The Game Plan

My story (Is it your story too?):

It is funny how fast life comes at us. One day we are young and beautiful, and the next day we are older and fat. Do you know what I mean?

My story may be like many of yours. I was an avid athlete in high school lettering in 4 different sports. Don’t be impressed, I only had 44 in my graduating class. All of the coaches were looking for was anyone who could spit and chew at the same time, and I pretty much fit the bill. As a matter of fact, the same guys pretty much played and stared in all of the major sports. What it did provide was a very active time in my life where weight gain was almost impossible.

For me, college was a continuation of the same lifestyle with heavy involvement in athletics and an overabundance of calorie burn. Graduate school was a much more disciplined time, but there was ample opportunity to work out in between studies.

Then it hit. The four letter word entered my life, “work”. I was not afraid of work, but I knew it would bring about lots of change. As you would expect, work provided more than ample stress and travel. Something got into the water supply in Tampa and Angie (my wife) and I started having babies faster than the Bucs could win football games. More stress, more travel. Angie was traveling in her job so I found myself left at home with the kids quite often, leaving me too tired to work out. Then
it would be my turn to hit the road flying across the country to return home at the end of the week exhausted and jet lagged. I began to see my energy levels drop. Between 1pm and 3pm every day I began to fight major fatigue. In an effort to compensate, I started drinking large coke Slurpee’s from the 7-11 to get a caffeine fix. It worked for a while, but I soon found I needed more to keep me going. So I started drinking 2 large coke Slurpee’s a day, and then 3. After about 4 years of this, I stared to develop stomach ulcers and other health problems. Surprise- surprise.

In an effort to reduce the pace on life, Angie and I decided to move to Knoxville, Tennessee where time moves slower. Yea, right, didn’t happen. I can honestly say that in our lives it will probably never happen. We started a new insurance business, opened a dance studio, started a health and wellness business, and started developing Cloudland Station “America’s fist cottage Towne” on Lookout Mountain. Yes, you read right, Lookout Mountain, just outside Chattanooga. So in the midst of our hectic life, I added a 4 hour commute to and from work every day. Needless to say, I became drained. My eating habits were awful. At one point I was consuming 90 ounces of Mountain Dew a day, 1 to 2 Ventie Mocha Frappichino’s from Starbucks per day, and an extra large Snickers bar on the way home, just to make sure I didn’t starve to death, which of course I didn’t. Five Guys Burgers and Fries
made a fortune off me. I ate French fries and mint chocolate chip ice cream as my main vegetables, hamburgers and chocolate chip cookies as my main fruits and M&M’s for dessert. Life was sweet.

By the end of 2007 I was out of gas. I had gained 55 pounds and felt terrible all of the time. Every bone in my body now ached. I was having difficulty breathing. It took me 10 minutes to get out of bed in the mornings as I would have to allow time for the circulation to return to my feet to reduce the pain I had with every step. The only thing regular about me was that I was irregular, if you know what I mean. My thought process was in a state of confusion, at best. I found it very difficult to organize myself or even accomplish the smallest task at work. My low back hurt, my shoulders hurt, my neck hurt. If I had –had any teeth left, I am sure they would have hurt too (I am from Tennessee you know). In the early years, a 5 mile jog was as easy as cutting soft butter. It had all changed. Could not run, could not play basketball, more than 10 sit-ups would exhaust me and I could not do more than 3 push-ups. I was a far cry from the years of bench pressing 275+ pounds and playing basketball 3 days a week. I guess you could describe me as a mess. I was told by my doctor that I would be in a wheel chair within 10 years at my current pace. I felt so bad I truly believed I was not going to live much longer. I physically and mentally could not go on. I had hit the wall, and I felt like graffiti that could not be sand blasted off.

Then on December 13, 2007 Angie, (my wonderful wife of 28 years), suggested I go to see a friend of ours, Michelle Samples, for some massage therapy. Here I was feeling like I was dying , and my wife wanted me to get a back rub. Part of me thought it a ridiculous suggestion, but I really felt bad and needed help. The self induced sugar and caffeine highs were not working anymore and I was ready to do anything to feel better. And, as usual Angie was right. Let me tell you, having a massage from Michelle Samples is like going to the 8th Wonder of the World. The word ’awesome” does not do it justice. If you don’t believe me, just ask Hanna Montana or the Jonas Brothers, It was there, on December 15th, that I heard the stinging ecclesiastical proverb spoken so vividly by Michelle, “You’re fat, why don’t you start eating right.” Duh!

Does the obvious come easy to you? Not me. I am not trying to be boastful; it is just a matter of fact. I think God created 2 x 4’s just so He could whoop them up on the side of my head. Like a baby giraffe, I have to be repeatedly kicked in the head so that I can learn to walk. So Michelle was my sledge hammer. She was the master of the obvious, but I had to hear it from an outside source to believe it. I was fat and that was all there was to it. I was physically and mentally miserable and I was the only one that could do anything about it. I needed a lifestyle change. My definition of “the sweet life” had to change. Do you know what I mean?

As I sat down that day to ponder the concept that there were many a cow that would be proud to be in my position, I got another one of those 2 x 4’s against my head. I had a wife who had built a pretty substantial business in t he health and wellness business, but I was “too busy” to apply the principals she was teaching to others to myself. Why is it that humility is such a difficult thing for guys? Growing up, one of my favorite TV shows was “Happy Days”. Remember the Fonz? There was this one episode where Fonzy had to admit he was “wrong”. He struggled throughout the whole show just trying to say the word. What is it about the male ego that makes humility so hard? Ah, but this is not a lesson on the male ego, so back to the story.

I humbly came to Angie and told her that I had a major problem and needed help. I poured out to her my inner struggles and described to her the complex health problems I was having. I told her that I was ready to do whatever it would take to lose weight and get back into shape and get my life back. She just laughed; so much for the male ego. For Christmas of 2006 I had given her a present (hand written of course) promising to lose weight during the following year. I have her a much larger gift that year by gaining 25 pounds instead. She did not seem to appreciate my remendous effort. Like the boy that cried wolf, I now sat before her trying to convince her that I was serious this time. Problem was, I had no credibility. I had talked too much about changing my lifestyle, but always lacked the discipline to see it through. That was the crux of my entire struggle; lack of discipline. It is funny how we can be so disciplined in our lives in certain areas, but show tremendous lack of discipline in other areas.

So there I was when Angie introduced me to “Eat and Be Well” written by Krystal Gray C.C.N. Her book introduced me to a new world of eating. At different times in my life I had gone on “diets” in an effort to “lose weight”. I usually lost 5 pounds and then gained 10 pounds a couple of months later. Krystal, however, changed my mind set. I realized after reading her book, that I did not need a diet. Instead she gave me the fundamental principals I needed to change my lifestyle. So I set my course to change how and what I ate by following the principles outlined in her book. Wow, talk about a change. Within 90 days I had lost 35 pounds. I did not change the quantity of what I ate, just the quality of what I ate. After losing the weight, I felt good enough to exercise again. Within six months, most of the pains in my body had disappeared. I am now two years into following her program and I can emphatically state that It Works.