The 55 Pound Journey – Part 1

I am sure most of your don’t really care about watching your health or the benefits of fitness, but it makes a huge difference.  Trust me, I never used to and my health was crap and I struggled at many activities in the outdoors.  I have written about this before and talked about it on blogs and may repeat my self, but it is worth repeating.

As I mentioned in the past, I have always been a fairly active and “athletic” individual.  Because of that, I didn’t think I needed to really exercise or watch what I ate.  This is what I am thinking as I sit in the drive-thru at Taco Bell.   I knew what I was doing to myself, but I either didn’t care or I made up excuses to eat that stuff.  I thought to myself that I would have a good supper and that would counter the crappy lunch.  Did you know that it take at least 3 days for your body to burn off all the sodium from one Subway sandwich or cheese burger from the drive-thru.  That’s just the sandwich, add it the extra stuff in that meal and you might be looking at a week to burn off one meal.  Do a little math and figure that out.  One crappy meal = 5+/- days.  It adds up FAST and so do the inches doing this.  I mention that because its what I was doing for the last 13 years and the next thing I knew, I was approaching 270 pounds and couldn’t enjoy a walk in the woods or even run 100 yards.  I didn’t look like your average 265 pound guy you would see on the Biggest Loser TV show.  I was still built fairly well and that’s probably one of the reasons I always thought I was ok.  But yet I would tell my son I couldn’t play football with him because I actually couldn’t run after him or the chase the ball around.  One day last winter I got on the scale for the first time in years and I couldn’t believe what I saw.  That 265 I saw about cleared a lot of things up.  That whole hunting season made a bunch of questions pop up.  “Why can’t I climb this hill?” “Why am I sweating so much in the middle of winter after a short walk to the tree stand?”  “Why is this little deer so hard to drag 30 feet?” and “Why am I always getting sick?”.  The answer was simple, I was treating my body like crap so it was just returning the favor.

Now its time to do something about it.  Since the beginning of February of 2012, I have started a new lifestyle and lost 55 pounds (as of this morning).   Some have asked what I do, what changes I have made and generally just how I did it.  So I thought I would share.  This may not work for everyone.  It is just my continuous journey to being fit and how it has impacted my experiences in life and in the woods.

Everyone is going to lose weight differently.  The first thing I recommend doing is to study your life and identify your problem areas.  If you are always eating at McWendy’s daily or more often, then that’s pretty easy.  But some still gain weight and don’t eat that bad.  I highly recommend a visit to your doctor and talk to them about what you want to do.  Get blood work done and make sure you don’t have some other issue.  I have learned that there are MANY issues that people that never know about and never think about that can greatly influence your weight.  Stuff like vitamin deficiencies or other nutrients can actually be a big problem.  Most people never realize that their problem with weight could be because of a slight allergy to stuff like flour or being low in iron.  I am no means an expert.  If you have questions, our blogger Chris is an expert and he can help.  I am just mentioning stuff I have read about.  All I am saying is that your should see your doc and talk to them about what you want to do.  Many people diet for years without any result because they actually had medical issues they never knew about.  Another part of studying your life, is learning what you are actually eating.  I recommend calorie counting for this.  There are many mixed arguments on calorie counting.  “MY” opinion is that when starting a new diet, it is a must if you are quite a bit over weight.  This article is not about losing 3 pounds or dropping your 12% body fat down to 8%.  This is about how I lost 55 pounds and how I did it in my limited amount of time.  Calorie counting is a great way to learn what your eating.  I was shocked with all those meals that I thought were good that were actually worse than the crappy fast food meals.  You will also learn what foods are high calorie and also the number of calories you are actually taking in daily.  Again, I was shocked.  A good number of calories to take in daily is 2000.  That changes for every person, but its a good round number to reference.  I highly suggest using a website and phone app called My Fitness Pal (myfitnesspal.com).  I used it and it really helped.  Once you learn what you have been eating, you can start adjusting.