Becoming a Loser

Becoming a weight loser has probably been among the top 10 New Year’s resolutions for as long as those lists have been created and tracked in all of their myriad versions and sources. Since I’ve been fat – seriously overweight – for at least the last 10 or 15 years, this year I made it my one and only resolution to become a serious loser.

This blog focus will be about my ’63 by 63′ goal: lose 63 pounds by my 63rd birthday. I’m 62 now and my 63rd birthday is June 21, 2012. I started a MediFast diet on January 9 (more on that later).

Motivations – this list will probably change but I’ll start with these:

I want a longer, healthier life.
In December 2007 a Vanderbilt physician informed me that I was morbidly obese at 265 lbs and in all likelihood would soon develop high(er) blood pressure, type II diabetes, heart problems, and much more. In short, I faced an increasingly debilitated life ending at least 10 years earlier than it should. I want to see my 1-year old granddaughter graduate at least from high school, if not college and maybe medical school – and i want to be able to walk in and stand and applaud with no physical limitations at all, and jump for joy with her in the courtyard after. And I want to dance with her, my daughter (her mother), and my wife at her wedding. And if I really get this right, I’d like to still be able to swim 2,500yds in under an hour. And I’d like to do a whole lot more from now until whenever God has set as my last day on earth – and all without physical struggle, weariness, or dependency.
I want to feel and look a LOT better.
I can’t get younger or regrow lost hair and on a good day I look a little like Jack Nicholson, if that qualifies as any kind of handsome. I can accept being a totally bald senior citizen and the old man in the mirror from the neck up. But it’s the fat slob from there down that has to go. It’s been so long since I could see my toes or genitals in the shower without sucking and/or tucking in my flab AND bending over that I stopped looking for them until I’m drying off. I detest the effort of dragging that blubber in and out of cars, up and down stairs, through all those laps in the pool … and the thought of being stuck in a coach middle seat on a flight of any duration spikes my blood pressure by at least 20%. With God’s help and grace we’ll transform this XXL-2XL 44″x30″ 18″x34″ tub of guts into a trim M-L 32″x30″ 16″x34″ aquatic machine doing 2,500m in 50 minutes. And I’ll look good enough doing it that my wife will worry about me catching her checking me out.
I want to honor the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Make no mistake – I am most ashamed of my obesity because it’s visible proof of my unwillingness and inability to honor God with the body and good health He’s blessed me with. Vanity, pride, and egotism are among my greater sins and oxymoronically they’ve persisted despite no longer having any basis whatsoever in my physical appearance. I have no excuses but I do have at least a ton of rationalizations and 100lbs of fat to prove it – NOT counting hundreds more lost and regained over 20 years of failed attempts. All past sins and failures aside, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, by His mercy and grace, I will strive to honor God with His living temple by restoring my physical being to beset of the potential with which He endowed it, for His glory – not mine.

This journey actually isn’t at its beginning, however. It started in earnest with that Vanderbilt physician in December of 2007. For New Year’s 2008, I committed to start swimming at least 3 times a week, for at least 45 minutes (more on swimming in the “Waterlog” focus). I’ve been 95% faithful to that commitment and now swim 2,500 yds in 50 minutes (+/- a minute or two) at least 3 times a week. I had dropped to a ‘personal best’ as a quasi-fit fat guy of 225 lbs and down to 42″x30″ pants, and Lord knows I felt 1000% better. But I hadn’t done a thing to change my eating habits. Until now.

And ‘habit’ is the word: I am a food addict. It undeniably fills emotional voids in my heart and soul and I will always argue that if chocolate isn’t a primary food group in heaven then I’m in the wrong place. I wander between gourmandism and gluttony and wonder even now how I’ll manage to give up culinary delights or junk food binges completely, or at best, enjoy them in full only rarely if ever again. So am I willing to abandon those lifelong appetites and delights (mostly if not entirely) in hopes of achieving 63×63 and fulfilling those noble motives above?

Yes.

Check (click) my 63×63 results.