND! I run under Diamondback, knowing full well that I could ride any ride in the park, except the one's for which I'm too TALL!
Now I am training my team, helping countless facebook friends along the journey, helping several friends to lose substantial amounts of weight, actively blogging about being a Clydesdale athlete (over 200 lbs), and posting on endurance/health/fitness forums about my experiences...it's just awesome.
Here are my LTD (Life-To-Date) vitals from March 30th through today:
Weight- B:348.2 / A: 253.0 - Down 94.8 (and counting)
Waist - B: 54" / A: 42" - Down 12" (and counting)
BMI - B: 41.3 / A: 29.9 - Down 11.4 full points (and counting) - I'm officially "Overweight"!
Blood Pressure: B: 130 over 80 / A: 110 over 71 - Down from Borderline to Normal
Cholesterol: B: 175 / A: 104 - Down 71 points while increasing my "good" cholesterol
Triglycerides: B: 129 / A: 74 - Down 55 points
The last three are so important because my paternal grandfather, my father, and 4 of my paternal uncles have severe heart disease. Heart attacks, by-passes, stints...you name it. Not me...I'm breaking the cycle.
To me, that's the ultimate goal: BREAK THE CYCLE. I haven't spoken much about my son so far, but he is my reason for living. He is 5 years old and knew that I was unhealthy. He now talks about running, has run in two "Fun Runs" after my races, and loves to set out his "running clothes" next to mine for my morning runs. He told me this weekend, "Daddy, I can tell that you are healthy now." Five years old...awesome.
When people ask me if I'm proud of my success, I reply, "Yes, I'm proud of what I've been able to accomplish. However, I'll know that I've truly succeeded when my son is 31 years old and is totally healthy, active, and the cycle is broken.
The proverbial "widow-maker" of the C25K is W5D3: Run 20 minutes without walking. I enrolled the help of some runner friends and ran it like a champ. I loved it. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. You hear TV personalities talk about how "...today will be a changing day in your life." At that moment, I believe it. I was no longer a fat guy that was exercising; I was a runner, an athlete, and I my life would never be the same.
Not long after all of this happened I had some great things happen:
(1) I was selected as a Team Trainer for the Team Metabolife "My First 5K" Challenge. I was sponsored! What a feeling...
(2) I rekindled my love of cycling. By selling off some treasured possessions, I was able to buy a good road bike (not easy...I'm tall)
(3) I registered for an event about which I had dreamt in competing for YEARS: The Little Miami Triathlon. (Canoe 6/Run 5.5/Bike 18).
(4) I continued to train and ran my first 10K on August 15th, 2010...AT KINGS ISLAND! I run under Diamondback, knowing full well that I could ride any ride in the park, except the one's for which I'm too TALL!
Now I am training my team, helping countless facebook friends along the journey, helping several friends to lose substantial amounts of weight, actively blogging about being a Clydesdale athlete (over 200 lbs), and posting on endurance/health/fitness forums about my experiences...it's just awesome.
Here are my LTD (Life-To-Date) vitals from March 30th through today:
Weight- B:348.2 / A: 253.0 - Down 94.8 (and counting)
Waist - B: 54" / A: 42" - Down 12" (and counting)
BMI - B: 41.3 / A: 29.9 - Down 11.4 full points (and counting) - I'm officially "Overweight"!
Blood Pressure: B: 130 over 80 / A: 110 over 71 - Down from Borderline to Normal
Cholesterol: B: 175 / A: 104 - Down 71 points while increasing my "good" cholesterol
Triglycerides: B: 129 / A: 74 - Down 55 points
The last three are so important because my paternal grandfather, my father, and 4 of my paternal uncles have severe heart disease. Heart attacks, by-passes, stints...you name it. Not me...I'm breaking the cycle.
To me, that's the ultimate goal: BREAK THE CYCLE. I haven't spoken much about my son so far, but he is my reason for living. He is 5 years old and knew that I was unhealthy. He now talks about running, has run in two "Fun Runs" after my races, and loves to set out his "running clothes" next to mine for my morning runs. He told me this weekend, "Daddy, I can tell that you are healthy now." Five years old...awesome.
When people ask me if I'm proud of my success, I reply, "Yes, I'm proud of what I've been able to accomplish. However, I'll know that I've truly succeeded when my son is 31 years old and is totally healthy, active, and the cycle is broken.