Today’s guest post is by Thomas Day, DailyBurn member tommy_77. His inspiring weight loss story caught my eye because he embodies a theme that I tend to see in many successful DailyBurn members: he started his journey overweight, but he would soon become an athlete. Thomas’s story may be familiar to you. He is a true DailyBurn success story. Check it out – Kate

When I finally decided to make this change in my life I knew I weighed over 300lbs. It was always in the back of my mind to start exercising and losing weight, and it’s always something I would ‘get around to’.

A number of small things this year helped get me started.

 
Having a hard time finding clothes that fit me, getting winded going up and down the stairs at work, being tired all of the time, not having the energy to do anything beyond my desk job and lying at home after work to watch TV. Another small thing was being at an amusement park last summer. I have never really like thrill rides but was there and willing to try, at least the ones I thought I could fit on. I avoided anything that I thought would have any chance of turning me away. That worked fine for a time, until I went on this one coaster. I was able to fit in (barely) on my first ride and liked that ride enough to try it a second time. My second time back 10 minutes later I was in a different seat that must have had a slightly different length in seatbelt so I didn’t fit. I had to get off the ride, pick up my shoes and take the ‘walk of shame’ I waited for my family who were on the ride. It was a pretty humiliating moment and I did not let on that it bothered me. Even things like air travel were very difficult I was so uncomfortable in those small airplane seats even on short flights of a couple of hours.

The most important step for me was the decision I made to make change.

 
I decided that I have had enough and I did not want to be heavy anymore, I was 32 years old and I didn’t not to put myself at risk anymore for possible heart attack or other health issues I don’t want to die young. I wanted to do this first and foremost for myself and secondly for my family.

Part of this first step was that I was making this a permanent change. I didn’t want to just lose weight I wanted a permanent lifetime change for myself. I wanted to hit my goals, but get past them and maintain my new life style permanently.

I made a commitment to myself that this would come first before anything else.

I finally made the decision to make the change in my life in September.

 
I made the commitment that I would start to go the gym on a regular basis 3 times a week after work. Routine is very important to me. I had to make the time to make this change. I decided that my time would be every Monday, Wednesday and Friday right after work at 5pm and for an hour on either Saturday or Sunday. There was no going home, no time for errands no compromise. I made this as important as going work every day or putting on clothes before leaving the house. This came first before anything else. For me once I started comprising I would be too easy to fall into bad habits and quit going. Since I made that commitment in September I can pretty much count on one hand the number of days I have missed. If there was no-way to avoid missing a day here and there I always made up for it or planned ahead and made up the day ahead of time.

The other change I wanted to make was with my diet.

 
I didn’t really want to “diet”, I always believed that a diet is a product, or gimmick that someone is trying to sell or market. To overcome this obstacle I told myself that instead of radically changing what I was eat would be instead to be really aware of what I was eating, how much I was eating and when I was eating and cut out the bad eating habits. I wanted to be disciplined and ensure that I was always eating breakfast every day, and not eating anything after I ate supper. I eliminated all sweet sugary drinks and cut out snacking. I would allow myself a cheat day every 10 days, and didn’t beat myself up if I cheated a bit here and there.

What I have ended up learning that diet is all about what you are eating to fuel your body.

 
Your diet is more about what, when and how much your are eating rather than something that can be sold and marketed on TV. I was also helpful to start tracking what I was eating. Dailyburn was a tool I used to help me do this. Initially I was less concerned about the weights and portions I was recording on DailyBurn, and was more focused on recording the different things I was eating and estimating the quantities. As I progressed I learned to read the nutritional information on the packaging of whatever I buy.
I also learned that it is very difficult to find restaurants that will provide this information, and I tend to prefer restaurants that readily provide this information.

My first weigh in day I stepped on the scale and was shocked to find out that my weight had crept up to 310lbs.

 
This was another moment of realization of how big I had gotten. This was difficult for me to
see, I felt awful that I had let it get to this. As my muscled ached from that first week of a workout I pondered the long journey that was in front of me and wondered if I could even do it. In that moment I told myself that no matter how long it took I would push myself to keep my schedule and make it work.

My second weigh in I saw progress, just few pounds, but it was enough to keep going.

 
I saw a couple of pounds every week. I did not obsess with the scale, and only weighed myself once a week. It wasn’t until around the beginning of January that my friends and co-workers started to notice. I had dropped 40lbs at that point and had hit my first goal of being at 270lbs. When people started taking notice this was a huge motivator for me to keep going and stay the course. Soon I was getting positive comments once a week and now it’s almost every other day. The biggest factor in keeping me motivated was the steady but declining weight loss. I don’t think I have ever hit a point yet where I felt like I couldn’t continue. I mentally committed myself to make a change. I no longer wanted to be overweight.

I made a permanent life style change to eat better and to get more exercise and make that change permanent, and any weight loss would end up being a byproduct of that change.

 
Even when I would plateau for 2-3 weeks, I stayed the course, looked at my diet and adjusted. I ran my first 5km race last week and finished in under 28minutes, which was a huge accomplishment for me, I am already registered for another 5km race in a couple of weeks.

As of writing this I weigh 217lbs and have lost a total of 93lbs. I have come a long way, it is hard to believe that I have come this far already.

A year ago I would not have been able to ever even imagine that I could have done this. I have an amazing amount of energy and have to find ways to not to overdo it and hurt myself. A day rest is just as important as the workout days. My next goal is to get down to 210lbs, and continue my life routine and see where it takes me by this September one full year after
starting this journey.

Leave comments of encouragement for Thomas here!