How Did I Get Here?

I briefly mentioned a life changing epiphany in my first post.  I'd like to go into the details of that event.  First, I'll start with a little background on when I started having weight problems. Shortly after my 4th birthday, I broke my left leg in a fall. I snapped my tibia in half and was put into a double legged cast. Up until this time, I was a normal, preschool kid without any signs of a weight problem. In the cast, I got fat. After the cast came off, I didn't lose it. I entered kindergarten at a weight of 60+ pounds. I can't say why the weight didn't come off. I wish I could. I only know that breaking my leg altered the course of my life and those weight problems persisted.

I was 420 pounds when I came face to face with the reality of where my obesity was leading. Early August 2001, a red rash developed on my lower right leg. It started to pain me and became hot to the touch. By the time I went to bed that night, I was in agony. The next day I went to WebMD.com to search the symptoms and got the scare of my life. The first hit that came up was GANGRENE. Silly I thought, it's the middle of summer, but I still read the link. I read and the sinking feeling started. When I got down to the word Diabetes the feeling turned to doom. Did I have Diabetes induced Gangrene? Was I going to lose my leg? I logged off and was literally stunned. I decided that I couldn't take not knowing so I went to the emergency room. The wait in the emergency seemed to go on forever because of my panic. I was finally called back and several tests were done including a blood sugar test. I knew the news would officially mark the beginning of the end. All that I dreaded was about to come true. Then everything I expected - didn't happen. The test was normal. I didn't have Diabetes nor was I going to lose my leg. It was simply a mild skin infection. That scare was life changing.

All my efforts went into avoiding the very possible and now "real" pain of that near future. The process that made me healthy (...still looking for wealthy and wise) also instilled me with solid confidence that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. I could spend hours writing all the details of the process I went through but here is the core. I stared by reading everything I could about nutrition and made it the center point of my diet. I only had so many calories per day to eat and I "spent" them on the most nutritious food I could. I'm still amazed at what the body can do when you feed it right. Veggies and fruits were a mainstay and still are. After reworking everything in my life related to diet and becoming fit, I decided to stick with a 90%/10% rule. Basically, it’s a happy balance between eating highly nutritious food most of the time while leaving room for not-so-healthy (but oh-so-good) favorites.

The other part of my transformation was exercise. When I started exercising, it took me 20 minutes to walk a ½ mile. Fast forward to today and I've done 10K runs in less than 47 minutes. At 195 lbs, I’m truly in the best shape of my life. While running is recently out of my exercise regimen due to a knee problem, biking quickly replaced it. I am delighted every time I can enjoy any kind of physically activity that would have had me struggling for breath just 8 years ago. I've vowed never to become inactivity and am always looking for new activities to try.

That's my weight loss story and it's how I arrived with all this excess baggage (aka loose skin).  Between now and my surgery date, Dec 18th, I'll expand on it along with all that I'm doing to prepare for the procedures.

Again, thanks for reading!