Get Up Off the Couch and Go

After many questions about my recent weight loss, I have decided to break down my story for everyone to see. First, let me back up to the beginning of my journey and put this whole picture in context for you. For a longtime I have been interested in getting into law enforcement. I entered school at Lakeland College in Mattoon, IL in the year 2002. While attending Lakeland, I took all the applicable courses in law enforcement and I kept up on any and all information that I possibly could regarding law enforcement. But there was one thing missing in my quest to becoming a police officer. That missing piece of the puzzle was motivation. I never had the motivation it would take to lose weight and get in shape to become a police officer.

So as I ballooned towards 300 lbs. I never really looked back towards the career that I had initially wanted to start. So as we fast forward to the year 2009, there was a turning point in my life that has catapulted me into a healthy existence. January 11, 2009, my wife and I had our friends, Zack and Heather Bryan over for dinner. Heather is a school teacher and Zack is a police officer for the City of Charleston in Illinois. After dinner, the girls talked about children while Zack and I fled to the family room to sit and talk. Now I have to be clear about something. Every time that Zack and I saw each other or hung out, I talked non-stop about police work and how much I would love to be a police officer. Zack would always tell me that I would make a fine cop and would just sort of leave the conversation at that. But this particular time on January 11 the conversation was a little different. As I started talking about law enforcement, as I did so much, Zach looked at me and stared with this sort of blank and annoyed look. I could completely tell that what I was talking about had run it's toll with him. Now he will never admit this, but he was tired of hearing me talk about a goal that I was not disciplined enough to reach. At that particular moment in my life, I decided that enough was enough. I wasn't going to stop short of a goal that I had set way back when. So on January 12, 2009, my journey in becoming a police officer and leading a healthy life began.

Eating lots of unhealthy food was my passion for many years. I could not think of many other things that made me so happy. My eating habits had become an obsession. I would eat at all hours of the day and not stop until I was miserable. I am sure some of you out there are reading this post and shaking your head in agreement. We have all been there. We have all eaten to the point that we are miserable and wish we hadn't shoved those last bites in our mouths. But for most people this behavior isn't an ongoing problem. For people like myself, it is a behavior that is very close to being uncontrollable. I knew that if I wanted to make a change in my life I was going to have to put forth the biggest effort I could to make this change. My first step was changing my diet.

Most people who change their diets for the better at some point in their lives end up falling backwards shortly into it for one reason. And the reason is ACCOUNTABILITY. When you are not accountable to anyone for your bad habits and your good habits, it is very easy to give up. So you may ask who I was accountable to. Well I was accountable to a website. Yes, believe it or not I joined an online site located at http://www.myfooddiary.com/. My food diary stores thousands of food items from restaurants and stores worldwide. It also allows you to plug in figures from the back of food labels and it tracks everything for you. After the initial evaluation of my body type, measurements and some other questions, I was set to roll on this program. So I plugged all my figures into food diary on a daily basis for 1 month straight. At the end of each day, the site would spit out a gob of information that was very useful. After 1 month of following this plan, I had reduced my body weight by 17 lbs. That did not include an ounce of exercise. All I had done was cut my caloric intake down to 22oo calories.

After this first month I was excited. I was so excited that I decided to do something I hadn't done in years. Exercise! Oh no! The dreaded E word. So I joined a gym. The first day that I arrived at the gym I felt out of place. So I hopped on the treadmill and I walked for a mile. It wasn't too bad I thought. The next day I decided to try my hand at jogging. So I cranked up the treadmill and away I went. Well my jogging was very short lived. I was completely exhausted after a short .10 mile. At that point I was very close to giving up, but something inside of me told me to keep going. So I did. I forced myself to stick with a light cardio workout program for 1 month. Although it was hell for the first week or so, I started to see results very quickly. The weight started to fall off and my endurance was improving daily. At the end of the first month I was at a point that I could run on a treadmill for 1 mile and bike for 2. When the first month was completed of cardio workout I had lost an additional 15 lbs. This was amazing results to me. I was now in a groove and excited to go to the gym. My workout has continued to progress since that first month. I am now running over 2 miles and could bike all day long. I have lost a total of 67 lbs since January 12. I credit self determination, but also my good ole buddy Zach Bryan for giving me a quiet kick in the backside.

In closing I would like to just like to tell all my friends that being healthy isn't just about trying to succeed at a new job or to feel better when you look in the mirror. It is also about being healthy for your family and ensuring that you prolong your life as long as possible. I hope you all can find some inspiration in my short story. Even if only one person gets up off the couch and goes, I will have completed my mission. But if everyone reading will dedicate a short time each day to exercise, I promise you will feel better. Good Day!

Nathan