I can’t even deal that it’s September.

September means school starts in 6 days. So much to do.

It also means the summer is over and I feel like I didn’t even have a summer.

End of May to beginning of August I was interning.

The last three weeks I was working for my internship supervisors.

Now…I’m trying to just catch up on life and my own work before I have a whole lot more put on my plate in 6 short days.

Gah. I have that drowning in my own life feeling. Hopefully when I graduate at the end of this year it will all pay off.

It’s been really hard to find time to concentrate on the gym, and my weight, and what I’m eating. But it’s all still very important to me. I want to lose the 15/ 20 pounds I gained over the course of the school year last year. But I’m also realizing that perhaps my ultimate goal is a lot different from what it was when I was still overweight. Sure, a sculpted, ripped, toned body would be great. But above all else right now I just want to be healthy and comfortable. I need to feel confident and in control this whole year if I want to perform well in interviews and land a job right out of grad school.

All these things are going through my head right now. Back to school stress. Hello again.

PHAT Like Me: Chapter 1: The Time is Now

As I promised last week, I’m starting to post the chapters of the little pamphlet I made for the weight loss class I helped my trainer with, which spurred the idea for my blog. So chapter 1. 

1: THE TIME IS NOW

“Fit” or “skinny” are words I would have never even dreamt of associating with myself. The fact that I can associate words like these with myself now is quite odd in a way that all at once is both humbling and overwhelming. The fact that I have achieved so much in bettering my health in literally just ONE year still hasn’t settled in yet completely. It’s like I still have my guard up; like my brain hasn’t yet caught up with my body and realized that my battle with obesity has been won.
You see, my whole life I have been considered medically morbidly obese. At six feet and a staggering 350 pounds, I demanded attention when I walked into a room, and I had the bright, witty and cheery personality to match. I was, in every sense of the term, the happy fat guy everyone wanted to be friends with. So many times before I went on Weight Watchers, or a “DIET” to have little or no results. My “M.O.” had become to simply accept the fact that the weight would be there forever, and to just deal with it. But then, something happened…  
On May 30, 2010, I graduated from the University of Scranton. On May 31st, I received my fourth rejection letter from the last of the four graduate schools I had applied to for the coming fall. So suddenly, I was being forced to take a year off. At first, I was filled with panic, denial, a sense of failure: my parents had wasted all of this money on an education I would never put to good use because I was going to be flipping burgers for the rest of my life!! Once the idea of a year off had settled in nicely though, I realized that I was being given the chance to really concentrate on what I had wanted to do for so, so long: FINALLY LOSE WEIGHT!!! I would finally have the time to concentrate on me and me alone, and I know now looking back that THAT is what really made the difference in truly losing the weight this time.
In the middle of June, my mother and I walked into NBD (my gym) and got our memberships. About a week later, I met Osei (my trainer) and worked out with him for the first time. The rest, as they say, is history. To better illustrate my transformation I will share a few statistics with you.

SO in June 2010, I was 350 pounds and on two medications for high blood pressure.

I wore a size XXL shirt, and had to special order my pants online because they didn’t carry my waist size, 54, in the store. 

Now, a year later, I weigh 199 pounds, and I am off the blood pressure medication COMPLETELY.

I wear a size Large shirt and my waist size is 36! So shopping is actually FUN now!!!

Why am I sharing all of this with you? NO, it’s not to brag, it’s to prove a point:

If I could achieve this much in one year, SO CAN YOU!!! Imagine where you want to be health-wise in one year and GET TRUCKING!!! People ask me what that one moment was that made me realize “it was time” to lose weight and my answer is, there really isn’t one!! If you truly want something to happen, you set your mind to it, AND YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!  There is no magical “a-ha” moment!! You just start, and then YOU DON’T STOP TILL YOU REACH YOUR FINAL DESTINATION!!  

If I have learned anything of true importance over the course of the last year, it is this:

It takes hard work and dedication to earn anything of real, honest-to-goodness value in this world. And I’m pretty sure your health is one of those things. I’ve completed my weight loss journey, and now it is my goal to help others reach the finish line of theirs. If I can inspire just ONE person to better themselves, I will be satisfied. It all starts with one step forward. Before you know it, you’ll be looking back with amazement at what you’ve accomplished.

So, come on! What are you waiting for!? The fact that you are even taking this class (or reading this blog) means you are ready to make a positive life change. So let’s get started!

THE TIME IS NOW!!! 

August 21, 2011: The first day of the rest of my life

First off, I cannot lie, the actual year where I lost all of my weight is a total blur. I had no job, so I was at the gym about 3 hours a day, constantly hitting it hard as I could. Losing weight was my full time job. It was a year of BOOM, BOOM, BOOM…and then suddenly, I look up from what I was doing one day, and I had lost all this weight. It was a ridiculous year. But once I hit my goal weight, things changed. 

I could no longer call myself obese. That was quite odd to me at first. All my life that was a defining factor about me. In many ways being overweight had defined who I was, my personality, and where I thought I was headed in life. But then this whole world opened up to me. I could just go buy pants at the store. No more special ordering them online. I could just slip into a school desk without having to suck in my stomach first. In many ways, it was a lot of change all at once. But for the better.

My trainer, Osei, soon after getting in the zone of my goal weight, starting teaching a high-intensity training class at my gym. I was kind of made his co-pilot in this endeavor. He was to do the exercise portion of the class, and I was to do the mind, body, spirit, nutrition part of the class. It was designed to be a class, that since it had a well-rounded approach, would produce results on the scale.

I was very excited for this. It was the first chance I would have to speak out after getting so many wonderfully gracious remarks and compliments along my journey. I was finally going to be able to give back to the community that had so amazingly supported me.

I wrote up a manual for each member of the class. There were about 12 people in total, plus me and my trainer Osei. This manual ended up becoming quite a hit around the gym. Other trainers and members wanted copies. The manual was entitled PHAT Like Me. Thus, the idea for PHAT Like Me was born. And here I am today.

So that was day 1. The plan is to start posting the sections from the PHAT Like Me manual as regular postings, as well as semi-regular interesting tips and tidbits smattered in there. I have plenty! Once all the sections of my handbook are posted, I think I’ll put a link up to the pdf version of it for easy access in the future. 

So here I am, people! Let’s make PHAT Like Me something awesome! I want to spread my words of inspiration and motivation all over this land. 

Help me do this! (please?)

Re-evaluations: The 1 year anniversary of hitting my goal weight, and new beginnings

It’s been a very long time since I’ve last posted anything on here of substance. Mostly because I have had a ridiculously crazy, work-filled, whirlwind of a summer. AKA summer internship. Also, since starting grad school last year my life has been a whirlwind in general. Whew. Grad school. Lord!

It’s been a year to the date that I reached my goal weight. 200 pounds from 350. A lot has happened since then. Some things I like, some things I don’t like so much. But the great thing about life is that is keeps moving forward. You can’t change what’s already happened but you can learn from it and change for the better.

First off, I will be updating this on a regular basis from now on. I have a lot to say, and I want to start saying it. Second, I want to use this platform for my thesis project. So hopefully I can make that happen and people will be awesome enough to help me out by participating.

Third, your body naturally bounces back from losing a huge amount of weight. Especially when you’re losing weight on a calorie restricted diet. But hey, how else do you lose weight? To gain back some weight is natural. Kind of like, your body re-imagining its homeostasis as you begin to eat a normal 2,000 to 2,500 calorie diet again like a regular human being.

But…with school, and other things, etc….I’ve gained back some weight. I’m a stress eater. That’s definitely a part of it. But I also started to slip out of my healthy, go-get ‘em mind set. My mind got way too preoccupied with other things and I let myself get cocky; that my body is a food-burning, finely tuned machine that doesn’t need to be checked up on anymore. Well, clearly I was wrong. You don’t hit your goal weight and suddenly life is perfect. If anything, weight maintenance is waaaaaaaay harder than losing weight. It’s about figuring out how to live the rest of your life like you did while losing weight, but still being able to live your life! How do you eat more without gaining more? How does exercise still fit in to your daily life? How do you make the habits you made to lose weight translate over to simply…LIVING? It’s deep stuff, people. Stuff I have been constantly struggling with since hitting my goal weight. 

Hence me finding myself in this position…having weight to lose again. 
So, since I’m never one to dwell in the past and grieve over what I can no longer change, I’m taking this as the opportunity I need to re-engage myself fully with a healthy, active, happy lifestyle. This gut is going. And then it’s really staying gone this time.     

In re-evaluating everything that has happened since reaching my goal weight, and being that today marks the one year anniversary of me hitting it, I want to start off my regular postings by starting from the very beginning: Day 1, after hitting 200 pounds, and go from there.

Let’s go. Let’s get back on the right track. We gonna be living back in the phat like me mindset in no time.