Active Low-Carber Forums
Atkins diet and low carb discussion provided free for information only, not as medical advice.
Home Plans Tips Recipes Tools Stories Studies Products
Active Low-Carber Forums
A sugar-free zone


Welcome to the Active Low-Carber Forums.
Support for Atkins diet, Protein Power, Neanderthin (Paleo Diet), CAD/CALP, Dr. Bernstein Diabetes Solution and any other healthy low-carb diet or plan, all are welcome in our lowcarb community. Forget starvation and fad diets -- join the healthy eating crowd! You may register by clicking here, it's free!

Go Back   Active Low-Carber Forums > Main Low-Carb Diets Forums & Support > Success Stories
User Name
Password
FAQ Members Calendar Mark Forums Read Search Gallery My P.L.A.N. Survey


Reply
 
View comments Article tools
AZDean's Avatar
AZDean AZDean is offline
Arizona 215 lb Loser
Posts: 2,517
AZ-Dean's Story
Posted by AZDean
Posted Wed, Jun-16-04
Male 5 ft 11 inches
Plan: Suzanne Somers
Stats: 327/315/190
BF:
Progress: 9%
Location: Tucson, AZ
Default AZ-Dean's Story

Updated on Feb 1st, 2005... (and again on Feb 26th, Mar 2nd and three times in April, see below)

A special thanks goes to MisterE for encouraging me to write my story up. Thanks MisterE!

And now my on-going success story...

I've now completed 20 months of Somersizing! I started on June 8th, 2003 weighing 390 pounds and wearing size 62 pants. Now, on February 1st of 2005, I've dropped 200 pounds and I can fit into size 34 pants, something I haven't been able to do since I was in college some 22 years ago! I've even had to move my watch band up seven notches!

I still have about 10 pounds to go, but I'm pretty well in control now of how fast I'm losing my weight and so I expect to make my goal of 180 pounds by April -- just two months away!

How'd I get started?

Well, when I turned 40 I knew I would have to do something to lose my weight or else I'd start seeing serious health problems. And that's besides the issues someone my weight had like trying to fit into chairs at restaurants or seats on airplanes! Oh those poor people that had to sit beside me!

I tried Atkins for a couple weeks but it seemed too strict for me. I looked into stomach operations, but they scared me too much and so I did nothing for a couple years. I was beginning to think I'd have to get that stomach operation anyway when a friend told me about the Suzanne Somers plan. It sounded so simple because there was absolutely no counting to do and it didn't sound strict at all. I figured I'd give it a try and see if it actually worked.

If it didn't, I knew the stomach operation was my only alternative. Believe me, that alone gave me a lot of incentive to take this WOE seriously! In fact, I've taken it so seriously that I NEVER cheat. Never. It is absolutely TABOO to me, because I know what could happen if I start.

So, I bought one of Suzanne Somers books, read enough to know what to do, and started. At first I didn't have a scale that could weigh me, but I could still tell I was losing weight as I had to keep putting new notches on my belt! Then, after two and a half months, I got a scale and started weighing myself every morning. Here's a plot showing every weigh-in I've done for the last 526 days:



You can see that my weight stalled out in November of 2003. That's when my parents visited for two weeks and we went out to eat a lot. I never cheated, but I simply ate too much. In fact, seeing that graph going the wrong way is what helped me to see that I had to make other changes to my eating as I went along.

Update: It's funny that this December I experienced another stall, again when my parents were here to visit for the holidays. This time it was just little things that added up to too many calories for my current weight, especially the low-carb chocolate that I was given for Christmas. You really have to keep a close eye on things or else your body will naturally want to eat too much!

For the first six months of my weight loss, I ate grapnuts cereal (with skim milk) for BREAKfast every morning. Now, I *LOVE* grapenut cereal and eating it every day for BREAKfast for all those months really helped me to get going on this WOE. But after losing about 80 pounds, it was just too many calories and I knew I had to stop. Now, I could have just cut back on my portion size, but at the time it seemed easier for me to simply switch to something else, and so I switched to eating fruit.

But after about two months of eating fruit, I found it was a bother to make sure I had fruit available every morning and so I stopped eating BREAKfast
all together. This actually violates one of the seven rules of Somersizing, but I think over time many of us will develop our own customized plans. The important thing is to find what works for you and then stick to it!

Update: Since October of 2004, I now have a Dannon low-carb light yougart for BREAKfast. But it's just a 4 oz container, and only 60 calories, so I haven't noticed any real change after eating that for BREAKfast.

Now the Somersize plan does not allow caffeine, and I love sodas, so I had limited options for my drink. I found early on though that I simply love diet Ginger Ale. I now regularly buy out the entire section of store-brand diet Ginger Ale when I go to the grocery store. Sometimes I mix in a little diet Sobe tropical drink to give it added flavor, but I basically drink diet Ginger Ale all day long!

When I go to a restaurant, there is nothing for me to drink except water, so there I actually add in artificial sweetener to it (and a lemon) to make it taste better. I like to use one Equal and one Sweet-n-Low packet per glass.

I've always enjoyed the lowcarber forums, but I noticed over the months that many people have often slowed down in their weight loss and often don't know what to do to speed up the loss. Now since I saw that the only time I really stalled was when I knew I was eating too much, I figured that would be the main reason for me if I ever ran into trouble.

And then back in March of 2003 I saw a graph that simply amazed me.

Lynda, aka UpTheHill had this graph that shows great weight loss at first, and then gradually the weight loss slowed down and down and down until it was zero. But she still had a long way to go. So she started counting calories. She counted how many calories she ate compared to how many she burned per day. The results were amazing. Her graph shot down after that as if there was really no trouble to losing weight at all. And now she's lost 158 pounds and reached her goal! Way to go Lynda!

This inspired me to do the same, even if I wasn't having trouble losing weight. I simply wanted to see if I could control my weight loss as well as she did and I wanted to understand what was going on with me better.

So I bought a pedometer to track the number of steps per day that I walk (a measure of how many extra calories I've burned over the base background level of activities). I bought a body-fat scale so I could track my body fat percent and know how much lean mass I might be losing or gaining. I bought two food scales, one for my car to weigh my lunch, and one for at home to weigh my dinner. And I bought Fitday PC software to enter my numbers and track everything. Oh and I also use Microsoft Excel to track my raw numbers and plot thingsn too.

The results have been amazing for me too. For about ten weeks I calculated every day what my calorie deficit was. That is the difference between the calories I eat and the calories I burn. For every 3500 calories of deficit, I should lose one pound of fat. Well, it turns out that my calculated weight loss matched perfectly with my real weight loss. Take a look:



Now, for the last ten months I've settled on foods I really like and I eat them over and over again. I mostly eat the same thing every day. It only varies when I go out to eat with my wife or family. But I’m afraid I've gotten rather picky about sticking to my meals so I haven't gone out as much as I used to. And actually, when we do, I tend to get the same thing every time I go out (for instance, I always get the spinach chicken with veggies every time I go to Macayos, a Mexican restaurant).

Now I know some people couldn't do this, but for me, when I find something I really like, I just like to have it over and over again. And then I get used to having it and I look forward to it. I guess it makes a nice familiar pattern that I grow into and enjoy a lot.

For lunch, I have steak fajitas at a drive-through Mexican fast-food place near where I work. It's actually a fajita burrito, but I ask for it with NO tortilla and so they give it to me in a bowl instead. I started out eating two full burritos worth of meat. The amount of fajitas they served would vary but it averaged about 24 to 28 ounces.

Over the months, I have gradually cut back until now I'm down to weighing out just 11.5 ounces from one burrito and I throw the rest away. And believe me, I never could have thrown away food before, but after all these months of never cheating, I can do a lot of things I couldn't before. Even still, I have to weigh it BEFORE I start eating as it's much harder to throw away food AFTER I start!

For dinner, I have a BIG salad. I switch what vegetables I put on it, but the important thing is to weigh out the ranch dressing (and cheese if you use that). Over the months, the size of my salad grew so I cut out the cheese in order to use more Ranch dressing. Then I discovered that the Kraft brand has fewer calories so I switched to that.

And then Kraft came out with a low-carb version of their Ranch dressing (called CarbWell). And even better, later still they came out with a low-carb Light Ranch dressing that has even less calories but still tastes great. Since it's a big salad I use up to 5 ounces of dressing, but thankfully the light dressing keeps the calories down.

Update: Recently, I've started chopping up some meat and pan frying it to go along with my salad. I'll have steak or chicken or pork, whichever happens to be cheaper at the store. But I only have about 6 to 8 ounces of it.

Finally, after my dinner, I ALWAYS have Breyers CarbSmart chocolate ice cream for my desert. I have 5 ounces and it tastes SO GOOD that I've really convinced myself that I cannot possibly be on a diet! Wow!

So here's some graphs that show my typical daily food calories and nutrition. Note the averages are done based on four weeks of data (5/19 to 6/16). Also note that my "logged activities" are basically an average of 55 minutes a day of walking (based on my daily pedometer reading):



Now I don't think eating the same thing every day is what has caused me to lose weight. But it has helped me to stay on track more precisely and has helped me to get used to what I'm eating and not have urges to eat other things. So, you could say it has simply helped me to be consistent.

I've never worried if I am in Ketosis or not as the Somersize plan doesn't talk about this. However, after switching to the CarbWell Ranch dressing, I'm down to about 28 grams of carbs a day. Before that, it was closer to 40 and even higher before that (way higher when I ate the grapenuts). And it doesn't bother me if my daughter, who has started the same plan, prepares a special dinner with something like wild brown rice and stewed veggies. In this sense, I really am still following the Somersize plan.

For me, my weight loss sure seems to come down to what my actual calorie deficit is. Low-carbing takes away my cravings and eating the same thing just makes it easy to not cheat or eat things that will mess me up.

Now, here's plots showing my actual body fat percent for the last 10 months and plots showing how many pounds of fat and lean mass that translates into for me. To get as acurate of numbers as possible for body fat percent, you need to always weigh at the same time of day under the same conditions. I weigh in the morning right after going to bathroom. Even still the numbers can fluctuate greatly depending on your salt intake and water levels. Still, over time trends do show up and that's the important thing to look for.

The largest gap in the plot is from my vacation last summer where I got a LOT of exercise hiking, so that seems to show that my lean mass improved during that time and thus it showed me how important exercise is to maintaining your lean mass. Especially notice how my body fat percent went up after my vacation. During that time I basically stopped my exercise and just sat at my desk! Exercise is clearly important!!

Update: And now for the last 5 months, I have been much more consistent in my daily walks (about 30 minutes long) and I've even started doing simple exercises in the morning for about 15 minutes (like squats and toe touches and things like that). I've been really surprised at how much improvement just 15 minutes a day can have on me, and it shows up on my plots too! Take a look:





And finally, my before and after pictures.

This picture says it all -- how I feel now after losing all this weight. I'm on TOP OF THE WORLD!! After 21 years, I am finally able to climb the mountain I used to enjoy climbing when I was in college. Believe me, it is a really GOOD feeling to make it back to that time in my life! The picture was taken Feb 5th, after losing 201 pounds.



This "after" picture was taken Feb 1st, 2005 after losing 200 pounds.





This "after" picture was taken Thanksgiving day 2004 after losing 186 pounds.



The following "after" pictures were all taken on October 3rd, 2004 when I had lost 176 pounds!











And finally a 200 pound fade between December of 2002 to February of 2005:



Note, I am no longer logging the food I eat everyday in Fitday PC or wearing my pedometer. But I still weigh the foods that matter, and I still log my weight and body fat percent every day that I'm home. There's really no need to keep logging every calorie when I eat basically the same thing all the time. But it is important to weigh the things that have the most calories. If I didn't weigh them, I could easily add more than I should. Maybe not a lot more, but every little bit makes a difference.

And lastly, how does losing all this weight make me feel? Ha! You got to be kidding! Why GREAT! I actually have my LIFE back now! I had a wonderful vacation last summer where I got to do many things I couldn't do before like horseback riding, hiking, and on and on!

I couldn't even tie my shoes without difficulty before!

And now I feel like I've left the world of fat behind forever. I've entered the world of normal people that can do normal things, buy clothes at normal stores, get attention like a normal person and on and on!

I've been set free from a prison and now I wish I could tell all the overweight people I see how they too can be free. It's like a miracle has happened in my life. It's like a dream come true.

And I especially like that I can enjoy my wife and family so much more!

I've already had amazing success, and in a few more months, I'll be all the way to where I NEVER thought I could possibly get to. And that is a REALLY, REALLY a GOOD feeling!

God bless!

___________________________________________
Results from blood tests done: Sept 7, 2004:

Cholesterol: 209, optimal < 200, borderline < 240
Triglycerides: 73, optimal < 150
Blood sugar: 91, 70 to 100
Potassium: 4.3, 3.5 to 5.0
Thyroid: 0.5, 0.3 to 3.5

Hematocrit - Red Blood cell % - 40.0, 40.7 to 50.3
Hemoglobin - 14.1, 13.8 to 17.2
WBC - White Blood count - 4.6, 4.0 to 11.0
RBC - Red Blood count - 4.41, 4.30 to 6.00
MCV - Mean Corpuscular vol - Size of RBC's - 90.7, 80.0 to 100.0
MCH - Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin - Amount of hemoglobin in red blood cells - 31.9, 27.0 to 34.0
MCHC - Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration - Percent of hemoglobin in RBC's - 35.2, 31.0 to 37.0
RDW - Red cell Disdribution Width - Variation in size of RBC's - 12.7, 11.5 to 14.5
Platelet Count - 160, 130 to 450
MPV - Mean Platelet Vol - Average size of platelets - 10.0, 7.5 to 11.5

Types of White Blood Cells by %:
LY - Lymphocyte - 33.7, 10.0 to 45.0
MO - Monocyte - 10.9, 3.0 to 15.0
NE - Neutrophil - 50.5, 40.0 to 85.0
EOS - Eosinophil - 3.5, 0.0 to 7.0
BASO - Basophil - 1.4, 0.0 to 2.0

TSH - Thyroid Stimulating Hormone - 0.50, 0.40 to 4.00
Vitamin B12 - 435, 180 to 914
Folate - Folic Acid - 9.2, 3.0 to 19.0
GHB A1c - Glycemic control - 4.5, 4.0 to 6.3
hs-CRP - High Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein - 6.25, 0.00 to 8.00

Everything is within the "normal" range except for my Red Blood Cell percent which is only a little low. My "counts" (red, white and platelet counts) also are on the low part of the acceptable range and I don't know why that would be.

But the more serious reading is the "hs-CRP" one. While it is in the acceptable range, they say that the higher number I have can indicate an increased risk for heart attack because the tests shows the level of inflammation caused by fatty deposits, which can be caused by fat in the arteries.

I wonder if getting my body fat percent down to 15% (which is my goal) will help this? I guess time will tell!

_______________________________
Updated Feb 26th, 2005...

Time for some new plots...

First my calculated lean mass weight over the last 11 months (since I bought a scale that can measure my body fat percent):



But look at that a little and you'll notice a decided stair step pattern to my lean mass over time. So, taking the exact same data, but just splitting it up into three parts, we get the following:



This shows that I've actually been gaining lean mass over the last six weeks. But even the previous four months were pretty stable, just at a higher level. Perhaps the steps represent when my body decided to get rid of excess blood vessels (and other things) that it no longer needed. I don't know, but of course the last month is when I bought barbells and started using them for about 10 to 15 minutes in the morning, and when I climbed the mountain and did lots of weed pulling on two Saturdays.

The four months before that was when I started walking more consistently and then added squats and other simple exercises in the morning. And I also started eating the Dannon Light-n-Fit yogurt in the morning to get a little protein.

While I can understand why the last few weeks have seen a gain, and the previous four months held steady, I don't get why the two large drops happened, especially the last one around Jan 14th.

Now, here's my raw body fat percent numbers:



This shows a rather consistent drop in my body fat percent. Based on the last six weeks of data which have been very uniform, I should hit my goal of 15 percent body fat in just six more weeks (around April 9th). I'm currently at 17.3 percent.

But now look at the plot of my body fat weight:



This clearly shows a gentle slowing down of my fat loss over the last 11 months. But if this simple second order slope holds out, then I'll only lose 2 more pounds of fat in the next six weeks. Since I'm currently at 34 pounds of body fat today, then in six weeks I'd be at 32 pounds. But this doesn't make sense, as at 15 percent body fat, that would put my total weight at 213 pounds, which is clearly too high and not right.

Thus, the second order fit of my body fat weight, though it looks nice, is clearly wrong. So, lets look at my raw weight numbers for the last 18 months:



Here, it looks like a third order fit is better, but if this holds out, then in six weeks, my final weight will be 186.6 pounds which is actually not that far off from where my lean mass will put me at based on the current slope of the last six weeks. The current slope should get me to 156.4 pounds of lean mass in six weeks, which is just two pounds below where a 15 percent body fat would put my lean mass at if this third order slope holds out.

So you could say that this third order slope is roughly accurate. And so the conclusion is that it should take me about six more weeks to get down to my goal of 15 percent body fat, but my weight loss will slow down and only make it down to around 185 pounds by then.

I guess we'll all see if this bears out or not.

And of course I must continue on with my barbell workouts, increasing the weights as I go and maybe the time I use them too.

Any questions???


_______________________________
Updated Mar 2nd, 2005...

When I started this WOE 21 months ago and weighed 390 pounds, I had three goals:

1) Get back to the pant size I was wearing back in college 23 years ago (size 34).
2) Get down to the recommended 15 percent body fat for men.
3) Lose the fat on my stomach that has drooped down for so long.

A forth goal would be to be no longer classified as "overweight" which for my height and age would be anything over 178 pounds, though if I achieved the other three goals and not the forth, it wouldn't bother me.

Well, on Monday I noticed my size 36 pants were fitting quite lose, so yesterday I went down to Wal-Mart over lunch and sure enough, size 34 pants now fit me just fine. So I bought three pair and I even found a size SMALL shirt that fit as well. I can't remember EVER wearing size SMALL!!

When I got home, I threw all my pants out over size 36 and got rid of any shirt over large. On the shirts, I simply don't have many under size large, so I'll keep the large ones for now. But soon I'll get rid of them too.

And while I was cleaning out my closet, I found three pair of pants that my wife saved from when I was my thinnest, right before we got married. Two of these pants were size 32 and they actually fit though a bit too tight to look good. My sport jacket from back then fit fine though. So, basically, I'm now back to where I was in college and nearly where I was at my thinnest.

But back then, I got thin because I only ate six meals a WEEK!! That's it. One meal a day (like at McDonalds), and then one day a week I'd eat nothing. Back then, I had to eat like that to get this thin.

Now, I have a yogurt for BREAKfast, steak fajitas for lunch, and a BIG salad and lc ice cream for dinner. I've even been snacking on lc chocolate and I still have been losing (though not as fast as I had been).

Moreover, I don't exercise all that much. I walk for about a half hour during workdays (though I miss many days), and I do 10 to 15 minutes in the morning of squats and using barbells. I just moved up from 10 pound ones to a fifteen pound one too. But that little bit of exercise has helped me to get back to hiking mountains and I've even seen some muscle start to form on my arms (though not a lot).

Anyway, goal number one has now been officially achieved!!!!!

Goal two is about six weeks away based on my current progress. I'm at 17.4 percent body fat, and in approximately six weeks, I'll make it down to the 15 percent goal. Hopefully by then, my lower stomach fat that has bugged me so much for all these years will finally be history too. It certainly has been shrinking as my new pants size prove, but when I sit down it still bulges out. Thankfully, it's no longer noticeable when I stand.

Oh, and I also got a new belt yesterday. The last belt I bought was a size 34 belt and I thought it would be my last. But a couple weeks ago I had to punch a new notch into it. So, I thought I'd get a new belt but I found Wal-Mart had very few belts below size 34. I found a size 30-32 one that was okay and only $6, so I got that one, but I'm already on the third hole on it (out of five).

Anyway, this morning I took new pictures in my new size 34 pants, my new size small shirt and my new belt. Oh, and I have new glasses too. I took these in the company boardroom and I weighed in at 186.4 this morning.








_______________________________
Updated Apr 23rdh, 2005...

When I started this WOE 22 and a half months ago and weighed 390 pounds,
I had three goals:

1) Get back to the pant size I was wearing back in college 23 years ago (size 34).
2) Get down to the recommended 15 percent body fat for men.
3) Lose the fat on my stomach that has drooped down for so long.

A forth goal would be to be no longer classified as "overweight" which for my
height and age would be anything over 178 pounds, though if I achieved the
other three goals and not the forth, it wouldn't bother me.

Well, I officially achieved the first goal back on March 2nd (see here).
I have since exceeded that goal and I'm now down to size 32 pants and I'm
wearing size *small* shirts. Since I started out wearing size 62 pants and
5x shirts, this is a BIG change!

And then just six days ago I achieved the fourth goal of no longer being
classified as "overweight" (see here). Already, I've dropped
another 2 and a half pounds, so I've now passed that goal up too.

And now, my second main goal has officially been achieved!!!!

This morning, my 14-day running average of my body fat percent hit 14.9
percent! I remember reading somewhere when I started this that 15 percent
was the recommended body fat percent for men, and it just struck me that I
wanted that. I wanted to reach what was recommended. This seems even
better than not being overweight. This is what they say you should try to be
at for good health.

And I've finally made it!!

Now, I only have one goal left. And that is to get rid of the remaining fat on
my lower stomach. While it keeps shrinking, it's still there and though you
can't see it, I do! And believe me it's still is quite a glob of fat!

So I will be continuing on for a little bit more. I can only guess what my
weight will be at the end or what my final body fat percent will be. I'm
guessing maybe I'll make it down to 165 pounds and 13 percent body fat, but
who knows?

But I WILL get rid of that fat, and then finally, I will be able to say that I
have fully made it. I'm hoping that will be in just six weeks as that will be my
second anniversary of doing this WOE. But we'll see.

Anyway, here is the plot of my body fat percent since I bought the scale that
measures this:



And this is what I used to look like. This was taken Dec 21, 2002 on my 20th
wedding anniversary:



And this is what I look like now. This picture was taken last Monday on my
hike:



I enjoyed that hike so much, that in just a few hours I'm going on another
hike. I am hoping for my biggest hike ever in my life. I've planned out an
eleven-mile hike (round trip) with an elevation climb of over 4000 feet. I will
be starting my hike at the very hotel where my "before" picture was taken
(the Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson).

I think it is fitting that on the day my body fat percent hits the recommended
number, that I'm walking more than I ever have and doing something so
beyond what I was able to do back then. I have left that life behind and I'm
now able to live an entirely new life.

And thank God for that!


_______________________________
Updated Apr 24th, 2005...

On the subject of how I've lost so much weight in the last
month...

I've now lost 14.4 pounds in the last four weeks. That is huge,
especially given that my weight loss had slowed down from an
average 10.2 pounds a month to less than 5 a month. And while
I have had my two hikes now, my exercise is no more than I
have been doing since the beginning of the year, which is only
30 minutes of walking at lunch time and 10 to 15 minutes of
dumbbell exercise in the mornings.

I did add the five pounds ankle weights for my walking and I did
increase the size of my dumbbells, but otherwise, my exercise is
not all that much different from what it has been.

The real change for me is that for the last four weeks I haven't
gone out to a restaurant a single time. I cut back on the lc
chocolate (and almonds) and remained strict to my regular
eating plan. And then in the last ten days, I've even changed
what I eat for dinner. This is a temporary change, but I got a bit
tired of how much time it takes to make my big salads and so I
started just eating two bowls of my lc light ice cream instead.
This was so easy and it didn't seem to hurt my weight loss any,
so I've kept it up. I'm eating about a half a container a night!
That should be about 700 calories, so it's not too high, and it
hasn't seemed to hurt my weight loss, so I'll probably keep doing
it for a week or two more.

Four more weeks (or less) of weight loss like I've just had should
be all it takes to get rid of this last fat. Of course, I'll find out
soon enough.

Here's my running average weight loss plot for the last twenty
months (since I bought a scale). You can see how my weight
loss was gradually evening out, but in the last month it has
taken off. Pretty cool. Also notice my first main stall back in Nov
2003. That was when my parents came for Thanksgiving and I
went out to restaurants a lot for two weeks. Now, I always
followed plan. I never cheated, but obviously I was eating too
many calories and it stalled my weight loss.



Then as I lost weight, even my regular restaurant activity
became too much. Cutting that out and keeping to my limited
diet made all the difference. Pretty cool.


_______________________________
Updated Apr 27th, 2005...

We've all since "before" and "after" pictures, but how many times do we see pictures showing how we compare to when we were at our thinnest, as I was back in college and when I first got married? In fact, I still have some of the same clothes I wore back then so I was able to "retake" a few pictures I have from back then.

When I got engaged in 1982, I had a short consulting job that netted me $1200 and I went out and bought a fancy cashmere suit with accompanying pants, shirt & tie and even Bally shoes. They were so fancy for me, that even though I thought I'd NEVER be able to wear them again, I saved them all these years. And now at long last they fit again, and so last night, I took pictures that duplicate pictures I have from 22 to 23 years ago.

Here's my engagement picture from around Sept of 1982...



And here I am today wearing the same suit and pants (you can't see the shoes but I'm wearing them too)...



Here's a picture in the same suit from our honeymoon to Lake Havasu, AZ in December of 1982...



And here's my picture from 22 and half years later...




Then, this is me as a newly-wed standing outside of our first apartment in Tucson back around January of 1983...



I'm pretty sure that those were size 34 jeans. But today I am in size 32 jeans...



And just a few months after getting married, my wife got pregnant and I started to gain weight. This picture was taken about eleven months after the last one and you can already see the weight I was starting to put on...



And what do you know; I still have that same suede jacket too! Here it is on me today...



Funny thing is that the *only* way I was able to get thin back
then was by not eating. When I first got to college, I was on
a two-meal a day plan, and I started gaining weight. They
didn't even have a one-meal a day plan so I just started eating
one fast food meal a day. And since I had very little money, I
couldn't even cheat. So, just a Big Mac, fries and a coke each
day.

And then when I got engaged, I started fasting one day a week.
So I basically lived on only six meals a week! And when I was
really short on money, I'd just get four plain bagels and a coke
for the day.

But as soon as I got married, got a job, had a little money, a
refrigerator with food and a wife that cooked, I was done for! I
figured I would never get back to a thin me knowing how little
I'd have to eat to get there.

But now I've done it eating lc yogurt for BREAKfast, steak fajitas for
lunch, a huge salad for dinner and low-carb ice cream for desert.
Just no more sugars or breads at all. I do have to watch my
portion sizes for any of the higher calorie items I eat, and I have
found "light" versions of the low-carb dressing I use and even
a light version of the low-carb ice cream.

And so I'm able to keep losing weight and still eat pretty decently
at the same time, which is VERY COOL!

In short, the low-carb lifestyle has truly worked for me, and I am
so thankful I really took it seriously and never cheated. I now
have my life back!

Take care everyone!
Article tools
Show Printable Version Show Printable Version
Email this Page Email this Page
Success Photos
Before
In-Progress
After
Reply

  #2  
by MisterE on Wed, Jun-16-04, 17:28
Default

YOU are one great inspiration for those following behind. Thank you for sharing your story. I know many will be motivated!
Reply With Quote

45 comments [read all comments]


Article tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
National magazine tells Tiffin woman's story PacNW LC Research/Media 0 Sun, Jun-06-04 22:27
CBS News Obesity Story darcijj LC Research/Media 4 Thu, May-23-02 11:50


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 19:45.


Copyright © 2000-2024 Active Low-Carber Forums @ forum.lowcarber.org
Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.