My Story and The Plan

Hi, my name is J Brian (group responds HI J BRIAN). I am FAT. I have been for most of my adult life.

I will be A Fat Boy No More.

Three years ago I started a journey to become A Fat Boy No More. And since September 2007 I have been publishing my success and failures. This Blog follows me from the day I first started my weight loss journey and it focuses on the everyday struggles that people with weight problems have.

Prepare yourself for a very real and very challenging event in my life. I commit to being as honest and as clear as I can be in the webpage to chronicle my ongoing battle with my weight. The pictures can be explicit.

After 12 years of being bigger than I should be... ok lets just be honest. I was not big I was fat. I have been over weight and muscular for most of my adult life. But the muscular part has been over shadowed by a large layer of fat on my body. I've eaten too much and I lived a sedentary life. In December 2006 I weighed 320 pounds. The morning I weighed myself and saw that I was over 300 pounds I essentially went into a deep depression that day and I am sure that I ate another 5 pounds worth of food. But that night I decided that enough was enough. My weight problem had become more than just an appearance problem it became a health problem, a self esteem problem and it was starting to affect my business and income. I had to do something. And I had to be held accountable. Technology is a good thing. I decided I had to put it out there. I started texting everyone in cell phone saying "Officially a fat ass now I weigh 300". I had been lying forever and telling people that I was 250. And no one questioned it.

The first step I took was to hit the gym and cut my calories. I looked on webmd and found out how many calories there where in a pound (3500) and decided to create this formula to determine how many calories and how much extra exercise I had to do to lose 60 pounds by May 27th. My annual trip to Key West Florida. By February I had lost 25 pounds. On a plan that was essentially the same thing that Weight Watchers teaches you. Then life hit me. After being so good I just got tired of it. I had no real support structure. And so I just relapsed because I was on a diet. Not a life change. But between March and August I essentially maintained my weight loss. In April I got a part time job working in a restaurant as a bartender. Everyone thinks I was crazy to do that but the truth is I just needed something to make me active. I needed to get off my lazy fat ass and be active. I gave up sweet tea and I stopped eating beef for the most part. I chose bison. Which taste so similar and has a familiar texture but had half the calories. Nothing else really changed.

But I did not lose the weight I wanted. When I was in Key West I looked like a beached whale and I felt horrible. I have a picture from that trip that show the folds of fat on my back. I was so depressed after that trip. So I essentially just maintained until late July when my best friend Michelle told me that a guy we both worked with a few years back had lost a lot of weight thru some medical weight loss plan.

I kinda brushed it off. I was looking into Lap Band or some other surgery. Then another friend of mine saw Brad as well and said Brad has lost a lot of weight. So I called Brad and he told me about the plan thru Emory Hospital. I went to an info session on the plan and decided to enroll.

Before you consider any type of surgery please look into medically managed weight loss. IT WORKS. Your doctor or the Bariatrics department of your local university hospital can direct you. Too many of my friends had surgery and lost a lot of weight and regained it. Even with a smaller stomach you can eat ice cream all the time and gain it back. I have a friend that just did that.

So this is what I did initially. Follow my blog posts from the beginning and see the transformation.

Remember

Don't give up today because you fucked up yesterday.

08 November 2008

End of a cycle and time to move forward.

In earlier posts, I announced that I intended to add a significant amount of muscle. And I have done just that. I am pleased to announce that in the last 3 months and primarily in the last 6 weeks I have been hitting the gym 6 days a week and pushing myself to lift heavy. I cut out a lot of aerobic exercise- hell you only have so much energy. I have added 13 pounds of muscle over the last 90 days.

To accomplish this I had to increase my calories to feed the growth about 700 kcals per day. That is a lot and Now its time for me to take a break from the heavy lifting that I was doing. Along with that's 13 pounds of muscle there were a few pounds of fat as well. This is expected and I was very happy that I did not gain any more than I did. After losing 82 pounds of fat I have added back about 13 pounds to my weight so I weigh between 238 and 240 on a daily basis. Seeing that number increased freaked me out at first and emotionally it was hard to evaluate my health on things other than a scale.

The most important thing it seems is how do your clothes fit? Well the facts are. My size 38 jeans fit exactly as they did before except the legs are tight now, and there has never been belly lap over. My t shirts are tighter in the chest , shoulders and arms. The belly fits the same. I will post some new picts in a few weeks.

Today is my last day in the heavy lifting and heavy protein cycle I started 12 weeks ago.

I am actually looking forward to the change. I have hurt my knees and my right wrist in this process. Nothing permanent, just some stress. Sunday I will take a break as I do and Monday will begin a new 6 week cycle. Lighter weights and shaping. More aerobic exercises, yoga and for my birthday ( December 20) I am going to finally buy that bicycle I have wanted for a while. I hope that I can eliminate a few pounds of fat in this next cycle. I will be consuming about 700 calories less per day. Check back soon.