Guest Post - Dave Who Lost 109 Pounds

I have an exciting announcement.  I will be starting to feature a series of guest posts for you all.  I am eager to share with you stories and/or topics from other maintainers who have lost a large amount of weight.  Dave is our token male on our 100+ Maintainers board.  He puts up with a lot of "girl talk" and we love having him as a part of our daily thread.

Without further ado, here is Dave’s story.

 

A special thanks to Lindsay is a Lifetime Member for asking me to share my weight loss story and my observations during my journey. Really my weight loss story and the observations are one and the same.

I was told while clothes shopping I needed to buy size 50 pants, and I said oh, heck no! After a long walk and some stairs, I was very winded and started getting light headed and dizzy. I went to my doctor shortly after and saw on the scale, my weight had a 3 as the first digit. It was a real wake-up call. I vowed to myself then to lose weight. I sought professional counseling help and she suggested Weight Watchers as the healthiest way to lose weight and keep it off, but I needed to make a 3-year commitment otherwise I shouldn't even bother, because I have to be mentally ready to start a journey as challenging as losing weight.

I started Weight Watchers after a heart-to-heart talk with my girlfriend about being healthy (later my fiancé, now my wife, and mother of our son) and we started our weight loss journey together on tax day in 2009. I had trouble believing that any weight loss plan could work for me because of my past failures to lose weight and I was scared to try it. I nearly freaked out when the receptionist mentioned signing up for an entire month!

I have discovered quite a bit about myself and my habits. I am a “stress eater”. Stress and emotions are linked to eating for me. Just recently, I had a really rough day at work, came home and immediately went to the refrigerator and instead of pulling out something less than ideal, I reached for some grapes and a low fat cheese stick. I still ate, but it was a lot better choice than I would have made before starting Weight Watchers.

 

I have also learned how tightly connected celebrations are with food. Now when I hit a weight loss milestone, I engage in a little retail therapy/celebration and pick up something I have had my eye on.

You have to find an exercise you like to do or you won't continue with it. For me it is swimming and running. As an anniversary present to ourselves, we got a membership to the local community center. I learned to swim about 3 years ago (birthday present from sweet wife) and I wanted to use the swimming facilities. I found a water aerobics class I really enjoyed and I was shocked to find an exercise I wanted to do even if it was at 6:30AM three days a week. My sweet wife tells me it is so I can gossip and I like group exercising. As I approached my 40th birthday, I made a big decision to keep my weight loss going because I was getting close enough to goal that now I had an urgent desire to reach it. I was inspired by one of my weight watchers meeting friends to do a Couch to 5K program. The program really worked and I've completed at least one 5K per month since April 2012 as a runner. I’m 10 for 10 with my new year’s resolution to run one 5k per month in 2013.

Now, I’m not winded after walking a flight of stairs and at the end of a long day, I still have the energy to go for a bike ride or more. I don’t even mind going to my doctor and hearing him say the same little cliché every time, “Why, Dave, you are wasting away in front of me.”

Now, I have a feeling of confidence I had never had in my life. I am able to believe in myself and the ability to handle various life situations when it comes to food. I feel better about myself than I have in a long time and I know that changing my eating habits and exercise has helped me to get this far on my journey. There have been ups and downs and I believe that I now have the tools to control how much I eat and exercise.

 
My work requires me to travel a substantial amount each year and this was a big concern for me. With a little pre-planning of where I am traveling, I have been able to lose weight or at least maintain while traveling. I have also attended Weight Watchers meetings in 5 states during my travels. I have changed my choices but not my lifestyle as it relates to food. I eat out for lunch most days and I eat real "man" food, like tacos, steak, or the pork chops mainly through using restaurants’ nutritional guides to make better choices.

I'm proud to tell people that I’m 1/3 of the man I used to be, going from 304 pound to 195 pounds and made it to goal January 2013.

Since becoming a father in May, I haven’t been very good at consistent blogging, but I do have my own blog at http://kcwwdave.wordpress.com Feel free to join me as I continue my journey, called life and living more healthy.