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.
Holiday Fuckits
I can feel them coming on like a migraine. There’s a little voice in my head that keeps reminding me how much I liked eggnog as a kid and occasionally the smell of some passing fast food behemoth lingers just a bit too long in my nostrils.
The Holiday Fuckits are real. From Thanksgiving into the new year I run the gauntlet. Whether it’s pumpkin spiced lattes or holiday get togethers, this is a season of indulgence, or encouraged indulgence.
Land mines for me are dinners I haven’t prepared, social gatherings, deviations from my routine, and any heavy emphasis on food as a means of celebration.
So when that scent of charring meat that’s pumped out of the fast food joints to lure people like me in hits my nose, and when I can’t just shrug it off, I have to remind myself of all of this, and that the Holiday Fuckits are real.
BUT, they’re no more real than the Birthday Fuckits, the runofthemill Celebratory Fuckits, the I’ve had a rough Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday Fuckits, they’re no more real than the Fuckits I wake up with 50% of the time, that suggest laying in bed all day with Postmates and Netflix as companions is what I ought to be doing. They’re no more real than any other hurdle I’ve cleared, that I know I will undoubtably be able to clear again and again and again.
I have a plan for when my plan falls apart and a plan for when that plan falls apart too. There’s an old saying, “Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth,” well I have a plan for then too. And I even have a plan for when all my plans and training and tactics go to shit: Make the best of it and get back on course tomorrow. If the Fuckits overwhelm you, if they win, allow it to just be that moment, or even that season as it can be for many - it’s okay, you can get back onto the path.
Happy Holidays!
Spotlight: Justin G.
I am a Chef.
Those are words that have defined me for the last 22 years of my life. My broken relationship with food began 40 something years ago when I was born. I was 200lbs by the time I was 13 and probably 330 by the time I graduated high school. Since then I have “dieted” and fluctuated somewhere between 350 and 410 lbs for the last 20 plus years. For so many years I blamed the fact that I worked 70+ hours a week and that I was surrounded by so much food all the time as the reason why I couldn’t get my weight under control.
In December I turned 40 and had just a miserable month. I looked terrible, I felt worse and I was slipping into a depression during the holidays. When I returned to work in January, I was putting away a food delivery and after lifting just a few cases of product I was already winded, felt light headed and had to sit down. Enough was enough. At that moment I was unsure what I was going to do but changes had to be made. I gave myself time to start doing some research and in the meantime I decided that for at least the first week, I would give up fast food, fried food and sweet tea.
On January 11th of this year I weighed 390lbs. I stuck to my guns that very first day but as it turned out, I ate very few carbs at all that day as well as the second. By that night I was diving head first into the world of Keto. Podcasts, articles, books. Anything I could get my hands on. The more I read the more I felt like this was my path to success.
For the first time in my life I was educating myself about my body and what it would actually take for me take my life back from the control I had given up to food.
You have to understand that food was my obsession.
Food network, Instagram, travel channel, food and Wine Magazine were my literal food porn sources. Eating one meal while simultaneously thinking about the next. In the kitchen creating the most glutinous of creations. I wasn’t eating. I was gorging!! I wasn’t even taking the time to enjoy it. It was consumption for consumption sake and it was killing me.
Six weeks into my journey I had been doing pretty well in the gym and decided to take my first hike. Kennesaw MT just outside of Atlanta. A 1000 foot climb in 1.1 miles of path. I huffed and I puffed but I made it up that damn mountain. A sense of emotion rushed over me that I still get every time I reach a newer higher summit. I was taking control of my life!!!
When I got down to the base I sat on a park bench and posted on Instagram for the first time in over a year. The words just poured out of me and I had this epiphany. The process I was taking was “the reverse engineering of 40 years of fucked programming in regards to my relationship between food and my body” Months later I still say this to myself several times a week. This is my mantra. It’s not just diet. It’s not just exercise. This is changing the very core of the person that I have allowed myself to become. As if this process weren’t difficult enough just trying to overcome my obsession with food, being surrounded by it for my profession but also the fact that I travel for work and spend 200+ nights a year on the road.
In the months since I have committed myself to a clean Keto program while introducing various workout styles as well as intermittent fasting. I avoid processed foods (including any “keto” products) and I work every day to build better eating habits. When I used to go out for dinner I could easily drink 4 glasses of sweet tea with my meal. I now make my own monk fruit sweetener syrup and travel with a small bottle but here is the difference. Even though I Iove the mink fruit sweetener and it has zero impact on my glucose or state of ketosis, I limit myself to just one glass at a meal and I only have it once or twice a week. I have learnt that just because you can have something doesn’t mean you don’t need to moderate how much you have of it. In 5 months I have chosen to have a few indulgent meals. I do not refer to them as cheat meals. They are just me enjoying foods that I love but doing it in a responsible way and holding myself accountable to getting right back on track the next meal. Food to me always needs to be treated in a positive light even when it’s not something that is on my plan.
As my weight keeps dropping I continue to learn more about myself physically, emotionally and mentally than I ever have in any other point of my life. As of today (5 months since I began my journey) I am down 82 lbs. My waist size went from a 52 to a 44. My chest from a 60 to a 52. My shirt size from a 4X to a 2X. I have used Instagram as I took to share my journey and to try and aspire others. I have focused on healthy food and habits rather than just promoting the same food porn I used to be obsessed with.
My journey is still so new but I have changed in so many ways. Initially my goal was to drop 150lbs by my 41st Birthday. That number still may be true but I have come to realize that the number is far less important as to how I want to feel when that day comes. I had a saying in my professional world for many years the the guests perception of us in the kitchen is our reality. In my personal life I have come to learn that what others think has doesn’t have to have any impact on me at all.
Whatever I perceive for myself can be my reality if I stay focused and consistent.
Holiday of Food
Thanksgiving has always been a mad chaotic dance of cooking, followed by an eating sprint. Every single year I’m amazed by how much is eaten in so small a timeframe.
There is little conversation, even Brandy’s insistence that we all share what we’re thankful for goes by in a blink and then its heads down and hyper focused consumption.
The Sunday before thanksgiving this year, I was cooking at a friend’s house. I made short ribs, a gremolata for the short ribs, and mashed potatoes. My friend’s son-in-law made a ceaser salad with from scratch dressing and croutons.
We sat around the table for hours, before, during and after we’d finished eating. 3 adults and 7 kids (adult kids, but kids nonetheless).
I can’t think of a single holiday meal I’ve enjoyed more.
It wasn’t the food either, which was fantastic.
It was just a magical Sunday night with people I cared about.
I don’t think thanksgiving will be able to hold a candle to the joy I got out of conversing with my kids and their friends but I know that I’m going to go into it with interest of those I’m with.
I hope all have a wonderful holiday and I hope we can all find some way to make it not about the food.
- Ethan
Hey ChatGPT,
Tell me a story about Thanksgiving…
Certainly! Here's a Thanksgiving-themed adaptation of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (commonly known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"):
'Twas the night before Thanksgiving, when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The leftovers were packed in the fridge with great care,
In hopes that no one would notice them there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of pumpkin pie danced in their heads.
And mamma in her apron, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our bellies for a long, cozy nap.
When out in the kitchen, there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the kitchen, I flew like a flash,
Tore open the oven, and threw up the sash.
The aroma of turkey, the stuffing, and yams,
Gave a luster of warmth to the pots and the pans.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a table so laden, it drew everyone near.
With a cornucopia, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment, we'd need to be slick.
More rapid than eagles, the family they came,
And we whistled and shouted and called them by name:
"Now, Auntie! Now, Grandpa! Now, cousin and brother!
On, Grandma! On, Uncle! Let's feast like no other!
To the top of the table, to the end of the hall,
Now devour away, devour away, devour away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the ceiling, the pumpkin pies flew,
With a table full of treats, and our stomachs did too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard in the den,
The settling of bodies, quite stuffed from within.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
Into the living room, the family was bound.
They were dressed all in sweaters, from their head to their foot,
And their clothes were all tarnished with gravy and soot.
A bundle of leftovers they had flung on their backs,
And they looked like a family just raiding snack packs.
Their eyes—how they twinkled! Their dimples, how merry!
Their cheeks were like roses, their noses like cherries!
Their droll little mouths were drawn up like a bow,
And the crumbs on their chins were as white as the snow.
They spoke not a word, but went straight to their beds,
While visions of mashed potatoes danced in their heads.
And I heard them exclaim as they drifted to sleep,
"Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good feast!"
-Ethan and his buddy ChatGPT
Spotlight: Ethan L.
As a kid I used to fly up to Kentucky every summer to visit my grandparents, we’d go fish every single day, ride four wheelers, a lot of physical activity. But you know how grandmas and grandpas are, they always want you to be eating something. So there began a cycle, of me going to Kentucky every summer, gaining weight, and then flying back to Texas and losing it during the school year, just to do the same thing next summer.
Well, once I hit middle school the weight never left. One summer I went up to Kentucky, came back, and it just stuck.
I wasn’t the active kid playing football anymore, I was the 260 pound kid who was only 5’1 freshman year. And the bigger I got, the more I got made fun of for it. And what makes you feel a little bit of comfort when you’re sad and fat? More food.
I learned to accept that I would be fat forever, and there were just certain things I’d never be able to do because of my weight. I laid down, and didn’t even try to fight it for a long long time.
Skip forward about 3 years, I’m a senior, still really big, pushing 260 still but a little taller. I woke up on the third day of school senior year and looked down, and couldn’t see my toes. I broke down, cried, didn’t even go to school. Knowing that I was squandering my opportunities, that I was the one ruining any chances I had of living a happy life, tore me up. So I decided to do something about it, after being a miserable oaf for years (my own fault).
After that day, I decided I was gonna challenge myself and start doing 100 pushups a day. I got down on the ground into push-up stance, and to this day I still remember how hard it was to even do 1 push-up. But I kept with it, every time I went to the restroom I’d do 5 pushups, because I couldn’t do any more than that. Couple weeks went by, I could start doing 10 at a time, I was seeing some progress in how strong I was and it felt good, but no progress on the scale, it was discouraging. I even gave up on it a couple times.
One day something just clicked.
I was about two months in and normally broke the pushups into 10 sets of 10, that day I decided 5 sets of 20 or bust. And I did it, it took all day, but I got it done. After knowing that was possible, Every week I would keep adding more pushups to each section, and by the second month I was finally starting to see a change on the scale. Started at 268, was down to 260, and that was HUGE for me. I almost cried just because I finally knew that I could do this, it was possible. The very next week, I went to the doctor for an unrelated injury where I almost cut my thumb off, they drew blood, and all that good stuff. My doctor didn’t sugar coat it, he told me that I was prediabetic, and about 100 pounds overweight for my build. He told me if I didn’t change my ways, it would catch up very quick. Needless to say, that scared the absolute shit out of me. I went right back to it with another type of motivation, I wanted to be healthy when I’m old. I wanna grow old.
This is where things really shifted, where I finally realized that I could do anything I wanted, and it’s on me. No one else can do it for you. I started waking up earlier, started breaking the pushups into two sets of 50, eventually one set of 75 and another 25, and then eventually 100 in a row without stopping. In the first month that I actually committed myself to living a healthy life, I lost 36 pounds. I could look in the mirror after 29 days, and see the weight of a medium sized dog disappeared from my gut. That felt good. I kept it going, and eventually my metabolism caught up with my activity.
In 6 months, I went from 268 pounds and pre-diabetic, to 165 pounds and 7% body fat. People that haven’t seen me since I was big do not recognize me, people that do recognize me congratulate me, because they remember how fat my titties were.
And it damn sure feels good, not only to see what I’ve accomplished in the mirror, but to know that my health is better. And to know that maybe me losing weight could inspire someone else to lose the weight and change their life.
In the end I realized it’s a game of accountability, and self responsibility. No one else is gonna hold you accountable. No one else is gonna have that dialogue at 3am about if you should eat that slice of cake or not. It’s only you.
-Ethan L.
Cause or Effect
Is excess fat the problem or the effect of a problem? I wanted so badly for it to be THE problem.
When I was a kid and was put on diets, this idea was reinforced over and over again. The fat is the problem.
So, when I finally decided to turn my life around, that is how I approached it: Reduce my excess fat and I will reduce my problem. But the problem remained even after a reduction of fat, not to mention the fact that the fat always came back.
There were brief periods when I would make the problem carbohydrates or processed food. I believed that if I excised those from my life, their effects would be solved. It wasn’t until I looked inward, at my relationship with food, my habits, and compulsions, that I was able to begin to attack the actual problem and the cause for it.
Today, I see excess fat as a symptom of an entire ecosystem that had taken over my life. Disentanglement has been long and complex, and I continue to get a fuller picture of it almost every day. What’s helped me most, was changing how I looked at and thought about the situation. Today I register things like lethargy, excess weight or physical discomfort to be symptoms of a problem, rather than THE problem itself.
I focus on the things that I can improve and aim to take fully responsiblity for the entire ecosystem of my life.
Spotlight: Jon H.
So I’ve always been obese since I was 7 or 8 years old, but athletically so. I was a defensive lineman in football and a heavyweight wrestler from middle school all the way through college. It just kind of became part of my identity at that point.
Then my dad passed away in 2006, very unexpectedly, halfway to his 60th birthday. It was also 8 weeks after I got married. At first I took it well, or so I thought. I’m a born again Christian (hopefully that doesn’t diminish your opinion of me), so I took comfort knowing Dad was in a better place. And I really charged hard after my faith. My new (and still hot after 15 years) wife was amazing at helping me cope.
But, after some time of not letting myself deal with how I felt, and how his death effected me, I started eating and playing MMORPG video games for full days at a time without so much as speaking to my wife. Just a little here and there, and a little more, and before long it was every free moment when I wasn’t working. And binge eating. And gaming. And eating. And gaming. And so on. And before long, I went from a muscular 305 to a very unmuscular 440. I’m 6’2”. I couldn’t walk 100 feet before my back hurt so bad I had to sit down. My wife wanted me to go to counseling. I refused. She wanted me to stop. I told her she had her problems too. She begged. I ignored. She told me later that at that point, she was planning to leave if nothing changed. But instead of leaving, she took a massive gamble: she suggested the very thing that would get me screwed on straight.
She wanted a baby.
Now, I’ve always wanted to be a dad. We talked about it all the time before we got married. We wanted to wait a few years and enjoy being a young married couple before we got started. I love kids. I teach them in Sunday school. I have fun around kids. I’m pretty much a big kid myself. So of course, I said yes.
I remember how I felt when she showed me the lines on the stick. I was so happy, so overjoyed. But for just a minute. After that minute, one thought hit my head: this kid is never going to know his dad, if I don’t change. See, my dad was a collegiate athlete like me. 215 lbs of solid muscle. Ran 6 miles a day til the day before he died, and he died playing handball with friends. Of a massive heart attack. And his father, a Navy veteran, died of a massive heart attack at 42. What chance did I have, a kid who was as inactive as is possible, weighing 440 lbs with 2 generations of coronary deaths behind him?
So I had a choice: I could get cozy with the thought of dying early and leaving my kids without a father, or get busy. So I walked into my bedroom, grabbed a journal, and wrote the only long term goal I have ever set for myself: to be the first Hollifield male in 3 generations to hold a grandchild. I’m proud to say that, since that time, the most weight I’ve gained before getting strict with macro tracking and taking it off again is 20 lbs.
Wasn’t easy. At all. I went to military college, and losing half my body weight was harder, and not by a narrow margin. First, I saw a bariatric surgeon. I didn’t want gastric bypass (though they were pushing me for it), but something less invasive. I ended up getting a lap-band. After I had lost my fist 50 lbs, I started running. Little by little. I plateaued at 350. I read up on weight lifting and remembered a lot of that technique from my athletic days. Lost another 30. Read about nutrition and macros. Lost another 50. Before long, I was running half marathons and my body comp had totally changed. But I was stuck around 260ish. Healthy, but I wanted to be leaner. At this point I actually concerned myself with aesthetics. Which I never thought I would be able to do 😂
Then, one very fortunate Christmas family party, my brother-in-law told me he began training Brazilian Jiujitsu. I wrestled in college and am a big MMA fan, so I’d always been interested. But I was an active dad. I never had the time. But after he spoke to me and my wife, we sat down and determined when in our schedules that it would fit to train. I tried a class and instantly became hooked. My kids and wife soon followed. That was almost 5 years ago, and we all still train together
Since then, my long term goal hasn’t changed. But now, I have a mid term goal: maintain a weight of 225 or less so that I can compete in jiujitsu at a comfortable weight class for me. The picture I sent to the Dropbox is me at my heaviest, and beside it is me in August 2019 at literally half that weight (220 lbs), at a tournament in Vegas.
Winter Is Coming.
Does the season beckon you to a warm bed, endless streaming entertainment IVs and any imaginable food, inexplicably cheap and genetically modified to trick you into never being full, just a few taps of your smartphone away? Or are you a wintery person? Does a landscape glistening with with frost tickle your aesthetic and athletic sensibilities?
With clearly more time being dedicated to the indoors, I’m getting very serious about how to keep my daily exertion of energy output UP.
It’s only autumn now, so I’m still in the preparation stages, spending as much time outside as possible, moving my body through space and time, with a bit of intention, so as to swing the scales in my direction. But once winter arrives, I’m planning on implementing a bit more of a rigorous routine. For the entirety of my waking state, I will not sit for more than an hour. The movement time I dedicate to each hourly holiday won’t be crazy, not looking to work up a sweat. A few minutes moving, shaking my arms about, walking, possibly a couple squats, maybe even a very slow burpee.
This is how I plan to fight the impending cold.
What will you do?
Spotlight: Mike D.
My name is Mike Dimovski and I am from Kalamazoo, MI. I am 33 years old with a wife and three kids and my weight loss mission started during winter of 2021. My dad had undergone an intense cancer treatment and was in the ICU, not doing well. That whole experience made me want to get healthy for him, because he had always given me shit about my weight but I always brushed it off, but deep down knew he was right. I wanted him to see me at a healthy weight during his lifetime.
My highest weight was 380 pounds. I started to spend a lot of time doing research on diet and weight loss, and following a few YouTubers that I found helpful and entertaining. I also joined a Facebook group to help surround myself with other people with the same goals. I shared my goals with a few close friends and made them aware of it, because I knew that if I told people what I was doing, I would be disappointed if I didn’t meet my own goals.
I started exercising daily, mostly consisting of walking a minimum of 30 minutes per day, 7 days a week. Tracking all calories with an app, and I also started intermittent fasting and intentionally eating more protein. Replacing a lot of foods that I enjoyed with healthier alternatives that never had me missing the “real thing” because I liked what I was eating and was feeling satiated from it. My daily calorie goal was about 2000 calories per day and I tried not to exceed 200g of carbs.
It took me 1 year of being fully committed with very few cheat days to get down to 185 pounds. I am currently 193 today because my exercise routine got away from me, but I have been consistent with my diet and am walking daily again. My next goal is to start building muscle by doing more weight training at the local gym.
In the beginning my mission started off as a goal to accomplish for my dad, but not long after seeing progress it became a goal for myself because life was becoming much better and more enjoyable. My Dad pulled through and is doing well and I know he is proud of my accomplishments. My kids are seeing the hard work I’ve put in and I feel like it has been a good influence for them.
Thanks for reading my story!
Mike D
Spotlight: Gregory M.
I have been fat my whole life and just in the last 2 years, 19 months to be exact, I have changed my body and mind, gained disciplines, change my thinking and motivation, changed my relationship with my son, family, and co-workers. Anyone that comes into contact with me they tell me "I've changed."
I did change.
I starting my journey weighing in at 455lbs with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure/hypertension, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, and had horrible gout in my ankle and foot.
I lost 240lbs and have been at 215lbs for 3 months or so. I reversed my type 2 diabetes, reversed my sleep apnea, and my high blood pressure. I stopped taking pills for my high cholesterol. No more gout and my mind is clear. I have a purpose and a drive every single day. And my 8-year-old son witnessed all of it. He's overweight and I'm showing him the path for life, to take action, and absorb knowledge.
With the right relationship with food, consistent exercise, a drive and a purpose, you can conquer anything.
-Gregory
Greeting the Season…
Leading into summer everything was firing on all cylinders for me. My schedule was great and perfectly conducive to leaning out a bit. The summer itself was another story. Kid’s schedules were a mess, which meant my schedule fell apart, two friends got married, 6 weeks apart, in Europe and I didn’t see the video clip where Larry David gave me permission to not go until after I’d gone - to both.
I had a 3rd venture to Europe for work so it was a summer spent in airports away from home. I had fun, I had a lot of fun. These outings were punctuated with brief stints at home trying to claw back to the pre summer schedule I’d liked so much, with very little success.
I had a 3rd venture to Europe for work so it was a summer spent in airports away from home. I had fun, I had a lot of fun. These outings were punctuated with brief stints at home trying to claw back to the pre summer schedule I’d liked so much, with very little success.
As summer winds down and all thing settle, I’m a bit tired and even apprehensive of getting back into the swing of things. This feeling smacks me in the face mornings I wake up and feel no desire/motivation to go to the gym. Despite ALWAYS feeling better when I leave the gym, I often have to talk myself into going. That is what I’ve been doing these past few days about my schedule, “Get back on it” I say to myself, “It won’t take long for it to bite and off to the races you’ll be…”
I’ve found that I can know something to be true for myself, and there will still be some part of me that resists it, that struggles against it, that whispers another truth: “Postmates and AppleTV are right in your phone, always within reach…”
Sometimes to beat that nagging voice, I’ll set little tasks, “Get up and feed the dogs first, Postmates isn’t going anywhere.” or “Just go to the gym, AppleTV will be waiting.” I find that once I begin down the road of action, choosing the best next subsequent action is easier.
And really, whether I am still shaking off the chaos of my summer I need and want to take as much action as I can right now, because the exhale of summer only leads to the massive inhale for the impending holiday season… Brandy’s already booking flights! 🥴
Spotlight: Roger V.
This January, I stood on the scale and saw the biggest number of my life, 253 lbs. I thought to myself, how did I get here, but I knew exactly how I ended up here.
As a middle schooler, I was "husky". Anyone else hate the word "husky'? I was chubby and I was pretty self conscious about it. This was pre-puberty and I needed a growth spurt in the worst way! I wasn't quite what you would call fat, but I was far from thin. I ate a good deal of junk food during this time and I wasn't very happy.
Fast forward to puberty, oh sweet puberty! I thinned out! I grew and I was 135lbs in high school with a metabolism to die for! I couldn't gain weight! Yes! While in high school I met my true love. The short version of that story is, we were married at 15 (her) and 16 (me) and our first child was on his way. We will save that story for another time. During the first years of our marriage we were poor, so I didn't have to worry about over eating! I stayed thin until I quit smoking around 25, and it was at that point I noticed that I no longer had the metabolism of a humming bird and that I could put on mass with ease. When you first gain weight as a skinny kid people compliment you because it looks like you are getting big, as in lifting weights at the gym big, but that wasn't the case. I would struggle with my weight from that time on in my life, riding the weight loss/gain roller coaster as I would diet, then fail, and diet, then fail, over and over and over.
I really noticed my eating habits getting really bad during the pandemic. We didn't have anywhere to go and we had food, so I ate, and ate, and ate. I ate dessert before bed. I ate whatever I wanted really, and I felt like crap.......
In this pic I am 238 lbs, and had already lost 15 lbs
I had listened to the podcast prior to January and I was becoming more and more motivated by Ethan's journey. I thought if he can do it, why can't I do it? He overcame a much larger mountain than I needed to. But I didn't want to diet. I didn't even want to use the word diet, so I didn't. I took a different approach, one that I had not taken before.
I began to look at eating as caloric intake and I then decided I would use caloric intake to achieve whatever goal I wanted to when it came to weight. I first needed to find the calories I needed to eat in order to maintain my current weight and then I could branch off from there. If I wanted to lose weight, my caloric intake would be 500 calories less than the level I needed to maintain my weight. If I wanted to gain weight, my caloric intake would need to be 500 more. If I wanted to maintain, I needed my caloric intake to be at that level, but what does that look like?
Pausing for a moment, it is also important to note that I am 46 years old and that I also had blood panels drawn to see where my hormones levels were at and also to check my thyroid. I did have some thyroid issues that required medication, and that also has helped me during this journey. I would highly recommend that anyone entering into this same journey also get blood work done. Weight loss can be a real challenge and there is no need to increase the difficulty of it due to issues you can't see.
I also find simplicity much easier to follow. I started out using an app to track all of my food but I found that to be a little overwhelming, especially since I was eating a lot of different foods. I decided to pay a nutritionist to make me a simple and easy to follow meal plan that would allow me to reach my goal, which had become the weight I need to be in order to see six pack abs! Yes, I have the same goal that Ethan did, because I have never had a six pack! Simplifying my meal plan has allowed me to really stay on track, and I also pre-cook my food. I eat a lot of ground turkey and rice and I carb cycle. I do 3 days of low carbs with 1 day of higher carbs (more rice) and it has been working for me! I am down 42lbs and I can sort of see some abs peeking through!
To be honest, in January this seemed like a huge task. How could I possibly get to see a six pack with this big ole keg of a gut? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. With this mentality my caloric intake has been on point!
From today, 09/19/2023, and I weight 211 lbs
In addition to nailing down my caloric intake, I have also used weights to get these gains! Yes, as Ethan has shown, you can build muscle mass while on a caloric deficit. You need fuel (protein), work (weights), water, and rest. I approached weight lifting much like I would approach investing. What is the least amount of effort for the most gain. I know on its face this sounds like a lazy mans approach, but trust me, it isn't. While I am not a body builder, I began to look at what some of the most successful body builders did to build muscle and I also began to read studies on the topic. This led me to Dorian Yates. If you do not know who he is, look him up! I find him to be a very interesting person and he is the first of what people called, the mass monsters, in body building. Now, I know what you are thinking, I am not going to be Mr. Olympia, and he took anabolics in addition to working out, and you are correct in both of those areas. Dorian Yates wanted to add muscle mass and so do I. I looked into how he did it and it goes against what most of us have learned over the years, 1 set beyond failure, versus the 3-6 sets we do per exercise. The science backs him up on this. 45 mins in the gym can yield excellent returns!
Using my "caloric intake" approach along with the principles outlined by Dorian Yates (and those before him in the field) I am achieving my fitness goals, at 46 years old!
What is possibly the coolest thing about all of this is, that I get to workout 4 days a week with my wife, our 18 year old daughter, and my 29 year old son! We all lift weights together in our garage gym! How cool is that? They are the best training group and they keep me motivated!
Dr. Roger V.
Simple boiled (poached) chicken breast.
I always thought of boneless skinless chicken breast as a borderline afront to the idea of what food should be. For so long, I required a moist explosion of flavor in my mouth, savory or sweet carried across my tongue by plump molecules of fat.
There was even a short time period that I intentionally made my food bland and dry, some self-flagellation, some idea of deprivation and suffering being the worthwhile pursuit of health.
What about MODERATION?!
Can there be a middle ground?!
The answer is a resounding YES!
I had first heard about Singaporean chicken rice on an episode of No Reservations. To my horror, Bourdain looked to be joyously eating sauceless boneless skinless chicken breast. What’s worse, he talked about it as though it was one of the finest dishes on earth, so simple and delicate, unpretentious, and common, yet so refined and sophisticated.
I was truly flummoxed and decided for some time that he must’ve been paid off by the government or had a relative just off camera with a gun to their head.
A year or so later and I heard through some underground foodie that a gal from Singapore was coming through LA and would be doing chicken rice for two nights out of a building in downtown.
The last thing my wife is interested in doing is eating out of some random building in downtown, but I convinced her of the scientific necessity of us trying this mythical dish and she eventually agreed.
We were served boneless/skinless chicken breast over rice, on paper plates with plastic utensils in some old random warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, and it was truly magical.
There was no flavor explosion that was carried across my tongue by plump fat molecules, there wasn’t much of a new flavor at all. What it was, was a perfectly seasoned, somehow moist, bite of chicken.
I’d really had no idea at all that this was possible.
The secret it turned out, was in poaching.
There is something quite magical about a poached chicken breast, if only that it becomes something up to that point that was completely foreign to what I’d known a chicken breast to be.
Bring a pot of water to boil
Add boneless/skinless chicken breast(s), cover and immediately remove from heat
Allow to sit for 20 minutes
You now have immaculately poached chicken breasts.
The other spectacular thing about this is how easy it is to season them, by simply adding some lemongrass and a knob of ginger to the water you have something distinctly different from if you add a few dashes of Italian seasoning.
My favorite way to flavor poached chicken breasts is with Marion Kay Chicken Seasoning (sodium free).
Diet food that’s delicious!
