The Greatest is Love

[tamado]

On June 5 of 2007 I began a journey when I decided to quit nicotine.  I had been dipping tobacco since I was 12 and I was then over 30.  I had tried to quit many times but was never motivated enough to stick with it.  I turned to the help of an online support community and over time learned how to quit and what motivates me.  I will tell you what does not motivate me – fear and self-loathing.  When I felt like a failure for not quitting, when I was scared for my health or financial impact, the quitting was short lived.  So what changed?  I decided I did not want this thing to control my life.  I wanted control.  It was robbing me of time with family, of money and joy and I deserved better. 

Fast forward over eight years.  I have now changed careers from a telecommuting IT support rep to a business owner and baker.  The active lifestyle helped me shed about 20 pounds over time but I still felt crappy about how I looked.  I am 5’9” and from 285 to 265 I am still obese.  My mom had a fitbit she wasn’t using so I took it and used it for a while before buying my own but that really got me thinking about my health.  I injured my knee last year when taking down some trees and it still hurts.  I don’t want to be just another fat guy with knee problems.  I don’t want to tell me kids that daddy’s knee hurts too much to go on the hike when we are at the lake.  I don’t want to have a heart attack and die at 50 like some of my relatives have.  I realized that self-loathing, negative body image and defeatism were not going to make me lose weight.  I need to love myself enough to be healthy.  I need to love my family enough to be healthy for them. 

With enthusiasm and joy, I have begun a journey to a healthier me.  I started by ditching all sugary drinks.  I used to drink well over a liter (32oz) of pop a day and at times, double that.  Then, I started logging calories and then I started looking at the macronutrient components of the calories I was choosing to put in my body.  I have read and read and read and am slowly developing a plan that works for me.  I am still eating and eating well but looking at food as fuel, not a source of comfort or a cure for boredom.  I treat myself but even then, the portions are reasonable, the frequency is reasonable and it is still not the same choice I would have made two months ago.  Yesterday, I weighed 238lbs.  It’s been a better part of twenty years since I’ve seen those numbers on the scale.  I love how my clothes no longer hang off my shoulders but stretch around my gut.  I love that my belly is no longer pushing my pants down exposing my ass crack to everyone on a daily basis.  I love having energy to spare and not always looking to a bottle of sugar to perk me up. 

I have no idea where I am going to end up.  I set an initial goal of 230 lbs thinking that was maybe too aggressive.  After all, that was 30 lbs and that seemed like a mountain.  Now, I’m less than 10lbs away from that and am by no means done.  I’ll set a new goal and make it realistic too.  When I start feeling comfortable with how I look and feel I will ease off on logging every calorie but I will use the new knowledge to continue to make better food choices.  A large portion of vegetables, a healthy protein and a reasonable carb with some inherent nutritional value seems to work for me - with a tall glass of ice water.

[Trooper]

Yours is also an inspirational story because it doesn't tell you that the journey is an easy one or that you found a majic pill to help you lose weight or stop smoking. These inspirational stories remind me of something John Kennedy once said, "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win." You chose to stop smoking, lose weight,  excercise, and you intend to win." Best of luck on your journey. 

[WendyB]

Congrats on the nicotine and losing weight. You  have done excellent so far! Loved reading your story!

Thanks for sharing!

[HelenaFitbit]

Congratulations on quitting tobacco and the epic weight loss @tamado! Here's to more health loss goals reached  on the upcoming year!  

[Gabie]

Thanks for your story! it resonated deeply with me. I quit smoking quite a few years ago and although I am very glad I did it, I simply ate more to compensate. I gained 40 lbs the first time I quit smoking and never lost any of it. I then gained about another 40 lbs as I have aged. I am now much too heavy for my frame and uncomfortable and achy etc... I loved your line "I don't want to be that fat guy with the knee problems" well I don't want to be "that fat girl with the back problem"!

I bought the fitbit last month. I had been looking at it for a long time but didn't want to commit because I just felt that it would become one other thing that I tried and failed. And then, at the beginning of November something clicked and I decided to cut out desserts, sweets, fast food and take out. Two days in I bought a fitbit and I have been walking about 10k steps almost every single day. I am a little shocked by having been able to do this but am nurturing my resolve to change my eating habits and exercise pattern. I know that if I loose my resolve, in a couple of days I can undo all my hard work and accomplishments over the last month. It is still in me to indulge my every food whim and sit on the couch all day so I will cherish that part of me that is yearning for change.

It is not that I have eaten perfectly and exercised as much as I wanted every day. In fact, I have broken almost each of the rules I set out for myself. The difference is that after I broke a rule I didn't keep on beating myself up over it. I got back up, dusted myself off and recommitted to the new way of eating and moving. It is a way that I can show love to myself and it is not a simple feeling of love but the action of love. If you love your children but do not try to feed them well, give them opportunities to play and to move and teach them how to live responsibly as adults, are you really loving them in an effective way? I would say not. I would never give someone I loved a big bag of cheetohs and a chocolate bar for dinner but I regularly would feed myself this. Does that show a love for myself - no. 

So, now I am trying to treat myself in a loving way: to make time for me to move; to eat foods that nourish me and give me strength. I also want to treat myself in a loving way when I fall short of my ideals. This isn't meant to "let myself off the hook" but to build myself up so that a slip up doesn't turn into a complete return to past patterns. If I slip up, then I try to put it in perspective and try to analyse how the slip up has made me feel. It does not negate all that I have done right but it can serve as a reminder that this change of perspective isn't a given - that I could go back to old eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle quite easily.

I have been inputting my food and exercise in the fitbit program and it is going well. I had orginally set the goals at wanting to lose 2 lbs a week but at that level I was feeling like I was limiting myself too much. I changed it to wanting to lose 1.5lbs a week and it is going much better. I do not feel deprived at all. As I continue with the rules stated above, I find that inputting my food in the trackers is simply a matter of putting in foods I want to eat and it all seems to fit in. I am averaging about 1700 calories a day which is significantly more than I ever ate when I was on a "diet". This is mainly because I don't want to consider this a "diet" because there is really no conceivable way that I can go off this way of eating and not regain all the weight and then some. This is the way I want to eat all the time and so far I really think that it is doable. 

The problem will become when I can no longer lose weight at this level. I have lost 9 lbs in the last month but most of it was lost in the first week. I can see that if I rely on the weight loss registered on my scale I will easily get discouraged. I am very impatient and the idea that I won't see appreciable change in my body for months is very difficult to accept. I keep on reminding myself that slower is better than yo-yo'ing but it is a hard sell. A few days ago, I gave myself a charm bracelet to recognize a month of my new eating and moving pattern. The only charm I got was a small turtle and every time I look at it I say to myself "slow and steady wins the race." It keeps the idea in my head and so far I am finding that it does make a difference. 

This is going to be such a long journey to my final goal but the truth is that even once I get to the goal nothing will change too much. Its not as if I will be able to eat lots more or stop exercising as much when I get to my goal - unless I want to have to start over and do it all over again! This is a lifetime commitment so whether I am at my goal or going in that direction won't make a huge difference in how I spend my day or eat my meals. So I am trying to find ways to enjoy the way down and not simply focus on the end goal. This has been a long post but I guess what I am trying to say is that I agree "the greatest is love" because I do not think there is anything other than love that is strong enought to support me and keep me strong on this journey.

[tamado]

Wow, what a great addition to my post!  Thank you so much for sharing.  It really sounds like we are on a similar jouney.  When I quit copenhagen, the site I was on allowed us to buy poker chips with day markers - 100, 200, 300, 1 year, etc.  I hadn't ordered them for a while and one time I ordered a number at the same time.  My wife asked what I wanted to do wtih them and I said I didn't know, but I wanted to keep them.  I woke up at my usual 2:00 AM the next morning and found them all neatly arranged in a picture frame beside the stack of clothes I leave out for myself.  Yup, I cried.

The other day, I got my "25 lbs lost" badge from fitbit.  An email and app notification but as I looked at it, it made me get misty eyed again.  Whether a charm bracelet or a badge, these moments of acknowlegement feel really important.  

I agree with so much you said.  I don't want this to be a diet, I want it to be a lifestyle change.  I will back off a little once I have lost a bit more weight, but I am not going back to pop and unchecked fast food and evening snacks.  I was so in denial about my diet that I considered getting my thyroid checked at one time becaue I didn't "eat as bad as a lot of other people I know".  
I'll admit to being a little scale obsessed right now too but I am also using it to learn my rhythms.  I know when I'll weigh my most and least in the day.  I know that if I drink 4 liters of water a day, tha'ts nine lbs of water I have taken in plus food.  I feel like I am burning fat.  My clothes fit better (but are starting to get too big) and I have energy to spare.  My knee that I had surgery on almost a year ago is feeling a lot better and I just feel more mobile.  Weight is an easy metric but pay attention to the others too when you need to encourage yourself. 
I am also not beating myself up for a little indulgence now and then.  Indulgence now looks different then it did two months ago.  Last night, I was really wanting something sweet.  My wife had a macaroon and I was thinking of getting a chocolate bar.  I didn't, I went and got some yogurt with cranberry almond granola with just a touch of chocolate sauce.  It was a small serving, but it was sweet and satisfied.  I considered that a cheat because it was an hour before bed and I didn't need any more calories yesterday but that was a responsible cheat.  Slowly, I am making substitutions.  I am finding joy in cooking in new ways.  Chopping lots of fresh produce full of flavour.  I am making meals I am absouletely excited about and they're helping me meet my goals.  This is a journey of discovery, not suffering.

[TravellingSunny]

Holy tomado, Batman!  I was just reading your story, and I swear it sounds super-familiar.  I quit smoking in 2011 with the support of on online group as well - QuitSmokingMessageBoard.com.

You didn't, by any chance, contribute to that group, did you?  Dat you Sarge???