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 2010

Twinkie Diet?

People ask me about weight loss all the time. I have a set of eating habits that I feel are the best for ME. I think that most people could do well with my plan but I also realize that I love to eat sweets and drink beer and cheese cake was placed here my the gods themselves. But weight loss is truly all about calories.

My step-dad lost as much weight as I have or more on the "cookie diet" and today CNN published an article about a man who ate twinkies and ding dongs and lost 27 pounds. Link attached.


Calories control equals weight loss. Long term health is determined by what you eat, how much you eat determines how big that tire around your midsection is.


afatboynomore.com

05 November 2010

Long time Old Friend

It has been 5 months since my last update... a bit too long.

What have I been doing?

I moved from Decatur to Midtown Atlanta. I am now 2 blocks from the gym and 7 blocks from Piedmont Park. I am preparing for a return to my career path. Over the last three years I have focused almost exclusively on my health. my sabbatical is coming to an end.

Health wise what am I doing... Eating a bit too much... It happens but its does not make me happy.

What has made me happy? I am walking about 6 miles almost everyday. Piedmont and Midtown and even downtown Atlanta are great places to walk during the day. Walking can be boring. So I have a solution to that boredom. Audio Books!!! In the last 5 months I have "read" about 30 books. Classics like Orwell's 1984 and Bram Stokers Dracula and Mary Shelly's Dracula. To modern favorite Authors from Anne Rice and Gregory MacGuire, and Ian Flemming to Steig Larson and his Millennium Trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

Walking and Audio Books are my new passions. More to come soon.

afatboynomore.com