What are the results of the Journey?

Well, in one sense, the results are incomplete... The Journey continues even this day with no end in sight.

But let me give you an idea of how the Journey has progressed thus far.

As I said, I haven't had a soda in almost a year. But the big goal is to lose some tonnage off of my rotund frame. I knew that I would need to track this carefully. It's been said that goals without a plan are just a dream.

I coordinate a personal finance class and we teach people that the first step of getting a handle on your finances is write out how much you owe, how much you make, and how much your monthly bills are. And then for each paycheck have a written game plan for each dollar. The principle is that if you don't track this stuff, dollars will seem to float away. It's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall...

So, with my weight, I needed to track it. I started at 371 pounds. Pretty hefty, huh? That's about twice as much as I should weigh. But it is what it is. I didn't let it discourage me. If anything I let it motivate me a little bit. You can whine & moan about the mountain in front of you, or you can man up and climb it. So I started climbing...

Below is what the first month looked like:

(click on image to see all of it...)

So I started off good... And then I flat lined a little and even gained again. But in the first five weeks I lost 10 pounds. I know... On the Biggest Loser, they lose that in a week or less. But at this point  I wasn't really exercising at all. And I wasn't working too hard to watch my calories either.

So, then onto the second month:

(click on image to see all of it...)

So May was nothing to brag about... But, I should point out that at least I wasn't gaining weight anymore... But if I was going to start losing weight I was going to have step up my game...

The Journey... Was it possible?

Over the last four or five posts I've detailed my decision to do something about my extreme obesity, starting with cutting out the ridiculous amount of soda I was drinking.

So, was I able to do it? Yes. So far so good. The last time I had soda was almost a year ago on March 24th, 2010. Well, that's not totally true. About a month after I start a friend of mine brought me a Crush Creme Soda from Canada. It's pink and kinda has a strawberry taste to it. You can only get it in Canada and it is about the best thing EVER! I let it sit in the fridge for a few days and then made the decision to go ahead and drink it.

It didn't seem right to let it go to waste considering the effort it took to get it. And I viewed it as a little test. If I could drink just it and not go back to drinking soda regularly, that would show me that I was getting a handle on this thing. And I didn't even drink the whole bottle.

I've also have the occasional diet soda since Thanksgiving. I held off to Thanksgiving just so it wasn't like I was trading one addiction for another. Yes, diet soda has no calories, but it's still not good for you. And not just because of the chemicals and acidity.

The artificial sweetener in the soda causes your body to think that it's getting a ton of sugar and you body ramps up to deal with it. They've seen, in people dealing with diabetes, the body having negative reactions to the diet soda, just like if it was a dose of real sugar.

Also, because it's not real sugar, the brain is disappointed. It got the signal it was getting sugar, but it never gets it, so it craves it more. They've found that people who drink diet soda tend to binge on other sugary foods to get that fix the brain expects.

So now, if the corn syrup people don't get me, the diet soda makers might. I'm not scared though... Bring it on!!

Has it been easy? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Heck no. It has completely sucked. People ask me how I feel now that I quit. I know they expect me to say that I feel great, but all I really feel is the desperate need for a soda. It's pure misery to be near someone drinking a soda. I can smell it from about 20 feet away. I swear there are times when I'm walking through the store that I can smell the soda through the bottles. Just talking about makes me want one.

So, what type of results did I see? Stay tuned to find out...

Was the Journey possible?

I ended my last post by asking: "Could I quit drinking soda?" It was obvious I was drinking wwwaaaayyy too much. If I could just cut out this one thing, would that be enough to have an effect on my ever expanding waistline?

It in was mid-February, 2010 when I was contemplating this. My parents were coming up in mid-August. My birthday was a month away in mid-March. I decided if I gave myself sometime to prepare, I could do it. So I picked my birthday, March 24th as the last day I would have soda. I was going to quit at least until my parents were here. That would be 5 months.

From that day until my birthday I reminded myself constantly that, on the 24th I was quitting. Every time I cracked up another sweet, wonderful can of sugary happiness I marked it as being one closer to being done with it. And to not be wasteful, I spent until midnight of the 24th drinking every bit of soda I had in the house.

Well, I tried getting rid of it all. I hadn’t yet told anyone of what I was going to attempt. That way when I failed as usual, there would less people to mock me. I didn’t even tell Christy. I wanted to see if she’d notice the difference.

So she, not knowing what I was attempting, did a very nice thing on my birthday. She got me the gift she knew I would love the most. A 12 pack of soda. I had it all planned out to drink up my hoard by midnight of the 24th. When she handed me that lovely box of goodness, I felt like Monty Brewster when his friends made him a bunch of money while he was trying to get it all spent. (It’s a great movie… you should go rent it tonight…)

And that gift highlighted a big concern. How was I going to avoid soda? It’s EVERYWHERE in our culture. Go to any social gathering. There’s usually soda available. Here at work there’s a fridge with sodas available to buy.  Try getting something other than soda at a fast food place. Or a restaurant. Or a convenience store when driving. Yes, there’s always water. And I drink a lot of water during the day. But sometimes you want something other than water. And yes, there’s fruit juices. But I don’t like ‘em. Never have. I don’t drink coffee or energy drinks.

So I knew I had to plan carefully to avoid soda. The first part of my plan was to not have any soda in the house.  That’s why I engaged in my binge on the 24th,; to clean the place out. I also knew I would be increasing my water intake & my milk intake. But for my main alternative, I switched to something I knew I liked and that’s Tropical Punch Kool-Aid.  I drink it ice cold, and for a little bit of sparkle, I use a couple of cans of seltzer water when making it. I call it my nicotine patch. It’s still has some sugar in it, but it’s not as much as soda, and it’s not high-fructose corn syrup.

I had read a study where they fed two groups of rats an equal amount of calories, but the one group got it in the form of sugar, while the other got it in the form of the high-fructose corn syrup. The rats that got the sugar gained less weight than the other group. And the group that got the calories from the high-fructose corn syrup gained all their weight around the middle, where it does the most damage. I’ll probably have to watch my back now to avoid getting whacked by the Corn Grower’s Association…

So, did it work? Was I able to quit? Did I wake up with a bloody ear of corn in bed from the Godfather of the corn growers? We shall see...

What inspired the Journey?

The decision to embark on the Journey had several inspirations.

Among them was every mirror I caught my rather rotund reflection in. And the pants that wouldn't button up. And the wheezing that accompanied every trip up a flight of stairs.

Now this is going to sound a little cheesy.... But, another big inspiration was the TV show "The Biggest Loser." I'll probably lose some man points for admitting that. But seeing the results the contestants got planted a glimmer of hope that it's possible to undo years of bad choices.

The final kick in the pants came about a year ago. I was listening to a message from Perry Noble of Newspring Community Church. One of his pet peeves is preachers who will condemn others for indulging in alcohol when they themselves haven't been able to touch their toes since the Carter administration.

He tells a story about an experience he had while in college. At the time, he was extremely overweight. One day in class they had a discussion about overweight preachers and how it seemed hypocritical that they would preach about self-control when it was obvious they had never said no to an extra piece of pie.

Later, as he and some classmates were driving around, they were discussing this, they all agreed they needed to do something about their own weight. They pulled in to get some gas, and Perry went into the convenience store and got a diet soda. Another friend went into the McDonald's next door and came out with the biggest milkshake they had. Perry was amazed that moments after every one of them had made a commitment to watching their health, one of them was showing that commitment with a jumbo size sugar bomb.

I was listening to the message and I asked myself: "Could I quit drinking soda?" Could I give up drinking that sweet nectar of life? The source of all happiness? How could I resist it's sugary Siren call? Would it be possible? There was only one way to find out...

What sparked the Journey?

As I explained in the previous post, about a year ago I came to realize something had to change. I had gone past the point of being charmingly plump. I was now more in the range of a disgusting pile of lard. And more than that, I was a disgusting pile of lard who consumed at least 1,500 calories a day in soda.

Yeah, you read that right. At least 1,500 calories a day in soda, and often times it would be more. An average adult should consume about 2000 calories a day total. I was getting almost all of that just in soda. I love me some soda. Coke, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, A&W Root Beer, Sprite, Sunkist.... Love it. LOVE it. Loooooovvvveee it.

I could down a 2-liter with a meal, plus almost a six pack and several 20 ounce bottles a day. One of the local convenience store/gas stations has 44 ounce fountain sodas for 99 cents. One or two of those were also in the mix each day. I was an expert at watching the sales and getting my best deal so I could buy as much soda as possible with what I had budgeted for my habit.

Other than the occasional candy binge, I wasn't eating a lot of sweets. I didn't eat bigger meals than anyone else. In fact I've got several friends that would easily consume more than me when eating. Granted, I wasn't a poster-boy for healthy eating, but it didn't seem that bad.

Obviously a big step in the right direction would be to cut out the soda. Not cut back, cut out. Completely. I knew I couldn't cut back. I couldn't just have some. At various times I had halfheartedly tried to cut back. If anything I wound up drinking more.

It was time for a drastic change. And I wasn't looking forward to that.

What led to the Journey?

Last post I introduced the Journey.  Now is time to begin to elaborate on what I'm talking about.

I'm fat. I know that may come as a shock to some of you, but it's true. Some have used the term "morbidly obese". But I think that doctor was just trying to be a meanie. I've been fat most of my life, with a few exceptions.

My freshman & sophomore year of high school I was in wrestling and thanks to Mr. Short's coaching I was in decent shape. My first four years out of high school I worked in the timber industry and it was an extremely physical job. I was actually in really good shape then.

And then I moved to Wasilla. For the first time in my life I had easy access to fast food. And I continued to drink large amounts of soda. Although I was active, I wasn't nearly as active as when I was logging. And because I had always been at least chubby, I didn't notice that I was getting fatter & fatter until it was too late.

Well, that's not entirely true. I noticed. Everyday there was reminders that things weren't right. But I did my best to ignore them. It's like people do with personal finances. They know they are in debt, but avoid actually adding up how much because the amount will scare them. But that doesn't fix the problem. Often it makes it worse. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

So there I was a little over a year ago. I was down to just a few clothing items that actually fit. Physically, more and more things were getting harder and harder to do. It's not a good thing when you can no longer get bent over to tie your shoes.

I knew things had to change. And I knew it wasn't going to be easy. And I'm a big fan of easy.

So, I began the Journey...

Introducing You to the Journey

This begins a new theme to this blog. My posts up to this have come in spurts on a variety of topics. And I will continue to post on Geocaching, personal finances, and pursuing God.

But I am now going to also focus on a Journey that is already a year in the making.I'm talking about my transition from a man to a woman using hormone treatments and eventually surgical gender reassignment.

Ha! I'm just messing with you! I got your attention, though... I'm way too ugly to be a woman.

So, what is this Journey? Stay tuned to find out...