A letter to my future self: Keep moving forward

I'll never forget that George Clooney gained about 40 pounds for a film in the early 2000's. He said he was miserable during filming because of how heavy he was. After the film was over, he lost the weight and went back to his normal size. The part I've never forgotten is this, though. When asked about the weight loss, he responded with "I lost weight by just eating less."

This seems like a novel idea. Seems too easy. Too good to be true. But the science is simple. Calories in versus calories out. If the intake is higher, you gain weight. If the output is higher, you lose weight. Of course this can be done in various different ways. You can eat less (as George Clooney suggested). You can increase excercise. Or, and perhaps the best approach, is to combine the two.

Now, as someone who is a really big guy, I'm not saying I followed this train of thought. I like food way too much and I can eat a lot of it. I always justified it because I do work out. I am in the gym lifting weights. I like to bike and walk. Problem is, you can't outwork a bad diet. I've always heard that and have never listened.

This problem for me really compounded when decided to start doing strong man competitions several years ago. I got in the gym and started lifting heavy weights. Moving heavy stuff around and I loved it. In order to learn the proper technique of certain implimints, I went to YouTube and started looking things up. I was consumed with this.

Something happened, though. I started seeing more and more videos of Eddie Hall and Brian Shaw eating huge amounts of food. They would eat thousands and thousands of calories every single day. I started doing the same thing. I wanted to get strong. I wanted to get bigger. The problem is I wasn't training like the two of them. They were competing at World's Strongest Man. They were some of the best to ever do it. I was a project manager working in Texas and lifting weights 4 hours a week.

So I started to gain weight. A lot of it. But my weight was very much fat-based. It wasn't a lot of muscle. I was getting stronger. But I was also getting fatter. I had to start buyig bigger clothes. Not because of my muscles. Because my stomach was getting way too big.

In April of this year I had a realization. Realizing that I was never winning Worlds Strongest Man. Realizing I enjoyed competing but did not need to be the biggest. Realizing I was putting myself in a position that could do way more damage to my body than good. So I decided to do something about this. I decided to lose weight. I decided I'd rather live another 40 years than to win any strong man competitions. It wasn't worth it any more.

This brings me back to Geore Clooney and his statement. I had never been good at pushing the plate away. I learned how to this, though. In order to lose weight, I kept working out. And I started pushing the plate away (metaphorically speaking). I started doing a lot intermittent fastting. There were times I would eat dinner and then wouldn't eat again until the next evening. I trained my brain to recognize that when my stomach growls, its just calling for more fat from my stomach. And that's what I told myself. I didn't have a scale that would measure my weight because of how big I was. I went on to Amazon and bought a digital scale that was also a smart scale.

I have stayed consistent and kept this journey going. This morning I got on the scale and hit the 50 pound weight loss mark. In less than 6 months I have hit 50 pounds. I'm not done, here, though. I still have a long way to go. But the milestone reminds me that I can do this. I can keep pushing foward and keep losing weight.

So I'm writing this to you. Whoever you are. Maybe its me in the future. Maybe you're starting your own weight loss journey. Perhaps you're starting something else and have thought about giving up. Whoever you are. This is your sign to keep going. One step in front of the other. You may stumble. You may fail. You may lose ground. But that's ok. Its what you do the next day. If you look at my digital scale app, you'll see a lot of ups and downs. Its not consistently down. But there are more down days than up. And that's what you want. You want to keep winning. Keep moving the needle forward. So I encourage you to keep going. Whatever it is. Keep moving forward.