Episode 1 Introduction, How a New Years Resolution led me to lose 200 pounds

Today's episode I will share the back story that led up to me losing 200 pounds and some of the key events that led up to the decision. I will also share some background on my life and some of the major events that resulted in me finally changing everything I was doing to get in the best health of my life.

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Transcript

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Hi I'm Thomas welcome to the parachute advice. My life has taken a lot of twists and turns and on this podcast I will dive into those. The goal is to help everyone listening learn from my experiences and hopefully avoid some of the mistakes I've made hi welcome to today's episode of the parachute advice podcast, I'm your host Thomas welcome to today's episode of the parachute device podcast on today's episode I want to reintroduce you all to who I am and go back over some information from the very first episode of this podcast, this episode is especially for anyone knew who may have just discovered the show I'm going to go back over my story and what led me to the massive lifestyle changes that I put in place, my goal by sharing this information again is to help anyone who may be kicking off a New Year's resolution or just looking to make changes in the new year, as you will learn this is what I did back in 2020 and the results changed my life in ways I have yet to wrap my head around to that point, hello again everyone and I'm Thomas and thank you for joining me for season 2 of this podcast as I go through my story I hope to share everything I learned over the years with each and every one of you with the hope that it helps you. I'll be brutally honest with each of you and at the same time I'm going to be brutally honest with myself. Working on this project is forced me to really look deep and understand myself so I hope all of you are ready for this crazy Journey, at times it will be dark and another X hilarious but all of it is what has shaped me and made me who I am today, if there's one thing I've really learned to embrace is an order to be happy today you have to accept and even at times embrace all the bad that came with it one of the greatest books I've ever read has this quote from, and this quote really helped me to kind of understand things I'd highly recommend if you haven't read it go out and get this book and read it it's the subtle art of not giving a fuck a counterintuitive approach to living a good life. The author writes, the desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience and paradoxically the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience, so there I sat I knew things had to change I couldn't continue ignoring that I wanted things to change, the result was spending 20 months focusing all of my menergy on losing weight for as long as I can remember I've always been overweight, I think back in the day the term was husky at least that's what all of my pants said from j.c. Penney's, honestly I never really worried about it from a health point of view I mean I knew it wasn't healthy but I've always had a very fatalistic View. My dad had died of a massive heart attack when I was just 11 years old crazy to think that that was nearly 33 years ago now but after that happened I just assumed the same would happen to me so why not just enjoy life and trust me when I say I did it. I did a hell of a job of enjoying life I drank I ate and help I change smoke sometimes over two packs a day, it was not unheard of for me to spend a Saturday drinking a 24 pack of beer and at least part of a 750 of Jack Daniels oftentimes a whole 750 of Jack Daniels and smoking two packs of cigarettes and I would do this every Friday and Saturday, on top of that I like we stopped on my drive home for late-night food from a drive-through yeah you heard me right my drive home. I don't support or condone any of my behavior as you can tell it was out of control let's not even mention, what my order was when I'd stopped at a drive-through but good chance was I was spending ten or twelve dollars off the dollar menu think about that I was getting eight to ten items for a quick quote snack after drinking thousands of calories. Or how it might have been a few Jimmy John's sandwiches yes I said that correctly a few I would often get one for my walk home when I was living by my favorite bar District. Then 14 when I got home and possibly a third for when I woke up too hungover to function as you can imagine I was not the definition of Health. Kind of just ignored it going as far as using the same weight on every form I filled out as I had a my driver's license from 1997. Was that what I weighed now absolutely not but I just kept putting it down it's what my driver's license said when I think back to this I have to laugh who was I fooling. I was lucky in that I carried my weight fairly well in that the sheer magnitude of my problem was not clear to most people it was honestly pretty easy for me to even ignore, as I've lost weight and openly talked for the first time with friends about it many are shocked to hear just how much I wait I was always quote the big guy, let's be honest let's say what it was I was the fat friend in the group every time I say this it gets a bit easier and a bit more real but it still hurts not that I was this, but that I let myself become this yes no one was to blame but myself. Yes genetics can play into things but let's be honest when your 30s and you're eating tons of calories not exercising and making other terrible lifestyle choices none of my being overweight was an accident. Every year I would get a little heavier at first it was I won't weigh more than 300 pounds. Then it was I won't weigh more than 325 pounds and then it was I won't weigh more than 350 pounds but guess what I hit all of those and kept going. In 2016 after a once-in-a-lifetime vacation I was headed home and the one thing I think every overweight person dreads finally happened. I had to ask for a seat belt extender for the first time ever on a flight. I can't even tell you how embarrassing that was a few months later at my annual wellness exam I discovered I was about to hit 375 pounds. I just had two more pounds to go and that was not a goal I wanted to hit. That was the wake-up call for me or at least so I thought I quickly focused on eating better and limiting calories in just four months I dropped 40 pounds in felt great, I knew I could do this. I was even tracking or exercising I was just making simple choices like not eating the whole cheeseburger at dinner or leaving just some of the french fries behind. Then for one reason or another I decided to suspend the diet for a weekend while attending a good Friend's Wedding I had a great time. The old me was back I gorged on the Mac and Cheese Bar at midnight I pounded beers with friends all night I drank as much as I could and I burn through two packs of cigarettes, I remember after that weekend thinking this is great I lost 40 pounds and now I can just go back to my old lifestyle. I had stopped the climb to 400 pounds I had gone from 373 pounds down to 330 so everything was great I could just go back to my old lifestyle. Then the creep up and wait started by this point I'd quit smoking at least I would tell myself all the time hey you made a good choice there. But let's be honest the motivator there was less about health and more about the pocketbook at the time a pack of cigarettes cost me six to seven dollars so there were days I was smoking 12 to 14 dollars in just a day. Between 2017 and 2019 I put on another 30 pounds and realize I was quickly going to be 400 pounds if I didn't do something that is when I decided to give this another try here's where I get the most common. Why did I do this as I said earlier obviously my weight and health was not great but truth be told that wasn't my motivator, the real driver was the reality that I was only seven years younger than my dad when he died of his massive heart attack. But let me be clear again I didn't decide to lose the weight to avoid an early death. In a way it was the exact opposite I had finally fully accepted this was going to happen. I fully embrace the outcome it wasn't easy but this fatalistic view I'd had for 30 years had really affected me. I blame a lot of my bad choices I made on this many of which were unhealthy stupid and at times destructive like I mentioned earlier drinking a 24-pack of Miller Lite. Drinking almost a 750 of Jack Daniels and then getting behind the wheel, it was a stupid level of behavior but I didn't care I was going to die young I just hoped I didn't take anyone with me, what I didn't want though was to die before the age of 50 and not have not have enjoyed seeing the world there's so many places I wanted to visit and all of them would require flying and I didn't want to be the fat guy asking for a seatbelt extender hey side note-- if you want to you can buy seat belt extenders for yourself off of Amazon so that you don't have to ask the only downside is, there's two types of buckles so every time you fly you're going to be probably carrying two seatbelt extenders and having to Fumble around to figure out which one to use so there I sat thinking about my weight and the change I would like to make, then one night while laying in bed I'll never forget this moment feeling terrible I decided I was going to try and lose weight, for years I had lectured anyone who would listen that a person can do anything they put their mind to it just requires effort and hard work yet for years I acted like losing weight with some impossible task that you just read about but never accomplish. I had a laundry list of reasons why I couldn't lose weight and another list of reasons why I didn't want to try or why I wouldn't be successful but in the end they were all just excuses to make it okay to not do it or try, so that night in November of 2019 I said that was all bullshit and I should just try at the very least I hope to get back to what I weighed my senior year of high school. Yeah losing 70 pound seemed impossible think about that I was going to try and drop 20% of my weight. But I figured if I put the work in why couldn't I do it. I figured at that point it would take about a year to pull this task off so that began my last hurrah between Thanksgiving of 2019 and New Years Eve of that year I ate anything and everything I could. I made sure that every holiday was an all-you-can-eat buffet for my high-end Hotel Steakhouse for Thanksgiving to an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet for Christmas Eve. The plan is the first Monday of the new year would be the day I started and by the time I got there truth be told I felt terrible I had successfully eaten drank, and partying myself to the point that being on a diet sounded fun. So on January 6th of 2020 I kicked off the greatest journey of my life it was initially a simple plan I was going to use the app MyFitnessPal to calculate how many calories I could eat a day to lose one pound a week and just do that. Yeah it really is just that simple to start the Only Rule I put on myself was not lying if I eat it put it in the, on my choices and go from there be honest with myself this also meant being honest about how little exercise or activity I didn't today and by how little I mean none. At the time I literally hated the idea physical activity. How is the master of avoiding it it's probably surprising knowing how everything played out but yes at the starting point it was that simple. How I still can't believe what I started in January of 2020 has turned into what it has but today. Here I sit 36 months later 200 pounds lighter than my heaviest. I've never been more proud of being less than half the person I used to be let that set in I weigh less than half of what I used to, I lost more than a person. How I lost 120 percent of the person I am now by weight was it hard of course it was where their struggles yes, I had a month and a half long stretch for my weight plateaued and I was very seriously thinking about quitting the diet altogether are there still struggles this far in hell, I let my behavior slipped for a month post Nashville vacation and paid the price but that said. If you stick to the plan it's easy to get back at it and fix any mistakes, the key I repeat constantly to myself and anyone who will listen own your choices and hold yourself accountable. One key point that I would recommend everyone when you start, plan for the initial few weeks or better yet months to avoid any situation that would create an opportunity to deviate from your plan or make cheating or going off of your diet that much easier. I assure you if you do this the gains will happen and at that point the idea of deviating from your plan will be far less appealing, this is not to say you can't see friends but have a solid plan for example I would plan things where I could eat before I went and then just have water or a diet soda, yeah a diet soda has become a treat for me now, I love the taste of it it's like a desert almost even even now I often follow this approach just so that it's easier to track track my calories on maintenance plan, in future episodes I'll re share the details of my diet plan and what I ate how I cooked and what I changed over the last 36 months that said. If you can't wait go back and check out some of my previous episodes where I share a lot of great information as a reminder I'm not an expert in this area, I'm purely here to share my personal experiences and all the tips and tricks that I use to lose all the weight and get to this point in my life. My goal is to share every detail I can to help anyone who needs it. I will leave everyone with his one thought it really is as simple as I make it sound just eat less than you need and you will lose weight is it easy not in the slightest bit but it's not hard either yeah I know what a contradictory statement. It will require a lot of focus and personal accountability that's the hardest part the focus but more importantly the personal accountability thank you for listening please join me again for future episodes. You can contact me at parachute advice podcast at gmail.com again that's all one word parachute advice podcast at gmail.com. You can also follow me on Instagram at parachute advice again thank you for listening and please like And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Music.