Spotlight: Aaron Pearson
As an adult I've battled with my weight for the last 15 years. Yoyoing between being a healthy weight and unhealthy weight over and over again. In December of 2020 I got COVID and fortunately my case was very mild despite being a lifelong asthmatic who gets bronchitis 1-2 times yearly.
In April of 2021 I decided again to lose weight and be healthier overall. About 1 month in I stumbled upon this AG podcast and it changed everything. I was a fan of Ethan and many of his movies and My Name Is Earl and found his weightloss journey so motivational and haven't missed an episode although I sometimes fall behind I always catch up.
During July of 2021 I was diagnosed with diverticulitis and decided to completely cut out red meat and cut way back on dairy. By December of 2021 I had lost 50lbs since I started in April and I feel like Ethan and the AG podcast are a huge contributor to my success... so far.
His approach of cutting for a certain amount of time followed by a maintenance period has completely changed the way I look at dieting and getting healthier and for the 1st time have maintained my weight for the past 8 weeks. This Saturday (02/05/2022) upon waking up I'll weigh myself (1 time per month) and starting Sunday I will start 6 weeks of cutting with the goal of reaching 170lbs which is a weight I haven't been at in 16+years.
I started this journey at 226lbs (obese according to my doctor) and in December I weighed in at 176lbs which I never thought would be possible. I'm so excited that my new goal of 170lbs is withing my grasp and I get so pumped up telling people my journey and helping them get started on theirs. Thank you AG podcast for changing my life.
Thank you again,
Aaron Pearson
AG Prep Deck
I’ve been maintaining gloriously for a couple years now. I say gloriously because it requires very little effort at this point.
Alas, I’ve got a job coming up that requires nudity… for me, a tank top feels like nudity. I was in a video game a couple years ago called The Quarry, in it my character is wearing overalls with no shirt underneath, NUDITY!
In this new project, it’s a full on topless expose, and though I’m not meant to be particularly muscular or lean… vanity wins out, and I’m back to the moderate dieting life once again.
What better excuse than to put the Prep Deck to use.
I’ve been making at least one meal a day from it, always a surprise, and I haven’t been disappointed yet!
This was a cabbage slaw, some steamed rice, and lean ground turkey cooked with ginger, garlic and shallots.
IT’S DELICIOUS!!!
Spotlight: Briley Morgan
Life is a series of choices and many of my decisions haven’t been great. It’s so easy to choose negative and get stuck in a cycle of negative. But if we choose positive and continue to choose positive, our goals could be closer to us than we think.
My weight loss journey started at over 300lbs and now I’m 198lbs and 7% body fat. No steroids or PEDs, just a bunch of hard ass work! Nutrition is the key and knowing what my body requires.
I lost majority of my body fat by just lifting weights and diet alone. NO CARDIO.. when I tell people that, it blows their mind!
People that didn’t know me before can’t believe my before picture is actually me.
What Ethan has done is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and it inspires me to make positive choices every day. Thank you!
God bless,
Briley
Do More
So much today is predicated upon our need for efficiency. Most of what I spent my life in pursuit of was an exhausting search for conserved energy through efficiency. I say this in the starkest terms, this isn’t poetic or metaphorical. When I weighed 500+ pounds, every movement was first judged through an efficiency calculator in my brain. Every, single, one.
I’m hot, and would be much cooler with the removal of a top layer or sweater, but at what cost of exerted energy? And would the discomfort based upon that exertion be more or less valuable to me than the discomfort I felt without it? These calculations were a constant. I would drive around tirelessly in search of the absolute closest parking spot, look for paths that avoided stairs so long as they didn’t add so much distance so as to be a wash in my ultimate goal, conserving energy.
Today I still have to push myself through these mental gymnastics, albeit with a new paradigm. Today I am looking for every way possible to exert as much energy into the world as I possibly can, while retaining just enough energy to replicate my actions tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow, and all the tomorrow’s from here on.
At less than half my former size, a simple thing like walking up a few stairs, rushing to catch a plane, or even intentionally finding the furthest possible parking spot, won’t come close to incapacitating me like it once did. My life is not a constant tug of war between exhausted and fatigued, I am not covered in an omnipresent layer of sweat as my body tries to cool its overburdened system. But that mental circuitry that I built up in my formidable years persists, and I must keep that in focus if I am to defeat it, day in, day out, forever. Do more.
Spotlight: Zenaida D.
284 was my heaviest record when I got out the military. I relied heavy on a bottle of alcohol, a liter of coke and fast food 3 times a day for years.
Denial helped the behavior alive a long as I convinced myself that as long as I had a great job and going to school I didn’t have a problem. Which was far from true, I ended up being diagnosed with major depressive disorder and a long list of mental and physical disabilities.
After a couple of years of therapy and entering into the “asking for help” world. I saw a lot of things that was not right. Being offered medications over and over again without other options just didn’t sit well with me.
So I created an option called Iron Therapy 2.0. A gym free for everyone that wants to find their inner hero by simply saying yes. I teach classes 6 days a week because I believe you can live a life without medications.
Vulnerability
When we stop doping ourselves with unnecessary food, we become vulnerable. We have been using extra food as a defense against our feelings. Without it, fears and anxieties surface and new energies are released. Instead of retreating into the refrigerator, we can learn day by day how to live with our exposed selves.
Making an overture of friendship to someone we would like to know better involves the risk of rejection. Saying no to a family member when a request conflicts with our program may make us feel guilty. Asking for help when we need it means admitting our weakness. Exposing our needs destroys our facade of self-sufficiency.
To be vulnerable requires courage, but only as we are able to live without the defense of overeating are we able to grow emotionally and spiritually. When we stop turning to food to cover up our feelings and needs, we are able to be more open with other people. We are nourished by them and by the Higher Power who allays our fears and directs our new energies.
May I not fear being vulnerable.
- From Food for Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elisabeth L.
Spotlight: Shane T.
The best place to start is at the beginning. I started to gain weight in third grade. The bullying about my weight started in 4th grade. I was always one of the bigger kids without the excess weight. I was bullied at school daily and I was bullied at home about my weight by one of my older siblings. The summer after sixth grade, I went to a wrestling camp and I was 5'4" tall and weighed 141 pounds. At the start of my sophomore year in high school, I was 5'9" tall and weighed 139 pounds. High school went fairly well weight wise although I was dealing with my changing schools, my parents' divorce and all the other crap that you deal with in high school. I graduated high school at 6'0" tall and 190 pounds. The weight was starting to come back on.
My whole family has struggled with weight. It has been a lifelong battle. Peaks and valleys. Minor successes followed by setbacks. I have done different diets. Exercise came in spurts. Positive self-esteem has always been a challenge. It's been the ongoing life of the fat kid trying to find some direction and success.
Finally, in September 2019, I joined a gym and had a great trainer. I took the team training classes with my wife and we have stuck to the exercises since. We took three classes per week. I had lost 24 pounds and was feeling successful. Then, something happened in June of 2020 and I gained it all back, plus another 10 pounds, despite adding bicycling to my weekly workouts. In May of this year (2021), we switched gyms and joined a CrossFit gym. I have added two workouts a week which brings me up to five workouts per week. I am back on the calorie counting and am hoping that I can get back to my goal of 250. I had gone from 276 pounds to 254 pounds from September 2019 to June 2020. Then the weight started coming back. I have reached a weight of 286 pounds. I am tightening up my nutrition and calories, along with the extra workouts, to try and get the fat off and the pounds down.
I am seeing some success at the new gym. It's all showing up, putting in the work, pushing past the discomfort to make gains on my goals. As I always tell people....Baby steps. Keep moving forward.
AG First Steps Club
Where to begin?
The beginning of any journey starts with a single step. It’s a hackneyed trope, but true nonetheless. The journey might even be littered with countless instances of first steps. Every tired morning requires a first step, one foot before the next, just to get out of bed.
I like moving my body through space and time, outside, because I always -full stop- always, feel better afterwards. This is possibly due in some part to never actually wanting to begin, but once I overcome this, and succeed, I’ve won. I’ve proven to myself that I can do something that isn’t strictly fun, that indeed leaves me feeling better, but is in some part a constant negotiation or minimally, a dismissal of the urge to quit, to pack it in, to give up.
The speed, distance or difficulty has nothing whatsoever to do with my goal. My gain is simply and profoundly in accomplishing something I set out to do.
Taking a walk requires no great commitment, no annual dues, no major life rearrangement, the barrier to entry is as low as it gets.
There are plenty of groups for like minded people to get together and do something active, running and cycling meetups, amateur sporting enthusiasts gather on weekends and evenings to practice or “play” with each other. The community within these fellowships can be quite powerful. We together are greater than I alone.
So, on days that I awake able to remember the reward of accomplishment or feeling useless and failed, worthless and depressed, I take a walk. I look around at the world around me and am reassured that it’s not as bad as I’d thought and that I am capable of that first step.
Join me for a walk. 🚶🚶♀️🚶♂️
Join Ethan on a walk!
Sunday, March 10th at 9 a.m.
Central Park, NYC
Exact meeting place given when you email here:
FirstStepsClub@AmericanGlutton.net
Not in New York? Please email us what city you are in so we can notify you when he is making steps to be there!
Save the Shams!
“What are ‘Shams’?” Brandy asks with equal bits impatience and curiosity.
“What?” I reply having no idea what she’s talking about.
“Shams. SHAMS!” She’s getting irritated.
“Babe, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What’s a shams? Do you mean Sham 69 the Oi band?”
“No! Magical creatures called shams that you told the girls about.”
For the life of me I have no memory of this at all.
Shams?
I look at her with wide eyes, throw up my hands and shrug.
“They were feeling especially sad about the poor shams being kept in captivity. They were complaining about it on the way to school today and asked if we could go and visit them in their factory.”
It rushed back to me.
“Oh god.”
“YEAH!”
“Did I never tell them that wasn’t real?”
“When did you tell them any of it?”
“A few years ago.”
“What?!”
Clementine and Grace were 3 and 5, I was washing, or rather helping them wash their hair.
“Don’t use too much shampoo.” I said, “It’s mean to the Shams.”
“It’s not like we didn’t raise them with a bunch of wacky false beliefs. Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, The EASTER BUNNY! That motherfucker shits chocolate eggs!” I’m trying to defend myself, but I know that the shams story was too much. I can’t really believe I didn’t immediately tell them it was BS.
“Clementine is EIGHT! Can you imagine if she’d brought this up at school?” My wife is also in a state of total disbelief. Who the fuck is she married to who would tell her kids some wildly absurd story about poor oppressed shams.
“I feel like I thought maybe they knew it was fake, like because it’s so ridiculous.” I’m grasping at straws.
“What are shams?” Clementine asks.
“They’re these small magical creatures that a big evil corporation caught in a jungle. We wash our hair with their fecal matter.” I say nonchalantly.
“What’s that?” She asks.
“Poo. A single Sham can easily produce a whole bottle of Sham-Poo over the course of its lifetime. But they never get to go outside or get their tummies rubbed, which I’ve heard they really like.”
“Are they nice?” Grace asks.
“Yeah, it’s awful. But you guys need tangle free hair, so we keep buying it.”
In all fairness to myself, I enjoy the sham-poo story a bit too much. It reassures me that most of what I believe about the world is just stories that someone made up, it really takes the pressure off.
The girls miss the shams, I think they preferred the world where magical creatures shit shampoo for their tangle free hair.
Spotlight: Lucas S.
My name is Lucas and I live in Illinois about 5 minutes outside St. Louis.
As far back as I can remember I’ve always been the biggest kid. All throughout grade and high school I was picked on and belittled for my size. I played football all through high school my senior season I weighed somewhere shy of 300lbs. After football was over I continued to eat without any of the working out. Over the next 7 years I drank and ate myself to being in the neighborhood of 550lbs.
July 2018 I decided I have had enough.
I was depressed, drinking uncontrollably, and needed change in my life. I went to a doctor to check all of bloodwork to see what needed to be done.
Fast forward to a year and a half later I’m down to 360lbs and a friend of mine convinced me to join a CrossFit gym. The last year and a half I have spent working on myself, going to CrossFit, running, walking trails, and follow a diet plan. I am now proud to say as of this morning I weigh 278lbs, but I am not done. Every day I look in the mirror I see that 500+ lbs guy and it pushes me to be healthier.
We weave these webs for ourselves
We have an idea and move forward, halfway down the path that idea fades and we are in no-man’s land without a compass, without a canteen of water, without a flashlight, no maps or guidance of any sort.
The only plausible success is pushing forward. Whatever the new day brings, whatever attitudes and emotions, whatever our current perspective offers, the only real success can be pushing forward despite it all.
If we do not, we’ll find eventually that as we look back at our lives, it’s littered with unfinished paths, that the ideas of greatness we once had are discarded when resistance is met, we will be ashamed and sink back into apathy.
Let the knowledge that you set yourself upon this path be your motivation and guiding light.
You will find yourself in this exact predicament many times throughout your life and know that the difference between you and those apathetic masses is that you are not swayed by mere emotions, you are a juggernaut of triumph. You know hardship unlike most and you have the fortitude to beat back the most severe obstacle you’ll ever encounter, yourself.
Spotlight: Eric R.
I have struggled with weight my whole life, starting at 7 years old.
A bit of a nightmarish childhood with abusive parents, they reinforced the idea that if you didn’t clear your plate, you’d take a beating, and the portions were always too large for me. By 5th grade, I was wearing size 36 jeans and xl shirts. I eventually got to 415 pounds.
In 2016, when I moved out to Austin, I fell in love with powerlifting and went from 415 down to around 250. Fell in love for all the wrong reasons, and my weight slowly crept back up. During covid I exploded back out to 425-ish. I got sick of being who I am, so I asked for help for the first time in my life.
I had bariatric surgery 9/1/2022, started back in the gym 6 weeks later, divorced said wrong person, and have been loving the journey. Currently I’m 188lbs and for the first time in my life have muscle definition. Seeing veins pop on my forearm after a strong arm day is something that never gets old.
Don’t forget about the basics.
I’ve found that there can be within me a reliance on one improvement, or one change, to address all things that need improvement.
None of this is ever thoroughly thought through, which was my biggest problem. An example of this was: I ate too many carbohydrates, so in eating none, all aspects of my life would improve. The problem was, I was also eating too much fat. And so, when weight loss stalled for months at a time, I’d throw in the towel and say to hell with this diet.
But in looking back at those times, I found that I wasn’t doing anything about improving my life other than not eating carbohydrates. I wasn’t getting any exercise at all, I wasn’t ensuring that I got proper sleep, I wasn’t drinking enough water. Not eating carbohydrates was my silver bullet and even the law of thermodynamics still apply (how much you eat matters), if I stuck to that.
There a study (2011, Taiwan, vitamins vs placebo https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797611416253 ) done that indicates when people make one correction, they tend to get lax in other areas. This is EXACTLY what I’d been doing with diets for so many years.
Thermodynamics still apply, exercise can change your life and outlook, sleep and hydration are vitality important, and nothing beats working tirelessly on habits as a foundation.
Above all, becoming tirelessly specific with exactly what I intend to accomplish with an implementation, and remaining brutally realistic, has made all the difference.
Spotlight: Carolyn R.
Why am I changing who I am? Because F**k cancer.
Where to begin is the question. I've struggled all of my life with my weight. Food was a way to cope with emotions of my childhood that I just didn't want to express with others for fear of judgment. I always thought "well, this my life." I've been okay with it too. My husband at the time (we're still friends so no bad feelings over that) didn't seem to mind. My friends all loved and accepted me as I was.
Things didn't stay that way, however. When I was 24 I finally sought help for the random pains in my abdomen. At the time, I was seeing military doctors who were trying to figure out the issue. One thing that changed the course of everything was a terrifying call from home. My sister (36 at that time) was taken in for emergency surgery on her lower abdomen. It scared me so much we made the four-hour drive from Fort Bragg back to Charlotte, NC where our family was. We were almost there when I got another phone call. Stage four colon cancer had caused the issue that led to the emergency procedure. Had she waited any longer and she'd have died from an infection. It tore me apart.
For ten years I watched as my best friend and role model battled the odds. I'm forever thankful for her doctors for helping her live an almost normal life for those years. During this time my mother also fell ill to kidney failure and heart failure. I lost them both- though I believe my mother was more of a broken heart than anything.
Two years later- having battled through much of my grief I find myself at the age of 36- the same age my sister was when her life changed forever. I've been getting screened ever since the initial diagnosis and I consider myself lucky to have been free of danger all of this time. I thank the army doctors for that since they pushed me back to get screened and caught the early signs of it. (They removed them successfully and none have come back since) Lifestyle is a huge factor in fighting these genetic dispositions. I find myself ready to make that change and I have been making that change. I'm 5'4'' and started this journey in late March at the weight of 317 pounds. I am currently 277. I can't believe I'm double digits from the goal I set with my doctor. I may even go beyond that. I've worked hard at this- changed my relationship with food and my mindset that helped lead me to obesity. I also wasn't afraid to get help this time through a bariatric doctor. He's been tremendous in all of this. We reworked my diet and took me back to eating closer to nature with smaller meals throughout the day. I'm avoiding surgery as I'm proving so far that I don't need it.
I'd like to add the scale isn't my best friend during this. My tailor's tape is. Those numbers do not lie.
Choose Wisely.
“The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?”
- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 51
All those people I was on all those yesterdays, leading to here and now, and acceptances, and who I will be tomorrow, which is up to me.
Who will you be tomorrow?
The adventure of your lifetime could be near to hand. The choice of path is yours.
Choose wisely.
Spotlight: Josh M.
My name is Joshua Murphy.
My whole life, I've been the most obese person in the room at any given moment—this simple fact shaped the majority of my life and my outlook on it. I struggled with my image and self-esteem my entire life, even today. I've tried and failed to better myself more times than I can count. I have watched life pass me by as I have been too mentally and physically weak to try and catch up. To put it lightly, I guess you could call me a recovering nihilist. For most of my life, I was told by even those closest to me that I would always be fat, that I would always be lazy, that no one would ever accept me, and perhaps what struck me the most, that I would never leave my hometown. I guess when you're told something enough, you start to believe it.
I reached a turning point within the last few years. In 2016 I tipped the scales at 446 pounds. As of this moment, I have lost over 200 pounds and counting all through proper diet and physical activity. It's something I legitimately never thought would be possible. To say losing that much weight has changed my life is an understatement. Objectively, life is better overall, but there are still wounds that even radical weight loss can't heal.
Until recently have been relatively quiet about my weight loss journey. People who know me, whether via my minuscule social media presence or in real life, are aware of what I've done, but only a handful of people know the real reason WHY I set out to lose over 200 pounds. The reason was so I could join the Army. A 'back of my mind' lifelong dream that I never thought I would be able to pursue until I decided to go for it one day. That was my motivator. To put it bluntly, chasing that goal was my reason for being alive for the last few years. Until this year, I never publicly talked about this part of my story, and for a good reason. The path I was determined to go down required quiet professionalism and selflessness. I never set out to tell the world my story. I wanted to become a ghost. I wanted to disappear from conventional life and be pushed to the physical and mental limits of what human beings can do and do only that. My reasons for wanting to enlist were varied, and I'm not going to get into them all here and now. Still, the least of which was any recognition, and at the core of my decision to pursue that goal can be boiled down to the idea that I may be able to help someone who otherwise could not help themselves.
After two years of jumping through hoops with my enlistment process, getting waivers for a troubled past, having surgery that was supposed to correct medically disqualifying health problems, and a whole array of other road bumps, I made it to Fort Benning, Georgia. Just to be told by the medical staff there that I'm unfit for service due to a pre-existing and documented medical condition I had developed due to my years of extreme obesity and generally unhealthy lifestyle, lympedema. I don't agree with their sentiment in the slightest. But the reality of my situation is, I've exhausted every avenue possible to try and re-enlist. As far as the DOD is concerned, my condition is chronically reoccurring, and therefore, I'm damaged goods. in the harrowing words of the physician's assistant at 30th AG, I "will never have a career in the army."
And with that, I found myself in a situation that, for me, was ultimately nothing new, someone telling me what I couldn't do with my life. Even after coming as far as I did, dedicating my life to a cause, the sting of rejection found me yet again.
My medical condition, Lymphedema, was developed from years of extreme obesity coupled with smoking, binge drinking, and ultimately just wreaking havoc on my body. The condition, a form of leg swelling via fluid build-up that escapes from long ruptured veins, is permanent and will always be there to remind me of who I used to be. Every day is a day that I am reminded that I ultimately acted too late in making the changes necessary to live the life I feel like I was destined to. It's a struggle to endure, but I must endure. My seeming lack of purpose has left me struggling to find a reason why I should be here. Since returning home, I have been more lost than ever.
So why am I tell you all of this? What does it matter? I've come to realize that what I've done, even if I was never able to reach my ultimate goal, still has some merit, and regardless I can still help people who need it. I can help people that are in situations like I was. Or maybe someone who may not be overweight but thinks they're in a position they'll never be able to escape. By getting my story out there, I genuinely believe that I can show people they are capable of more than they ever thought possible.
Like I said before, "when you're told something enough, you start to believe it" and that doesn't always have a negative connotation. I can't count how many times I've been told, "you should write a book." So, I'm going to do just that. My transformation has been so much more than just a physical one. The changes I've made to my mindset, experiencing an upbringing in poverty, realizing the anger I had for the world was ultimately a projection of anger at myself; there is a lot to unpack in my story.
My journey thus far lacks a key element, A physical and mental challenge of epic proportion that takes me outside of my zones of comfort and familiarity. While losing 200 pounds may seem like it fits that bill, I didn't lose all of that weight so that I could fall in line with a conventional life. In 2022 I will solo hike the Pacific Crest Trail in its entirety. The Pacific Crest Trail or PCT is a 2650 + mile nationally designated scenic trail that spans from the Mexican to Canadian borders, covers the lengths of California, Oregon, and Washington, 25 national forests, and 7 national parks. Elevation change spans from sea level to over 13,000 feet at certain points. Walking the trail consists of navigating deserts, climbing mountains, and outrunning a perilous winter.
I'm not doing this to say "look what I did" but rather "look what YOU can do." It's to say, If I, a man that once thought he might actually die if he walked up a hill, can now say with confidence that he is capable of walking thousands of miles across the country, then you can certainly overcome whatever personal struggle you face. And overcoming whatever is holding you back won't be easy. Overcoming adversity isn't supposed to be easy. Overcoming adversity might not even be what you thought it was. It may not get you where you thought it would, and that's ok. Because even if you're not able to reach your ultimate goal, you will become a better person by the end of trying.
My goal with this journey is as follows: Hike the PCT and document the entire experience with my skills as a photographer, videographer, and writer to create content to inspire throughout the trip. After I reach the northern terminus, I will begin working on a book that tells my story both from a past perspective and from current/more recent times/on the trail. The book will be something of a "novel meets coffee table book" as I intend to capture an untold number of images while I'm on the trail, all with professional-grade photo and video equipment. I also plan to create a short film with all of the video footage I capture. The film will document my journey and tell my story and the story of the trail and those I meet on it. I want to use this film to spread awareness of the Pacific Crest Trail, others like it, and conservation in general.
I thought my story was going to end earlier this year. I experienced the most crippling depression I ever had, and suicide seemed like the most viable option at one point. Luckily I sought help in time and discovered my new purpose in life. To tell my story to those that need to hear it. Life is a constant battle, and I'll be damned if I don't end up winning the war it's a part of.
What’s in a resolution?
There are two definitions to the word resolution, 1, a firm decision to do or not do something, and 2, the quality of being determined or resolute.
I spent many a January resolved to lose weight. I usually did. It always came back.
When I finally became determined to eradicate all aspects of my life that contributed to being obese, I successfully lost weight and have now kept it off for years.
When life as it is, produces some unwanted condition, a short term solution likely won’t fix it for the long run. It might require a deeper dive into all the varied aspects of living that are contributing to it, and a thoughtful restructuring.
I wish you nothing but success in your pursuits!
I was perfect all day
I was perfect all day. I had a nice, “normal” sized plate of food, I felt no need for seconds or dessert, in all it was an incredibly successful Christmas dinner.
Then, eventually, it was time to clean up. Sadly, much of the scraps headed for the bin, wound up in my mouth. At one point I started calling myself Hoover, because I was a human vacuum, sucking up everything in sight.
I woke up not feeling great, and immediately told Brandy that I had no business on clean up crew in the future.
Years ago, I’d have either kept the misery going by eating everything in sight, or practiced self flagellation by entirely withholding food today as a punishment.
But, as I’m a practitioner of moderation, I am simply back on my plan today.
Today, is a new day, and I will win today.
Spotlight: Randy S.
My parents weren't exactly good role models for good eating habits and my mom was obese. My dad died my first semester in college making me aware that I had to start taking ownership of my own physical health being about an unhealthy 300 pounds at the time. On December 15, 2013, I woke up deciding enough was enough and that I was not going to be fat anymore. I started exercising regularly and starving myself for months. At the end of the following April, I was down about 100 pounds and had a wrecked metabolism. By then, I started studying up on nutrition more and learned I was at serious risk for a rebound if I couldn't create a sustainable lifestyle out of my eating and exercise habits. On April 30, 2014, my mom died partially due to her obesity and I vowed that day to make sure I would never allow myself to get fat again and risk dying early and leave my kids behind.
I found out about tracking macros and reverse dieting from Layne Norton shortly after and started tracking macros religiously. I’m proud to say I’ve stuck with tracking macros to this day with occasional breaks and as a result, I've never rebounded and I’m also more muscular and leaner from heavy resistance training. Now, I eat around 3,500 calories a day to maintain my weight at around 215 lbs. For me, learning the science of nutrition was obviously important but it was that in combination with my new undertaking of personal responsibility for my physical and mental health and that I have an obligation to be a good role model for my friends, family, peers, and future kids.
Spotlight: Alan G.
After roughly 18 years of heavy substance and alcohol abuse, on October 1, 2019, I finally decided to get sober. About 2 weeks later I had another epiphany on my way to a concert in Chicago where I realized sobriety was not enough and I needed to do more. The following day I walked in to the gym weighing approximately 280lbs and I never looked back.
I reconnected with an old friend in February 2020. Around that time was when you re-emerged on the scene as a totally ripped new version of yourself. As I showed my friend your photos she looked at me and told me that that would be me one day.
The pandemic destroyed that relationship, and as everything closed, including the gyms, it threatened to destroy my progress. I took up solo hiking since that's all we really could do with stay-at-home restrictions. Not only was I able to continue losing weight, I discovered that I loved being outdoors and connected with nature.
Even after the gyms reopened in my state I continued hiking, and before long I started backpacking and trail running. I initially had a goal to be at 230 lbs but i blew past that weight sometime in July. With my one year sober anniversary coming up I had a new goal: be consistently under 200 lbs.
By sticking to a low carb, high fat diet, and continuously going to the gym and hiking and trail running, approximately one year and one week after my sobriety date i stayed at a consistent 195lbs.
Since then I have maintained my weight below 200 lbs while adding muscle by lean bulking. I have also taken up obstacle course racing and have already competed in 3 this year and have 5 more planned, including 3 Spartan races and a Tough Mudder.
These pictures are about 18 months apart.