My fight with weight loss

I have been struggling with my weight ever since I got out of the United States Navy back in December of 1992. The day I left the ship I was assigned to on that day I weighed 186lbs and was in pretty decent shape. Unfortunately over the years I have left my weight balloon up to 258lbs and I am in poor shape.

My family has been after me for several years to lose the weight, but I haven’t been able to stick to any type of program that will work for me. I tried a lot of different things like Weight Watchers, Atkins and Slim Fast and none of them really worked.

I have two really big problems that seem to sabotage my weight loss efforts; I am lazy and I love food. The lazy part keeps me from starting or sticking to a exercise routine and the fact that I love food leads me to snacking and sneaking food.

I have a very supportive wife; we have been married for nearly 23years, but she is getting tired of me not trying to lose the weight. Even my three kids have been pushing me to lose weight, but I just can’t seem to get myself going.

I recently had a situation occur that has gotten me wanting to get started and hopefully it will be a motivation for me.
I signed up to participate in a annual competition that is made up of local businesses that compete in a series of sporting events like; 1 mile Executive Relay, Home Run Derby, Volleyball, basketball, tug-o-war and too many others to mention. Several hundred people participate in 5 different divisions based on number of employees. The event I decided to compete in was the tug-o-war and our event was held on Saturday evening around 5:00 pm.

Everything seemed to going well for me during the day and I drank some Gatorade and water before the tug-o-war started, but that all change after the first two rounds of pulls were ended. I found myself extremely winded (closer to hyperventilating) because I was just so badly out of shape. I just couldn’t continue and we eventually took 3rd in the competition. I felt so badly and I blamed myself for us not winning the whole thing that I decided that I am going to make a big change in my attitude toward my weight problem.

I am searching for as much information I can find to help me start a exercise routine that I can stick with and also some nutritional advice that will help me fix my problem I have with wanting to over eat.

I am two weeks into my latest weightloss journey and I am having a very slow go at it this time. I have lost only two pounds in the first two weeks and it hasn’t been easy.

I have cut down on the snacking and I have been following my portions sizes somewhat, but I haven’t been getting the amount of exercise I need to help kick start my metabolism.

I have started to walk again on my breaks at work, but I haven’t gotten my self out of the sit on my butt habit after work. If I could just get myself into a routine of moving around instead of parking myself in front of the computer after work it would be so much better for me.

As I said I have only lost two pounds in the first two weeks and I am down under the 250lb. mark at 248.

I am sure if I asked that very question to everyone that is attempting to lose weight I would get hundreds of different answers. My motivation is to be around for my family when they get older. I have three kids (19, 14 and 8 ) and I want to be around when they grow up. But that might not be possible unless I get my weight and blood pressure under control.

My doctor has never officially told me that I have high blood pressure, but on occasion I have used the blood pressure stations when I am at Wal-Mart and more often than not my blood pressure is either in the pre hypertension or in the hypertensive range.

My darling wife of more than 20 years has been after me to lose weight and exercise, but I haven’t listened. My kids tell me all the time that I need to lose weight, but again I don’t listen.

The other day my wife said to me point blank “are you waiting for a heart attack before you will lose weight” and that struck a nerve in me that maybe this time I need to take her seriously.

I finally decided that now is the time that I am going to start a weight loss program that I can stick to and also start exercising more and sitting around less.

My wife and I were watching television the other day and we saw that the mayor of our city has launched a new program to motivate the people of our city to lose weight. He is challenging the people of our city to lose a combined one million pounds. He created a website where we can join and track our progress and also offer tips on nutrition, exercise and to interact with other people in the city who are in need of losing weight. On the home page of the site shows the total number of registered participants and how much total weight has been lost by the registered participant. I registered and I am hoping that I can contribute more than 80lb. of weight loss toward the one million pounds.

I set a final goal for myself to lose a total of 80lb. by June 2, 2008, but I have a small goal of being down to 200lb. by the first week in April.

Earlier this year I attempted to lose a lot of weight and I was somewhat successful, but I ultimately failed and gained all of the weight I lost. Despite the almost constant encouragement from my darling wife and my kids I still wasn’t able to reach my goal of loosing 70 lb. by summer.

Well, I am here again and this time I hope to have better luck. I am starting this time at 250lb. and I want to be down to 200lb. by April. If I can reach 200 by April I shouldn’t have any trouble shedding the last 20 by summer.

We recently had a employee awards banquet where I work and part of the banquet was a special recognition of all those that served in the Armed Forces. I was asked for a picture of me when I was in the Navy (’83-’92) and I was shocked to see how much weight I had gained in the 19 years since the picture was taken. I used to be very active while I was in the Navy; volleyball, basketball and other physical activities. Unfortunately, I became a couch potato and computer junkie, which meant almost no activity.

I have made numerous attempts to lose weight, but none of them were really successful. Each time I would tell myself that this is the one that will get me to my goal, but that was never the case. I always found a way to sabbotage my wieght loss program, whether it was by stopping exercise or over eating.

Today I began another journey to lose the weight and to improve my health and I am hoping that this time I will be able to stick to it this time.