Okay, first of all, let me clarify one thing in this story; I didn’t lose any fat! I released 132 lbs (and counting) of FAT! More on that later in the story.

So, there I was, sometime in early 2008, and I found myself hungry 24 hours a day, my blood sugar levels wildly out of control (I’m Type 2 Diabetic), and constantly increasing the amount of insulin I was using every day. I remember making myself a deal in that time – a deal that actually horrified me that I would consider making it. The deal I made with myself was that as long as my weight didn’t balloon over 400 lbs, then I would be okay with it. I couldn’t believe what I was telling myself!!

I was an ultramarathon athlete, having completed many 50 mile and 100 mile runs, hundreds of marathon-distance runs, a Double Ironman, and many other ultra-endurance events. And here I was, making a deal with myself that doubling my bodyweight, with blubber, would be something I was okay with?!?!???

I got frustrated with my doctor, as it seemed like all he ever wanted me to do was increase my medication, in the hope things would work themselves out. I insisted that my doctor send me to a specialist, and that’s what eventually happened.

My doctor sent me to LMC Endocrinology Centers, to the Oakville branch of this company. I was there for a couple of hours my first visit, seeing not only a doctor, but also a dietician, a nutritionist, and a nurse who quarterbacks everything.

I left the LMC office that day with some clearer understanding of what was going on, and the things that I needed to do to get things back on track. I left with an introduction to a fantastic program that enables me to track my daily intake of various food components (calories, carbs, sodium, cholesterol, etc.) – http://CalorieKing.com. I left with some solid ideas of what types of food to avoid. I left with guidelines on how many calories I should eat every day (2,500), how much carbs, etc. I also left with the admonition to start exercising again.

I left that appointment feeling incredibly uplifted and full of positive hope for my future. My wife and I immediately began walking. We did 17 minutes a day for the first week, and within a month, I was walking twice a day – an hour in the morning and 30 minutes or so at night with my wife.

As I got into the walking, and got into the habit of eating properly, things started to change for me quite rapidly. The blubber started falling off rapidly, with very little effort on my part. I found an amazing grocery store, The Low Carb Grocery, where I buy low-carb bread, carb-free syrup, jam, and many, many other products.

No drugs, no injections, no going to weekly meetings. Just being motivated, being monitored by a team of professionals, and following common sense.

Along the way, through the first 6 months, my insulin dose went from 50 units a day to 5 units a day. My cholesterol is at the low end of great, and I have serious family history of cholesterol problems. Every single blood measurement that is done, I am at the low end of good range for a non-diabetic. My total medication intake is reduced by between 50% and 95%, depending on the medication, and 2 meds have been eliminated completely.

Okay, before I get to some of the nitty-gritty of the mindset, the exercise, and the food behind my change, let me deal with the opening sentence of this blog post. I said ” . . . I didn’t lose any fat! I released 132 lbs (and counting) of FAT! ” When I make this comment, 99.9% of people just stare blankly and say ‘huh?’, so don’t worry if I confused you.

Have you ever lost your car keys? your cell phone? perhaps that one rogue sock? I bet you’ve lost something in your life at some time, right? Everyone has. It’s okay.

When you lose something, what do you do? The human condition is that anything we lose, we go looking for it to get it back. It’s the way we are wired. And that’s a good thing.

But, when I get rid of this blubber, I don’t want it back. I don’t want to go looking for it. I want it gone from me forever. The BIG Breakthrough for me came when I was reading a magazine in some waiting room, and I read an article about this ‘miracle doctor’ who got a 20+ year cocaine addict off her addiction for as long as she was addictied – 20 years, and counting. This addict had tried everything to get clean – detox, other drugs, hypnosis, you name it, she tried it, and sometimes things would work for a week or a month, but she’d always run back to her cocaine. Until she met this psychiatrist who told her the following:

Treat your addiction like it is an unwanted visitor in your house. Treat it like it is a houseguest who has overstayed their welcome, and tell it to get the hell out of your house because you don’t want it there anymore.

Wow! That hit me like a ton of bricks. You see, like most obese (what a horrible word that is!) people, I resented my blubber, yet at the same time, it was a part of me. I wanted to get rid of it, I really did, but to do so felt like I was cutting off a limb or something. How whacked is that!? Probably not too whacked, if you’ve ever been in these shoes.

So, here I am, someone who studies and teaches about the power of the spoken word and the importance of carefully choosing the right words, and I’m not following my own lessons. I kep on talking about wanting to lose weight, when I should have been talking about releasing my blubber. When you release something, it is not done with an expectation of that thing’s return, but rather with the expectation that the thing is gone forever.

So that’s why I say I lied – I didn’t lose any weight; I released, and am still releasing, my excess blubber to the universe.

Follow the link below to read about the food, the exercise, and the mental experience I’ve gone through so far.

The Food

The food has actually been one of the easiest parts of this process for me. As I said earlier, I started out with an allowance of 2500 calories a day, which has since come down to 1600 to 1800 a day. This is net calories, or calories in minus calories burned in exercise. I burn approximately 1,200 calories a day through exercising, so I actually get to eat quite a lot of food.

My food may be slightly different from a non-diabetics, but not drastically different. My daily intake allowances of a few important things are, for those who track these sorts of things:

Calories – 1600-1800

Carbohydrates – 220gms

Cholesterol – 300 units

Sodium – 2300 mmg

Fiber – 65gms

The only other thing I track is water intake. I find that I suffer greatly in the energy department if I am at all dehydrated, so I make sure that I am super-hydrated. This is something I learned about from Deepak Chopra, and more recently, Tony Robbins, who both espouse that one should consume at least 50% of their body weight in ounces of water. So, a 250lb person should drink at least 125 ounces of water a day. Coffee, soda, juice, etc. is on top of this, and if you drink lots of caffeinated beverages, you need to drink even more water.

My water intake is between 60% and 75% of my body weight in ounces every day, so I’m drinking between 120 ounces and 180 ounces a day. I have typically consumed about 100 ounces before I even leave the house in the morning, finding it very easy and pleasing to drink this quantity of water. I drink 98% pure water, extremely cold, and always carry a 40oz bottle with me during the day.

Going back to the numbers I track . .

Carbohydrates are easy enough to track – they are listed on the packaging of most everything (don’t forget to deduct the gms of fibre from the gms of carbs to get a true number). Also, the CalorieKing program, which contains the nutrient information for some 75,000 foods, has all the info in it already.

Cholesterol is fairly easy to track; not so easy to only consume that much cholesterol, UNTIL you realize that egg yolks are poison. One egg yolk contains 270 units of cholesterol, so that pretty much toasts your day. Solution – eat the egg whites only.

Sodium is also fairly easy to track, and also not so easy to only consume that amount of sodium. HOWEVER, it can be pretty easy to do, as long as you watch what you eat. I typically consume only 750mmg of sodium a day, and it is easy to do.

So, how about some examples of meals?

Breakfast is, for me, the most important meal of the day. By the time I eat breakfast, I’ve been up 3 or 4 hours, done my exercise, done a bunch of personal stuff, and I am HUNGRY! Being one who hates to have to think much about meals, I eat the exact same thing for breakfast 7 days a week:

4 extra-large egg whites. Fried in non-stick pan with nothing added. Sprinkled with Frank’s Hot Sauce, and served on 2 slices of organic multigrain bread (Calories 50 / Fat 0g / Cholesterol 0mg / Sodium 10mg /Carbohydrates 6g / Fibre 2g / Protein 7g), plain.

1 Tbsp Low-Fat Cream Cheese with 2 tbsp carb-free, sugar-free, fat-free jam on 2 more slices of the organic multigrain bread.

1 Grapefruit

1.5C of 0% Fat Astro Yoghurt with 1/2C of sugar-free syrup.

This breakfast fills me up and keeps me going for around 3 hours, and it is around 500 calories.

My typical morning snack is 2 high-fiber cookies (Calories 110 /Total fat 5g /Sat. Fat 2g /Trans Fat 0g /Cholesterol 5mg /Sodium 60mg /Carbohydrates 15g /Dietary Fibre 4g /Sugars 4g /Sugar Alcohols 0g /Protein 3g)

Lunch may be some mini-carrots, pepper rings, celery, cucumber with ‘HelluvaGood’ brand low-sodium cheese (it is excellent!) or flaked tuna. Add to this 2 more slices of the organic multigrain bread, a navel orange and an apple. Another option is some homemade low-sodium, low-fat beef & vegetable soup. Another option is 1/2 a thin-crust, wholewheat crust pizza. Typical lunch is 500 to 750 calories.

Afternoon snack is either an apple or some low-sodium low-fat corn chips, or a banana.

Dinner is sometimes grilled salmon, a small piece of steak, a grilled chicken breast, or some other form of protein. Along with this is a huge garden salad or steamed vegetables and a baked potato.

The key, for me, as far as my food intake is concerned, is to eat lots of vegetables, to restrict the fat intake, to actually be hungry before I eat, to stop eating after 7pm, and to be strong in my determination to succeed. I am fortunate that I really enjoy eating lots of vegetables and fruit, but if I didn’t, it would be easy enough to get to like them. I don’t put any dressing on the vegetables, just some Franks Hot Sauce.

Sometimes, when I am struggling for something different to eat, I’ll do a search for things like ‘low carb chili’, and come up with some amazing recipes.

For example, the low carb chili -s excellent, made using homemade low-sodium taco mix (Google is your friend), organic low-sodium black soy beans – it is an excellent meal, and made with extra-lean ground beef, it is low in all the bad things and high in all the good things.

Or, if you prefer, CalorieKing.com has menus, recipes, and meal plans that you can follow.

Another important learning resource for me was to read the book ‘The G.I.Diet’. It gave me lots of insights into how different foods affect me, and helped me understand my physiological reaction to various foods in terms of tiredness, blood sugar spikes, etc.

The Exercise

Okay, okay, I can hear your protests already . . . I don’t have time!

Well, guess what? I don’t have anything new to say about that – we all have the same amount of hours in a day / if it was important to you, you’d find the time / you won’t have time when you’re dead. Insert your favourite reasons here.

Guess what – you need to do it. So, how can you find the time? That’s the biggest challenge, from what people always tell me (I know that is just an excuse, but we’ll go with it for now). Well, here’s what we did:

• Go right after dinner for a nice leisurely walk with your spouse. It doesn’t have to be an hour long, just get into the habit. That’s the most important thing – develop the habit.
• Go for a walk right when you first get up – get it done and out of the way.
• Have an exercise bike, eliptical, treadmill, etc? If so, put it in the living room, or wherever the evening time is typically spend by your family. When your favourite TV show comes on, watch it while burning a few calories.
• Take 15 minutes at lunch time, and go for a walk then.

Remember, at the beginning, it is important to build the habit of getting out the door and actually doing it. Once the habit is built, you can worry about going further or longer or faster or whatever.

Given that I began my journey in September and that I live in Southern Ontario, I knew that winter would, at some point, drive me inside for my exercise, so I wanted to get a good base of conditioning before the weather turned really bad. I got competitive with myself, aiming every day to set a new fast-time for one of my measured routes. I also dropped one of my daily walks in exchange for time on the eliptical machine in our living room – eliptical burns a lot of calories if done at a high intensity.

I wear a heart rate monitor when I exercise, to make sure that I am exercising most of the time in the fat-burning range of maximum heart rate. This is very important. If you’re going to exercise, you might as well make it as beneficial as possible, right? My HRM came from ebay, for $15, and it works just fine.

So, when I talk to people who, naturally, ask what I did to achieve the success I have in this challenge, exercise is where they fall into their ‘victim mode’. By this I mean that they play victim to society (I am too busy to exercise) or their job (I don’t have time because I start work early and finish late) or their family (I don’t see may family enough as it is; to exercise would take valuable time from them) or their kids (I have to get them ready for school, to hockey, to soccer, etc.). And how many hundreds of other excuses, they all boil down to the same thing – I DON’T HAVE TIME!

That’s it, right? That’s what you’re thinking. Sorry, but yer full of it. We all have the same amount of time; we just have different priorities. And when your health becomes a priority for you, then you’ll suddenly, mysteriously, find the time.

There’s no sugar coating it; there can’t be. Get over it. JUST DO IT.

The Mindset

This really is the key. For every one. The food doesn’t matter; the exercise doesn’t matter. Not if your mindset isn’t right. Nothing else is more important than your mindset. Why or How did you get to where you are? Why or How are you going to change? The 2 most critical questions; the ‘WHY’ is the most important part.

If you haven’t read a book called ‘When Food Is Love’, get it from the library, read it, then study it, paying attention to how your body reacts to what you are reading. Or maybe, for you, the answers aren’t there in those pages (but I bet some answers are!)

Then, read Byron Katie’s excellent book called ‘The Work’, a series of questions that, when answered honestly, will bring you easy, dramatic change in many areas of your life.

Perhaps you are not happy? Another excellent read, regardless of your current happiness is Marci Shimoff’s book ‘Happy For No Reason’. Or, try Debbie Ford’s book ‘Why Bad Things Happen to Good People’ – she even has an excellent, inexpensive, online course that is very effective at getting at what is messing up your life.

So, where was my mindset?

Well, I was tired of not being in control of my body and my health. I was totally tired of taking more and more medication and not getting anywhere. And I was tired of going to see my doctor, who only has 3 minutes per patient, and feeling like I would never get better because he wouldn’t listen to me. So, in other words, I was doing really well at being a victim.

The first step, for me, was to accept that I am in control of my destiny. We hear it everywhere, and it’s true. No-one else can want for me things that I do not allow to happen. Nothing has meaning except the meaning I give it. If it is to be, it is up to me. There’s hundreds of those sayings out there. And they are true.

So, my first action step was to insist that my doctor send me to a specialist. My next action step was to get buy-in from my family. This wasn’t too difficult, given my past and the effect my bad health was having on our lives, both as individuals and as a unit. We radically changed our eating habits overnight. We had to. I felt that death was coming looking for me if I didn’t make drastic changes, and I was determined that I have a lot more living to do with my family before I check out.

The next step was to get out the door every day for my walking. Alarm set for 4 a.m. and off I went. I’m a morning person, so that’s only an hour before my body normally wakes up anyway, so I fell into the habit quite easily. The evening walks were another matter; every excuse under the sun kept on appearing, and it was a real battle to overcome them. But we persevered.

Monitoring the daily food intake can be difficult, but it is just another habit, and using the CalorieKing program has made it an easy, enjoyable process for me.

I don’t go for many walks lately; I find it more beneficial to use my eliptical machine in the mornings during the work-week, and either rollerblade or walk with my wife in the evenings. Weekend mornings I like to rollerblade as well. Eliptical and rollerblading are low-impact, high-energy-burning exercises that I enjoy. I want to get the most calories burned for my time investment, so I have changed things to ensure this. Once I’ve released another 15 lbs, I’ll start lacing up the running shoes and get jogging again on a daily basis.

Going back to the victim mode for a minute – here’s one specific example of the power of words. Back before I started this journey, weighing 357 lbs, I was teaching a class, talking about commitment, etc. and revealing my past athletic prowess. One of the students said ‘What happened?’, and I poured out a whole load of excuses, and the student threw them back at me, telling me to stop blaming other people and take responsibility. That hit me like a ton of lead. And I decided to listen. And the following week, I told my doctor to refer me to a specialist.

And my life has been in my control ever since (yes it was in my control before, but now I am controlling it for good, not self-destruction).

The Future

Someone recently asked me how I plan on keeping my weight off, what I am going to do to stop it coming back, and that’s what really spurred me to write this.

It’s my mind. The rolls of blubber that have hung off my body aren’t mine; they were just visitors who overstayed their welcome. And they’ve got the message loud & clear that they are not welcome back.

Ask a former morbidly-obese person what they feel now, and they’ll tell you many things, but one thing they will all tell you is that they love the freedom of movement that comes with living in a smaller body. Touching my toes is a big one for me – heck, seeing my toes was big! Making the decision to walk the 3 miles round trip to return a movie rental, and knowing it is not going to leave me exhausted, then actually doing it are all highly-important things for me.

My immediate goal is to run the half-marathon in Austin, Texas in January 2010. I’m running with a friend of mine who lives in Austin, and it will be a nice easy run, with a mountain of celebration at the end of it all.

That’s a huge factor for me too, in this whole process – reward. When I started, I promised myself that I would celebrate the release of 25 lbs, and I did. Then, we said we would celebrate my going below 300lbs, which we did – we went to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo for wings (I could only eat 15, instead of the 50 I had been eating only 6 months earlier!). When I had released the first 100lbs, we celebrated again, only differently. We had a day of eating junk and my not exercising, etc., as a way of my seeing what I had said goodbye to one last time.

It was cathartic to do that, to truly feel how that type of eating and lack of exercise are just a nasty way to live. And it’s not for me. No Sirree.

Tags: calorie, carb, carbs, cholesterol, diabetic, fat, lbs, lose, sodium, sugar