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Home » Weight Loss » Time For Change – My Weight Gain and Weight Loss

Time For Change – My Weight Gain and Weight Loss

April 1, 2015 By Julio

Weight Gain-Time For Change

Weight Gain-Time For Change

My Weight Gain and Weight Loss

If you’re anything like me you enjoy eating.  But you don’t enjoy dieting.  I have always tried to eat healthy but have to admit that I would occasionally indulge myself.  If offered a treat I would rarely turn it down.  This habit of occasionally indulging slowly progressed to where it was no longer so occasional.   My sedentary lifestyle combined with my eating habits resulted in a weight gain of over 50 pounds by the time I reached forty.

In my early twenties I did not worry about my weight.  My active lifestyle maintained my weight at a healthy level for my age and height.  I went to the gym regularly and rode my bike everywhere. As the years went by, my lifestyle changed.  In my mid twenties I started an office job and with that came the ever present food.  Offices seem to always have cake, cookies, pop and other treats available.

I got married when I was thirty and by the time I was thirty-six I had 4 children.   I started to work more and more and no longer went to the gym.  By the time I was forty, my weight had ballooned to 189 pounds.  That is way too much for a 5′ 4″ male.

My Wake-Up Call

My weight gain happened so slowly that I hardly noticed it.  I had always been fit and this idea that I was healthy stuck with me even though it was no longer true.  I convinced myself that I wasn’t overweight; it was muscle not fat.  I convinced myself that I wasn’t out of shape; I was tired because I didn’t sleep enough.  But every now and then I would see myself in the mirror as I dressed to go to work and reality would briefly sink in. I was not happy with what I saw.  My solution was to avoid mirrors whenever possible.  This way I could avoid reality.

One day I was on my way to work and while climbing the subway station stairs, I noticed that my knees hurt with every step.  Again I went into denial.  I convinced myself that it was normal because after all I was getting older.

One evening I suddenly became ill.  I developed an extremely high fever.  It was like nothing I had ever experienced.  I became disoriented and I was barely able to call my wife for help.  I felt like I was going to die.  I now realized how precious life was and how easily and quickly it can all be taken away.  I didn’t want my children to grow up without a father.  I vowed that if I made it through the night that I would change.  This was my wake up call.

Change Begins

I was sick for over a month but slowly got better.  After recovering from my illness I began to make changes in my life.  I began with my eating habits.  I started slowly.  My first step was to reduce the amount of pop I consumed.  I then moved on to reduce cakes, cookies and other pastries from my diet.  This was not easy but I eventually  got to the point where I rarely consumed these items.  I found that doing things slowly and in stages helped me to stick to these changes.  I then began to reduce the amount of meat I ate and gradually switched to a vegetarian diet.  The changes in my diet alone helped me to lose weight, but it was not enough.  After losing 15 lbs, my weight plateaued.  I was stuck at 174lbs.  I soon realized that I would have to start an exercise program if I wanted to continue with my weight loss.

As luck would have it, the local gym (Goodlife Fitness) began to offer a corporate discount to my workplace.  I took advantage of this and began to exercise regularly.  I started off slowly and gradually increased the intensity, type and amount of my exercises.  I now exercise at least 3 times per week.

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Filed Under: Weight Loss Tagged With: magic bullet, protein shake, vegetarian, veggie, weight loss

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