An Amazing Weight Loss Story (The 7 Things I Learned This Week) : The Renegade Health Newsletter
Related Tags: bench press, bloodroot, organic vegetables, wegmans, weight loss
http://renegadehealth.com/blog/2011/01/15/an-amazing-weight-loss-story-the-7-things-i-learned-this-week/
I wouldn’t mind looking out my window at this in the winter, you?
Seven things…
It’s amazing that week in and week out there are always new stories and lessons that I hear and learn from.
This week was no exception.
Here we go…
1. An amazing story.
We met with a past client / now friend this week at one of our favorite restaurants. (Bloodroot in Black Rock, CT)
It has been almost 5 years since we first met and at that time she was 311 pounds.
Some of the things she couldn’t do:
- Walk up stairs.
- Walk from her car to her office desk without taking a break.
- Could barely stay on her feet for more than 10 minutes.
- Was completely unable to ride a bike.
- Would hardly leave the house because of her situation.
Now, 5 years later, she’s a completely different woman.
She looks great. She joined a biking club over the summer. She’s taken yoga, kickboxing and Zumba classes. She still meets with a trainer 2-3 times a week. She understands emotional eating and what to do to help her minimize the damage that an outburst causes.
And best of all, she’s lost over 90 pounds in the process. It’s a wonderful and heart warming transformation. I get the chills thinking about it.
Now on the other side some people may say, that’s fine that she lost 90 pounds, but isn’t 5 years a long time?
It is.
In fact, it’s a long time for her NOT to gain the weight BACK.
This is 99.9% evidence that she will never again weigh 311 pounds.
She’s changed her life, not her weight.
That’s the stuff success is made of.
2. Weight is never the barometer for success.
I wanted to continue my story here with this statement:
Weight is never the barometer for success in your health and fitness goals.
Your weight at any given time should never be the way you measure success. If our friend from above would have focused on weight, she would have thought she failed 20-30 times over the last 5 years – and probably quit.
Why?
Because sometimes – whether it was over a week or a month – she gained weight, other times she didn’t.
All our clients that had ever been focused on weight as a number tended to struggle. The ones that didn’t focus on weight, but made real changes in what they do and what they think succeeded.
The best advice I can give you here is to toss your scale and start asking yourself this question daily: “What can I do today will make me healthier than I was yesterday?”
The weight will come of as you transform the way you live your life.
3. Wegmans ain’t so bad.
On our way to Pittsburgh this weekend we stopped in Wilkes-Barre, PA at the Wegmans to get some organic vegetable and coconut water.
Wegmans, if you’re not from the east, is a grocery chain that is kind of like a hybrid of a Safeway and a Whole Foods.
They have a decent sized organic section as well as a decent selection of organic vegetables – and this is not just at the one in Wilkes-Barre, the Wegmans in Freehold, NJ had a similar layout and spread.
Not bad for options, if you ask me.
4. I feel cagey in the snow.
The snow outside is up to and over the patio table at my mother’s condo, which means there’s about 3 feet of snow on the ground in Connecticut and I feel like a caged animal.
Of course, we go to Keith’s training facility and of course we do our best to get out in this weather, but it’s still not as easy as when the weather is Key West-like nice. Anyone who tells you different is not telling the truth.
The only time I could imagine this amount of snow being a positive benefit to my health is if we lived in Telluride where we can walk to the gondola and ski up in the mountains all day.
I remember when I was younger around college and would talk to my roommate Jack about the “winter blues.” I can’t say I have them now, likely because my diet is clean, but I can certainly see where the come from… lack of sun, lack of clean air, dry skin and throat from forced air heat, etc.
Annmarie and I have decided finally that if we ever live in a place where there is snow like this during the winter, there has to be skiing nearby (like out the doorstep, LOL!)
5. I can almost bench press my own weight again.
I know some of you will think I’m massively weak, but I don’t mind.
This week, after a full month working out with Keith, I’m almost able to bench press my own weight for 3 sets of 6 again.
During high school, I was about 180-185 pounds and could do this easily. In fact, I could rep with 225 lbs.
Now, I’m at about 190 and can rep with 175 lbs easily… so I either need to lose about 15 pound that I shouldn’t lose, or give me another 2-3 weeks with Keith and I’ll be up to 190.
Again, this is a small feat, but just as I’m amazed at how diet can heal, I’m amazed at how fitness goals can be reached when at times it seems like they are so much of a challenge.
6. In February our living grandparents will be over 90.
Ann and I consider ourselves lucky to have 3 grandparents left at our age.
We just celebrated the birthday of Annmarie’s grandma last weekend and are in Pittsburgh to see my grandfather this weekend – he’s almost 92.
I asked him yesterday if he ever thought he’d be 92 and he said, “no, never thought about it at all.”
Makes me wonder about what allowed them all to live as long as they have.
7. Is it genes or something else?
You know the statement… “Well, my grandfather / grandmother lived to be 167 and he / she ate twinkies and ho-hos and smoked 5 packs of cigarettes a day.”
This is the classic why-should-I-worry-about-what-I-eat cop out.
My grandfather IS this story though.
He smoked from age 11 until 1968. He worked in a coal mine. He owned a few service stations and inhaled fumes of just about every engine fluid imaginable. He was a welder who handled metals including lead.
But regardless of all this, he’s into his 90’s and he takes no medication at all. The only issues he has are occasional high blood pressure and a very pronounced hunch in his back.
He doesn’t know the secret to being active at this age, but he thinks it’s because he never retired, and always kept busy. Right now, in 2011 (at age 91) he’s itching to get out and mow his lawn once spring hits.
Does that mean that the food isn’t as important as mindset?
I think we can take a clue. 
Alright, that’s it for me today, my brother and I are off to the Steelers game this afternoon… it’s going to be cold!
Send some energy over to Pittsburgh today so that my little bro gets to see a Steeler victory at his first football game. LOL!
Live Awesome!
Kev
