They say weightloss is a journey, and for the past several years, it has lived up to that title for me. At my heaviest, and defining moment in my decision to live a healthier life, I was at 215 pounds. With hard work, I was able to cut down to 180. I looked much better after that drop. However, I stalled, and creeped back up to 190, and I staggered there for a long while. While it was nice to be able to say I had stabilized, I wasn’t happy, still, with the way I looked. I turned to several sources for new information and guides to how I was doing. The Daily Plate/Livestrong.com was a goldmine of information on nutirition and exercise, and allowed me to expand my knowledge on the subject. Through their advice, I tried a multitude of new things, including how to track my food and how to “clean” up my diet. This worked for a bit, but I wasn’t losing anything, still. I started to include weight training, and I upped my calorie intake, and I managed to gain 10 more pounds. All the while, I was being urged by Michael to get a personal trainer to help. Being the stubborn guy I am, I wanted to be able to do this on my own, so I gave myself an ultimatum. I would design a strenuous workout schedule, stick to it for 6 weeks, and if nothing happened, I’d get a trainer. 4 weeks into the stretch without results, I was ready to ask for help.

Lo! Fitness by Andrew LLC was running a Lose Big To Win Big contest for 300 dollars! In the course of 2 months, I would be given access to 3 trainers at various times 6 days a week, a nutrition program, and guaranteed results. The cherry on the top but far less important was a $1000 grand prize for the most body fat lost. Michael had been using Andrew as a personal trainer for around a week, and results were already starting to become apparent, the testimonials were there, and so I decided to bite the bullet. I decided to go in with a can do attitude, this was going to work, and to surrender to the system. I went in Saturday, May 29th, and was introduced to the trainers and to the Stax Nutrition system. Our pictures were taken, and we were weighed. The game was on.

I weighed in at 198 pounds and 24% bodyfat. By my calculations, that means I was carrying around about 50 pounds of fat. Yech. That day, we came home, tossed out everything we couldn’t eat on the Stax program, and went shopping for the foods we could eat. The switch was actually more drastic than I had imagined. Basically, it was a call to get rid of everything processed, and eat only whole natural foods. Oh, and swap all liquids to water. No juice, no milk. Odd, but I’m in for the long haul! I stuck to it for the first week, and it was tough. I had really bad cravings for foods I was eating before, even though I wasn’t hungry, and the food I was eating actually tasted good. However, by Tuesday, I had lost 3 pounds. I felt awesome, even though I imagined it to be water weight. By Friday, I had lost 5 pounds. I couldn’t believe it. This was the first weight I’d dropped in a year, and I cut back significantly on exercise to 30-50 minutes of cardio a day. Nice!

On Monday, I had my first training session at lunch. It was pretty crazy, and while I managed to finish everything asked of me, I was sore as all heck on Tuesday in my midsection and back. I trekked on back in on Tuesday for more abuse, and Tuesday was like Monday’s session except about 100 times more intense. I could barely roll over in bed Tuesday night. My plan is to take advantage of training 5-6 times a week over these 2 months, and today, when I woke up, I could barely move. I was tempted to cancel for today to give myself and my body a bit of a break, but after going back and forth all morning and discussing it with some online friends, I was able to stretch and shower out the pain somewhat, and have decided to go in today and take my beating like a man. It’s been a struggle today to stay off the scale, but I’ve decided to wait until Friday. I think a week between weigh ins will be more rewarding, but there is that back part of my brain that is terrified there will be no changes. I keep toying with the idea of asking my trainer to weigh me just so I can have a little less worry time about “is this working?”. I know, however, that it is, and change does not happen over-night. That said, I’m going to try and keep this updated for my own personal record and anyone else who’s interested in following along!