Where I’ve Been

Welcome to my blog Tim Loses It.  I have wanted to start this blog for a while, as I started this weight loss journey 1 year ago.  However I guess they say better late than never and as I still sit at 310 pounds I still have plenty to talk about.  Now before we get started I should probably tell you a little about myself.  My name is Tim; I am married, and have two wonderful children.  I teach at a small private school and occasionally travel the state preaching at a number of churches.  I am also a basketball and soccer coach which in my mind was always an excuse for my weight, because I have a relatively active lifestyle.  

On top of that my weight never really bothered me; I was a big guy but happy being big.  I had a lot of friends, was often asked to preach all over.  I was a great cook, and deep fried like no one you’ve known.  I knew I was big, and would joke about it with others, some people thought I was hurting because of the weight.  Me, I wasn’t too concerned about it.

This changed for me a little over a year ago, when my son came home upset from school.  His friends had been giving him a hard time because his daddy was fat.  The fact a bunch of 8 year olds thought I was fat didn’t bother me in the least.  I knew I was.   I tried to tell my son I was.  What bothered me was the fact he looked up to me so much, he didn’t believe it.  My son could not believe someone like his dad was fat.  It was right there I knew I had to change.

In June 2011, I drove to Wal-Mart to buy a scale.  I knew I was right around 320 and figured the first step to losing was to walk more, eat better and watch the weight fall away.  I never would have guessed as I stepped on that scale and the numbers stopped on 368.  I could not believe just how close to 400 I was.  There were contestants on the biggest loser smaller than me.  I was embarrassed about my weight for the first time.  

Over the next three months I did what I knew how to do.  I walked more and I ate less.  I didn’t always eat well and more often then not I didn’t, I just tried to approach each meal and eat less then I would normally eat.  Instead of a large flurry, I would eat a small one.  Instead of eight slices of pizza, I would eat 4.  Somehow by God’s grace, I lost weight on this simplistic approach and at the end of August I was weighing in at 355.  

In September 2011, I decided I had to take it up a notch.  Thirteen pounds was good, but at this rate it would take me four years to get where I needed to be.  So I started with My Fitness Pal (www.myfitnesspal.com) it gave me a calorie goal to lose 2 pounds a week.  I also went out and joined a gym, and officially told everyone I knew that I was trying to lose weight in an attempt to keep myself honest.  

This new system worked, I read everything I could, I learned as much as I could and I lost a lot of weight.  My biggest mistake was stopping a week before the holidays to enjoy Christmas.  December 2011, I weighed in at 303 pounds, and stopped to enjoy all the good food Christmas had to offer.  Christmas turned into New Years, New Years turned into basketball season.  Basketball season turned into my wife’s and son’s birthdays.  I knew I had put weight back on, and the scale had become something I feared.  Finally in mid April I got back on the scale and was relieved to have it pop up at 318.  I hadn’t put too much back on, and decided to take it off by June.  I went back to My Fitness Pal, started juicing (usually two meals a day) again and over two weeks dropped eight pounds before it all stalled. 

May 2011, I weighed in at 310.  Three weeks later I still weighted in at 310 I was walking, I was eating right, but the weight wasn’t moving and I decided it was time to do something new again.