Gary Made a Life Change for Good

From: Fallon, NV

Starting Weight: 301 lbs | Current Weight: 211 lbs | Weight Lost: 90 lbs

Tell us about your weight loss journey – how did it start? 

I Changed my Life: Let me tell you, I went for my annual well-check with my primary care provider back in February of 2021. As part of that appointment, my doctor and I went over the results of my pre-appointment bloodwork. It turns out that I had impaired fasting blood glucose levels (averaging in the 140’s) and my hemoglobin A1C was elevated at 6.2. At this point, I am now considered pre-diabetic in addition to morbid obesity and hypertension. As a 43-year-old man that was 6’4” and 301 pounds with an approximate BMI of 37, none of this comes as a surprise to me. All these problems are common in my family medical history. My doctor wanted to put me on medication for the newly diagnoses diabetes. I was, to say the very least, not thrilled by the prospect of a lifetime of Metformin.

 

I spoke candidly with my doctor and told her that I was not quite ready for that. Being that my numbers (labs and weight) made me only “pre-diabetic”, I was wondering if there was another way to “fix” this. I subsequently asked the doctor for a referral for and Endocrine specialist. I made the appointment and went to discuss the issue of the pre-diabetes and the prospect of medication associated with this diagnosis. After a long and very honest discussion with the Endocrinologist, we decided to approach my problem from a metabolic standpoint and not actively treat / medicated the diabetes. I was to work on the metabolic syndrome (the name for all my problems wrapped up together) and jump to medication until I was to follow-up with my doctors after a few months of adjustments and changes. I was newly aware of the problem and committing to making a change that would allow me to move forward and not having to take medication for the newly diagnoses pre-diabetes.

 

On the recommendation of my endocrinologist, I check out the “Lose it” app for my phone as an easy-to-use meal/calorie and activity tracker. After a brief learning curve, I was able to navigate, log and create recipes with ease on the app. The first couple of months was a lot of learning or re-learning about food and what was good for me versus what I used to think was “okay” for me. I made the immediate change of taking added sugars out of my diet and changing to artificial sweeteners. I grew up with a diabetic parent and was already accustomed to the change in taste of most things, so this change, although extremely impactful, was not overly challenging for me. I though about this plan for quite some time and decided to approach this in a way that would provide me with long term success.

 

My next decision was to NOT remove any food item from my diet, apart from added sugars. Once I joined the “Lose it” app, I decided to be aggressive with my goals. I put in that I wanted to lose approximately 2 pounds per week. This gave me a daily calorie goal of 2426 kCal/day to start. It was quite eye-opening as I started this, to find out how expensive my current diet was in terms of calories. Over many months, I continually refined my diet and trying to make better choices on a meal-to-meal decisions. As I mentioned earlier, I did make the conscious decision to NOT remove any foods from my diet. I did this in an attempt to eliminate the cravings and subsequent binging of that same food. To my amusement, this, actually, accomplished exactly what I was hoping. I have eliminated nearly all cravings; I just have those questionable choice foods in much smaller quantity/volume.

 

Logging this data religiously and honestly allowed for steady progress in making this change permanent and effective. The more I did and logged, the more I learned about what foods are healthy in different ways. Although, challenging in the very beginning, the longer I do this, the easier everything has become. At this point, April 2022 (415 days into it) I have now lost 89 pounds and reduced my BMI from 37-Class 2 Obesity to just barely overweight at 25.

 

Where are you now with your weight loss?

My current weight is now 211.2 pounds, down from 301 pounds from 415 days ago. My current weight put my BMI at about 26, which is barely in the “overweight” category. I am soo close to “normal” that I can taste it! This change works out to: I was wearing pants that measured 48 in x 32 in and now I wear a very comfortable 34 in x32 in pants. An astounding 14 inch change in my waste-line alone. I have also gone from a XXXL shirt to an L-XL shirt depending on the brand. I am still diligently logging my meals and activity and have worked my way down to a daily caloric intake allotment of 2080 kCal. I joined a gym for added physical activity about 4 months ago. I had lost enough weight that I now wanted to work on tissue conversion. I needed the cardio and resistance training to convert adipose tissue into lean muscle to increase my metabolism and to burn more calories at rest. This has made maintaining the weight loss much easier than I initially perceived. Even with the addition of lean tissue, which is approximately 4 times denser than adipose tissue, I have been able to reduce a few additional pounds as I near my very lofty goal of 100 pounds of weight loss. Having accomplished this reduction in weight has resolved my diabetic concerns completely. The doctor even removed the “pre-diabetes, hyperlipidemia and morbid obesity” from my medial records. My Fasting glucose levels normalized into the 80’s, my hemoglobin A1C normalized to 5.1, my cholesterol dropped to its lowest number, ever, at 119. Medically and physically, I have completely turned myself around.

 

What was it that helped you continue to log consistently for so long?

Although I have been actively doing this now for about 415 days, It has been an accumulation of small and maintainable changes over that period that has allowed me to remain successful. The smaller each change is, the less scary it is and the likelihood of sticking with it has been much higher.

 

What’s a new healthy habit you’re embracing?

 

30 minutes on rowing machine and a full body weight routine in the gym,  Ground turkey and ground pork have almost 100% replace beef in my day-to-day

 

What’s your best advice for others working toward their health and fitness goals?

baby steps, keep goals and changes small. make the change, obtain the goal, then set a new one. easy way to get thru to much larger and daunting goals

 

 

If you’re inspired by Gary’s story leave him some shoutouts in the comments below!