This is the second installment in my ongoing blog entitled, “The Journey of 1000 Pounds”. If you’ve not seen or read the first installment, please be sure to check it out under the articles that I post or by clicking here on this link.
This is an update, along with a picture of my progress thus far. I am proud to say that as of today, I’m in the best health I’ve been at in the past 20 years. That sounds crazy to me – to be able to make a statement like that in my late 40s. Candidly, two years ago, I never thought a statement like that would ever be possible for me. I was rife with chronic disease or to use the term of the day “comorbidities”. Type two diabetes was out of control, weight gain was out of control, blood pressure otherwise known as “the silent killer”, was out of control, heart health out of control, and my hormones were equivalent to that of an 85-year-old man. It was a sad picture, and I was a sad man – this had negatively impacted every aspect of my life. My role as a father, as a friend, as a businessman, as a love-one to my family, my contributions to my community and my role as a husband would all suffer gravely.
The thing about chronic diseases is that they, for the most part, could be entirely avoided and or significantly mitigated in such a manner that there’s no negative impact on the quality of life. Unfortunately, in America we have a healthcare system that is broken; it is reactive. We rank 70th on the list of countries when it comes to chronic disease prevention and wellness in general. Clearly there is a debate to be had here in respect of the many other problems within our healthcare system, including but not limited to the role of big pharma, the role of big insurance and the various conflicting implicit and explicit protocols across the entire supply chain that is healthcare – but that’s another blog. My focus in life, in my business, and in this blog is to hopefully relay the power of lifestyle changes and how they can not only materially improve your quality of life, but also extend it.
Being totally honest with myself, I must admit that I had come to a place mentally where I accepted an early death as my fate. I did not think that I could change my situation because I felt as if all the cards (DNA, life choices, luck, etc.) were simply stacked against me in an insurmountable manner. It begs the question, how do you get out of this mental state? This is a serious question because this is where it all begins.
I think that we all have areas in our life where we excel, where we have the proper mental toughness, the appropriate wits, the right amount of experience and wisdom that allows us to overcome obstacles in those areas. For me it had to do with business; as an entrepreneur, I have developed this type of mental toughness. What I had to do is take that toughness and apply it to this other area of my life, which we can refer to as personal health. Now this is where it gets tricky because people will say, “okay, but how do you do that”, which is a very fair and appropriate question.
In my experience, it seems to me that the formula starts with your volition; you have to will to make this change. This is a conscious decision that we make in our daily cogitation however it is confirmed and made real through the words that we speak, particularly the words that we speak to ourselves. We have to change our self-talk – and we have to practice self-talk not just in our head but physically or orally too, through a daily affirmation and meditation process. It’s like anything else that we do in personal development, at first it may feel silly or perhaps like it’s not working but stay committed to the process and it will certainly begin to take effect. You have to trust the work that you are doing. To help with this, all you have to do is look at all the carnage created by the negative or missing self-talk in your life has created… If the formula works for negativity, which got you to where you are today, then the opposite is also true for a positive trajectory. The only difference here, is that a positive trajectory requires much more effort than a negative or downward trajectory; it’s imperative that you are cognizant of that because you’ll have to double up, if not triple up your effort in this regard. Because this is a blog and not a book, I will not go into details about the practices I mention above, however I do recommend a book entitled “Mind Gym; An Athletes Guide to Inner Excellence”, by Gary Mack. Don’t let the title fool you – I was over 400 pounds when I read the book – it has little to do with being an athlete: it’s simple yet profound in its practical approach to improving your mindset. I also would remind you of ancient text regarding the power of words, which states “the power of life and death are in the tongue”. We must take control of our mind and our words; at first, it’s by sheer force (volition), but then it becomes a habit and then it becomes your character… Next thing you know you’re a bad motherfucker!
Before I go on, I love the description that Wikipedia provides for “Volition”, allow me to post here for easy reference:
Willpower and volition are colloquial and scientific terms (respectively) for the same process. When a person makes up their mind to do a thing, that state is termed ‘immanent volition’. When we put forth any particular act of choice, that act is called an emanant, executive, or imperative volition. When an immanent or settled state of choice controls or governs a series of actions, that state is termed predominant volition.
The second piece of the formula is a very difficult one because you must come to grips with the fact that you need to go at it alone. I don’t know that everybody in need of a body or health transformation is codependent or not, however, I do know that it’s lonely. It’s lonely because few know the pain and aches that you wake up with every day, the lack of sleep for week at a time, they don’t understand the pain and energy that it takes just to do normal day-to-day things and then of course for me anyways there’s a mental game that I’m just beating myself up 24 /7 because I’ve allowed myself to get to this place. So naturally when I choose to embark on this journey, I look for friends or family to come with me, or at least help you get started… But the reality is, no matter who they are, nobody else is up at night thinking about you and nobody’s waking up in the morning thinking about you… You have to basically cut everyone out of your mind. I know for some, this aspect can sound cold, but, it’s the highest form of self-love or let me rephrase it perhaps it’s the beginning of self-love. After all, if you’re not in good form and if you’re not around, how are you going to do anything for those people that depend on you and that you love so dearly.
In business, it’s always good to raise money when you don’t need it, raise money when you’re on an aggressive growth trajectory… The reason for this is because people know success begets more success and people want to be associated with success. The same principal applies in your health journey at first, you’ll be alone but you’ve gotta do the first few miles on your own and then people begin to take notice and they understand that you’re doing something different and then out of nowhere people are attracted to what you’re doing. You will inspire people that you had no idea you’re inspiring. Even though maybe they only have a small amount of weight to lose compared to yourself, for them that’s an immovable mountain and you provided inspiration for them. It’s the same principal that people are attracted to success and now people not only want to help you, but they also want to get something out of it too. You’re helping them… And in my opinion, that’s the beauty of it. By the way, don’t be too harsh on those that refuse to come with you at the beginning, trust me when I say, they’re probably broken and hurt in other areas. Nevertheless, know that you already have all of the courage you need – it’s in you already; with each step that you take, your courage will grow, and the path will get more and more illuminated.
Sometimes alone is the best place to be…
Allow me to provide few tips to help you go at it alone.
(1) Always visualize the end-result, while you’re in the stages of your journey
(2) Utilize Self-Talk, combined with Visualization exercises
(3) Breakdown the monumental task into small chunks and celebrate those small success in real time
(4) Turn off your phone or learn to ignore it
(5) Use music to enhance and influence your mood when it comes to physical activity/goals.
In any event I hope that some of these anecdotes, principles or some of my own personal experience can be useful to anyone out there… I’m gonna share a quick progress update. I’m down 150 pounds, at least this far, blood glucose levels, heart health and all other markers seem to rank between good and very good. My A1C count teeters right at the upper end of normal, so that’s just a testament to what I shared in the first installment of this blog regarding me being born naturally resistant as my status quo.
In closing, let me be totally transparent and say that part of my “alone formula” was to be public in what I am trying to accomplish for myself and in what my ailments are/were. Posting a picture like this is pretty vulnerable for me and in many ways a bit fearful, mostly because I still have such a long way to go – but, it’s also a form of fuel for me and helps me stay discipline. I realize that it may be an ego or false pride sort of motivating factor, but so what – if the end-result is extending my life and/or improving my quality of life, then so be it. The picture I’m providing is about 15 days old now, you can see muscle definition starting to kick in.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment and ask any questions. I wish you all the best – go out there and conquer the hell out of whatever seems insurmountable in your life; onward and upward!
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