What a difference a year makes

Written by Administrator

Monday, 20 July 2009 03:00

I struggled with how to start this particular blog entry. I wanted to convey how important the changes I made in the last year are, but I didn't want it to be too cheesy or dramatic. In the end though, I guess I don't really care if it comes off cheesy or dramatic because my life is so different than it was a year ago. Maybe it should be cheesy.

So in that vein: One year ago today I made the second most important purchase of my life. 365 days ago, I bought my first bike. The most important purchase was of course an engagement ring for my fantastic wife.

What follows below is semi-brief chronicle of how my life has changed in the last 365 days.

Let's begin with some photos: (Click on the photos to enlarge them)

This was at my graduation from the UA. It was roughly May 15, 2008. I was probably around 280 pounds.

At the time the last two photos were taken, I was 27 and my best guess is that I weighed 290 pounds. I was taking medication to treat high blood pressure and had a brief instance of chest pain. I didn't actually own a scale at the time, but I am pretty confident in the estimate.

Regardless of the actual weight, looking at these photos now, it is painfully clear that I was FAT. REALLY. FAT.

Being overweight and eating too much is something I've dealt with my entire life, but it was quickly getting out of hand. I have no doubt that I was addicted to food. Of course it was terrible food. It got to a point in the summer of 2008 that I was eating 4 meals a day. My favorites were Jimmy John's Italian Night Club sandwich, which weighed in at 974 calories and the three item combo at Panda Express, which works out to about 1400 calories.

A typical day would begin with an unhealthy breakfast, lunch at Jimmy Johns, a stop for a 3 item plate at Panda on my way home, then, and here is the shocker, another meal that Irene would have prepared before she left for work. I didn't want her to know I was eating out, so I ate the dinner she cooked too. I am ashamed to admit it even now. I can't believe I did that.

I suppose I knew I needed to do something. It turned out that a bicycle was my savior, but I don't think that was my intention when I bought it. I went with my friend Rob, who is the person that got me into cycling. I don't think he believes he did much, but I credit him for getting me started and encouraging me to continue riding. Without him, I might very well be even fatter.

My first bike was a Fuji Absolute 3.0, which is a hybrid bike, meaning it has skinny tires like a road bike and flat handlebars like a mountain bike. I bought it because it was pretty cheap and I wanted to make sure I really liked riding before I spent more money on a bike. I experienced a lot of problems with that bike, but I think most were attributed to my weight and a poor assembly job from Performance Bikes. What it did do was show me I really loved riding.

Here is a photo on one of my first rides with that bike:

My first ride was a painful 3 miles on the Rillito River Path. For several months. I focused on increasing the distance I could ride rather than weight loss.

In late September I started to get more serious about cycling and weight loss. I sold my Fuji and bought a used road bike. I also purchased a Garmin GPS bike computer to track how far and how fast I was riding.

I also signed up for an account on Fitday.com to track my calories and weight. The first entry for weight on fitday was at the beginning of October. At that point I weighed in at 269 pound, so I had already dropped about 21 pounds.

Then I started to get serious about weight loss and cycling.

I bought a used road bike and started counting how many calories I was consuming each day. I probably didn't lose my weight in an extremely safe or healthy manner, but it worked for me. I focused on consuming around 1600 calories a day despite all the cycling I was doing. There were days where my cycling computer told me I burned 3500 calories and I only consumed 1300 calories for the whole day.

I focused on eating healthier calories and I stopped drinking calories. I gave up everything but water and unsweetened decaf tea. I drank a ton of water each day. Experts say water can act as an appetite suppressant so I drank and drank and drank.

One of my goals was to ride in the short version (37 miles) of the El Tour de Tucson. Here is a shot from the finish line at the race. I was stilll pretty heavy at this point.

The race was fun, but also very hard. I decided that I wanted to do more races and have a goal to do the full 109 miles next November. I was hooked.

The weight continued to come off and people really started to notice. When I went back to work after the University's holiday break, I got so many comments from people about how great I looked. There is very little that is more encouraging than that.

The awesome thing is that I was doing something that is really healthy and helping me lose weight, but even better I loved doing.

I've gotten to the point where I really hate driving and only want to ride my bike. One of the things I really wanted when Irene and I began looking for a new house was to move to an area that allowed me to ride my bike to work and stores. Since we have moved, I've yet to use a car to get groceries and have only driven to work one day since we moved into the house in April.

At this point, you are all probably hoping I am going to cut to the chase, so I will.

Here are some of the stats that have changed since I started this whole process one year ago today:

I've lost 110 pounds. Here is a photo of the weight loss I tracked:

I went from wearing size XXL shirts to wearing size medium. I used to wear size 42 pant, now I wear size 34. I had to purchase two new belts.

I went from zero exercise to riding 125 miles a week. I'm at 3,500 miles since I started tracking it in Sept. My goal is to ride 5,000 miles in 2009.

I lowered my blood pressure enough that I could stop taking medication for it.

And lastly my body looks vastly different than it did when I started measuring in October.

Chest:

Start: 49 inches End: 40.25 Difference: -8.75

Hips:

Start: 46 inches End: 37 Difference: -9

Waist:

Start: 54 inches End: 36.25 Difference: -17.75

I think these a dramatic changes, but I'll let you be the judge of that. Here are some recent photos:

Lastly I want to thank everyone who helped me go from this:

To this:

I couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement from all you. Special thanks to Rob for getting me onto 2 wheels. I will forever be grateful. And also to Jay for encouraging me, being amazed, giving me stuff you didn't want to store anymore and increasing my bike education. Lastly, a big thank you to my wonderful wife who put up with my craziness, endless talk about bikes and weight loss. I could not have done it without you. You are the best!