Back on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, in a blog post I titled "Crunch Time", I mentioned how my weight had ballooned to 270lbs and that I wanted to do something about that. Unfortunately, my good intentions were out-weighed (no pun intended) by the rigors of life as a full time musician and of being a home owner.
Time went on and then something happened.
One day in October of 2010 I was putting on a pair of slacks to wear for a gig I had later that day. They felt sort of tight. I happened to glance in the mirror (I was in profile) and I truly was appalled at what I saw. I quickly pulled out the scale and took my slacks off. I stepped on the scale and saw the needle go all the way to 280lbs!
I realized then that I was closer to being 300 lbs than I was to even being 250lbs (still overweight for my height of 6'3"). I was instantly depressed. I thought about how athletic I was in high school and college, and also about the nearly 30 medals, 2 MVPs and 1 MIP that I had won as a track star.
My depression lasted all of about 30 seconds, because I realized then that this was it. The only direction my weight gain would go would be backwards rather than forward. I'm proud to say that since the first week of October, 2010, and as of the morning of writing this blog post, I have officially lost 70lbs! I'm only 5lbs heavier than I was when I was a competing athlete in college.
Ok, enough with the background and set up, here is what I did.
STEP ONE: Figure Out Goals and Game Plan (Time Frame = 2 Days)
I already knew that one of the main reasons that some people fail at weight loss is because they don't have a game plan. I also knew that another important reason that some people fail at weight loss is because they don't set logical, realistic goals.
I decided that, in order to be successful, I needed some time to figure out a game plan and a goal that was realistic for me. I took two days from my schedule and cleared them out of as much as I reasonably could so that I would have NO DISTRACTIONS.
After much research and honest consideration, I figured that a realistic goal for me, considering my age, time I had available, current weight class, etc., was to try and get down to somewhere between 215-220lbs. This is because I didn't think my body, age, and demanding lifestyle as a musician would allow me to get down to my dream weight of 205lbs (my college weight as an athlete). I also thought that it would be realistic to give myself a year and not fall for the 5 and 6 month plans I was coming across online. People seeking weight loss often make the mistake of trying to lose too much too fast. Ultimately, they end up gaining it all back and then some!
My overall strategy was to make small changes over the course of time that would allow me to ease into an eventual and complete change in my eating and rest habits.
STEP TWO: Set the Plan in Action (Time Frame = 12 Months)
I mentioned 12 months as the time frame for this step, but in reality you can really break it down into "phases".
(PHASE I: Oct - Dec, 2010) - During the first phase of my weight loss plan I decided to completely cut out drinking soda. At the time, I was drinking up to 2 or 3 litters of soda a day. Soda was MY water! Also, since I had begun to tour a lot (which meant doing a whole lot of driving by myself), I was drinking Coca Cola for the caffeine to help keep me awake on the road. This is because I don't drink coffee.
The other thing that I did at first was to cut down my portions a bit. I still would eat ANYTHING I wanted to, just less of it. Instead of 2 slices of pizza, I would only have 1. Instead of having 2 plates full of food for dinner, I would only have 1, etc.
One other thing that I did was to stop eating past 7pm in the evening. Because of late night performances and the general demands of my schedule as a full time musician, I was often eating big meals after midnight and then going to bed about an hour or two after that. In other words, I never had the chance to burn it off.
By the way, I think it's important to mention that I substituted drinking soda with drinking seltzer water. I had come to discover that it wasn't necessarily the sweetness of the soda that I was hooked on, but the fizzle of it!
After about 2 months and losing about 25lbs I hit my first plateau or road block. As hard as I tried I just could not break the 255lb barrier. This is when I decided that I needed to go into another phase of action...PHASE II!
(PHASE II: Dec, 2010 - Feb, 2011) - I cut out ALL fast food, with the exception of Subway, Quizno and Chipotle's. I stayed with these places because they all offered filling meals that contained less fat than comparably priced meals from McDonald's, Burger King, etc. Also, the former establishments' foods were generally less caloric than the latters'. To put it succinctly, I started watching both my calorie intake and my fat intake.
This worked! I got past the 255lb barrier and proceeded to lose about another 20lbs.
By the time I went on my February 2011 Tour I had managed to get down to about 237lbs, which is when I hit another barrier (plateau). This was a VERY tough barrier to get through. It was at this point that I realized I had to adjust and enter...
(PHASE III: Feb - June, 2011) - I pondered and pondered what my problem could be. I then realized that it was two fold. One issue was that I wasn't doing any exercising what so ever up until this point. Frankly, my schedule in both my business and personal life had become too dense. My house was in foreclosure, my wife was out of work for a total of 2 years by this point, and I was gigging and touring on the road like a mad man to try and pick up the slack. I was hoping that yet another dietary change would be enough.
Finally, I figured out that I was taking in too many carbs. I was still eating a lot of pastas and white bread. I made the switch to whole wheat and rye breads, and then cut my pasta intake by a good 80%. That did the trick! It took longer than it had for the previous phases, but by June, 2011 I had gotten my weight down to the 225lb mark. And then, you guessed it, I hit another plateau!
(PHASE IV: June - Sept, 2011) - Progress was slowing way down for me by this point. I was beginning to think that it was not feasible for me to get any lighter than I already had. It would take a lifetime search for something completely unrelated to my weight loss, and a medical scare, to get me to the next level.
In July, two things of great significance happened. The first thing was that I managed to track down my biological father and 7 half siblings that I didn't know I had. The second thing was that I began encountering spells where I would almost pass out on stage during performances.
How these two completely different things tie in together is that, when I met my second oldest brother (Kenny, who lives in New York City) for the first time, I told him about nearly passing out during several performances and how I thought it may be tied in with either my diet, or that perhaps I was encountering a blood sugar imbalance...maybe even becoming a diabetic. He then told me (and this would become useful to me again later) that the men on my father's side needed to eat frequently...five or even six times a day.
I thought about it and realized that I basically needed to speed up my metabolism. One way to do that is to eat more frequently, and also smaller (fist sized) portions at each meal. My father further advised me to take my regular 3 meals a day and simply divide them in half. This was good for another 5lbs of weight loss!
By the way, I hope you are starting to see a few patterns here. One of the patterns being that, as you get closer to what your target weight is (or perhaps should be), it becomes increasingly difficult to lose any kind of weight...certainly at the amounts that were previously possible.
(PHASE V: Oct - Dec, 2011) - An interesting thing happened to me exactly one year after I had first started trying to lose weight. I was packing up my car to go to a gig when I suddenly noticed that the large speakers that I use as part of my sound system seemed unusually heavy to me. I couldn't understand why this seemed to be the case, as I had actually had plenty of rest the night before, and was not hungry or dehydrated.
It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.
All of this time I had been focused on weight loss, but I never considered doing any weight training to minimize the loss of muscle mass I would experience from losing so much weight from dieting alone.
DUUUUUUUuuuuuuuhhhh!
DUUUUUUUuuuuuuuhhhh!
I promptly set about creating a weight training routine for myself. I realized that by increasing my muscle mass, not only would I not lose anymore of my strength, but the added muscle would also help me to burn fat and keep my metabolism up. This was good for another 5lbs of weight loss over the course of about a month. My weight by the week before the Thanksgiving holiday was 215lbs.
(PHASE VI where I'm at now) - Fortunately, Thanksgiving did not add anything to me that I couldn't get rid of within 3 days of going back to my usual routine. But by now, I had decided to change my goals.
I realized that I had managed to get to my target weight range, but I felt I could actually make it to my "dream weight". Not only that, my confidence has allowed me to come up with the goal of reducing my overall body fat to around 8-10% (beach body/underwear model body) by Summer, 2012. This will take a lot of work! I think I look good now, but I'm just now curious to see what I'm capable of.
(PHASE VI where I'm at now) - Fortunately, Thanksgiving did not add anything to me that I couldn't get rid of within 3 days of going back to my usual routine. But by now, I had decided to change my goals.
I realized that I had managed to get to my target weight range, but I felt I could actually make it to my "dream weight". Not only that, my confidence has allowed me to come up with the goal of reducing my overall body fat to around 8-10% (beach body/underwear model body) by Summer, 2012. This will take a lot of work! I think I look good now, but I'm just now curious to see what I'm capable of.
My oldest brother, Luis (he lives in Port St. Lucie, Florida), has lent me a hand by providing me with a book on weight lifting and nutrition. What he and I both like about the book is that it is all based off of several studies that have been done in the last decade. In other words, there is some science to back up what they have to offer you in terms of work outs, nutrition, etc.! The book is called "The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises". There is a similar book for women.
So anyway, following the advice in the book, I have managed to lose another 5lbs in about 2 weeks.
IN CLOSING - I think if anything is to be taken from this marathon of a blog post that I have done, it is:
1 - Set realistic goals
2 - Come up with a sensible game plan to reach those goals
3 - Plateaus will happen. Use those times to evaluate and adjust your tactics.
4 - Give yourself a realistic time frame to work with. (I first gave myself a year and am adding another 6 months to achieve my new goal).
5- It's cliche but it will take discipline, sacrifice, hard work, and time!
So, I sincerely hope that this post will help someone out there. Just remember, if a 38 year old, self employed, full time musician (who is constantly gigging and touring on the road), father of an energetic daughter, and former home owner (who had to deal with doing his own house repairs, landscaping, etc.) can lose 70lbs, so can you! : )
So, I sincerely hope that this post will help someone out there. Just remember, if a 38 year old, self employed, full time musician (who is constantly gigging and touring on the road), father of an energetic daughter, and former home owner (who had to deal with doing his own house repairs, landscaping, etc.) can lose 70lbs, so can you! : )
Written by Shenole Latimer
