Jhardenbergh's Blog

I turned 35 on Tuesday and never really thought about celebrating my birthday for a whole week, but with great family comes great times. My week started out pretty strong with a great celebration planned by my wonderful wife (I blogged about it on last Sunday). She ordered up Portillo's a Chicago restaurant we go to when we visit her family and invited my whole immediate family over and topped it off with a homemade ice cream cake, yeah I logged every morsal of it. Actually if I think about it, I logged everything I ate this week. I went a little off the cuff with my choices this week, eating the occassional sweet and not regular carbohydrate choice. I got a lot of nice gifts for my birthday, gift cards, cash, Iphone accessories (including the awesome Otter Box) which if you own an Iphone you have to get this case for it, it's practically indestructible. Monday was a normal day, work and then workout with my trainer Jeff. He alerted me to our monthly weigh in which would be on Saturday. I celebrated my birthday again that night by eating another piece of birthday cake. I still came in under calories though.

On Tuesday, my boss was in town and we were traveling up to New Hampshire and then Maine. I knew time would be tight for a workout, so I ran a 5k in the morning. I actually beat my time from Saturday on St. Pats Day (28:52), my now all time best is 27:20. I met up with my boss around 11 am on Tuesday since he was travelling up from Central Jersey and around noon we had lunch at Subway. Usually I bring my own food and we stop, he gets a sandwich and I have what I brought. BIG MISTAKE eating at Subway, cause in our travelling around my territory by the end of the day my eyes starting getting heavy and by the time we hit our hotel in Portland, ME. I wasn't feeling too good. This may be a little tmi, so proceed to the next paragraph if you want. I was shitting like crazy between 5 pm and 6 pm, I must've gone at least 5 or 6 times. At this point I think I got food poisoning. I proceeded to suck it up and go to dinner with my boss. We went to Outback, I had the smallest steak on the menu, a little soup (maybe will help my stomach), and some broccoli. Yeah the soup didn't help, it made me feel worse. When I got back to my hotel, I wanted to get more protein in, so I ate some greek yogurt. I am a fucking glutten for punishment. I continued to feel miserable and fell asleep around 9 pm while watching the Biggest Loser in bed, who got sent home by the way? I woke up on my back at around 1 am. Still didn't feel too good, but said I will sleep it off and took my normal position in bed (on my stomach, with my head to the side, with one arm wrapped around a pillow) Yeah not good cause within 1 minute in this position there was a race back to the bathroom, but this time there was no shitting it was projectile vomiting. I have good aim though cause from the bathroom door I was able to arch it up over the half wall which is 5 feel away and into the toilet. Wasn't perfect, but it could have been alot worse. Wednesday started with me having a splitting headache and couldn't eat anything of substance, I basically skipped breakfast and instead went to the grocery store cause one of my MFP friends said saltines and gingerale would be the way to go. I told my boss about my awesome night and he said he would drive and let me relax, he actually said the night before he would completely understand if I wasn't up to work on

Wednesday, but my work ethic wouldn't let me take him up on his offer. I ate a sleeve of saltines and had a powerade zero and diet sodium free gingerale. Wasn't feeling 100%, but good enough. I managed an Atkins bar at lunch, and another Atkins bar for a snack at 3 pm. I also took Wednesday as a rest day, shit I haven't had one in about 3 weeks or so. At dinner, I had a roasted half chicken (I only ate the white meat) and some veggies. Drank alot of fluids, as I do everyday. Usually I drink plain water, this time I added 64 oz of Power Ade Zero, some vitamin water zero, the diet ginger ale, and some regular water. Thursday starting to feel around 90 percent. I ate my typical foods today, kept everything down.

My visit with the boss went good. I showed him my new IPhone and he asked if I have that talking feature (SIRI) and I said yeah, he said his son was telling him about looking for hookers on it, not that his son did, but just that you could. So I hit the button and said Where can I find some hookers, I guess in Maine they don't have hookers cause it didn't tell us where we could find it. So I proceeded to ask for strippers and it brought me two locations for strip joints, my boss was laughing pretty hard, so to add a cherry no pun intended to the Sundae, I asked it where I could bury a dead body, and it shot back metal foundries, dumps, cremation services, and funeral services. I took another day off from exercise today, since I had no time cause I had to get my taxes done tonight. This was the first time in about a year that I had two days of exercise off in a week. I felt like a slob. And to add insult to injury we have to pay the Fed about $1500. To celebrate my financial downfall, we went out to dinner at Applebees. Awesome dinner, not really.

Friday came and went work was good, got my reports and emails done and it was so beautiful out I couldn't fathom going to the gym, so I went for a run around the neighborhood and followed it up with a chest and core home workout. I did three different types of pushups, normal ones, one where I do elevated on one side by holding a weighted barbell and moving it to the other side and continuing with the pushups, and then more pushups but with my feet up on one of those large balls. Then my wife and I grabbed sushi out and went shopping at Kohl's with my giftcard. Then went home and watched Walking Dead Season 1 Episode 5, we got some catching up to do. We were celebrating my bithday today, by eating my favorite sushi, shopping for more clethes, and watching my latest favorite tv show.

Saturday started at me waking up at my normal 5 am on a weekend. I hate that I do that. I worked out with my trainer weighed in and even with eating out almost everyday I maintained my weight, which is really my plan going forward. I have no weight to lose, just loose skin. He asked me to run on the treadmill for a warm up, I said fuck that, I wanna run the hill. The hill is this hill that is 3/4 mile up hill at about a 30 to 40 degree incline. He said you wanna run the hill, I said Fuck Yes, I miss the hill, haven't been able to run it much this winter. I did the hill and then we did a full body type of workout many muscle groups, light weight and high reps because I was still pretty depleted from being sick and not working out too much during the week. Then my wife and I proceeded to go shopping with giftcards and a 40% coupon at the Reebok store. Have I told you, I am becoming a sneaker whore. I have bought three pairs of sneakers in the last three weeks. Almost bought a fourth pair. We then went out for an early dinner or late lunch at Chili's and I took my soulmate to see the Hunger Games, she wanted to see it so bad. I asked her if it was about Competitive Hungry Hungry Hippos, she lied to me and said it was. Apparently it was a book, that I haven't read. It was good, very predictable though even for someone that didn't read the book. We had some regular movie theatre popcorn and starburst jelly beans. We finished off our day, with homemade pizza and salad. Pizza made with Lavish bread instead of dough, lower calories and carbs that way. Today was a great day, I had my fantasy baseball draft in the morning followed by a nice workout at the gym, my wife went to babys r us to register with a friend of ours. We had a nice lunch of pork shoulder and boiled veggies with my parents and head out to Patriot place to spend some cash and use more giftcards. I love two things, my wife being number 1, followed by giftcards. Here's a pic of one of my favorite outfits, I bought I am sucking it in a little in this pic, just a little though My newest sneakers, I gotta stock up with 1/2 marathon training coming up Thank you Honey for turning my terrible sickness into one of my favorite birthday weeks yet.  Just being with you the last few days were the trick.

So when I started this lifelong change, I was wearing size 62 dress pants when worn in the proper location at the belly button, but as most heavier guys would do, I would wear them below the belly who wants to buy 62's when you can be a slimmer 50. Yeah I know that sounds funny a slimmer 50, but that's how I felt. Granted being short I would wear the pants below my stomach so the obvious thing I had to do next was shorten them unless I go shopping at store designed for midgets, I mean little people, basically when I got done with the pants they looked like a perfect square as wide as they were long. I don't own alot of belts now, but some of my old belts I can repurpose since they are those ones with that loop the belt around the brackets. I can cut off the excess and have it stitched or just let it be frayed. I have a couple of them. The belt in the picture below came with a pair of shorts I had that were size 50, of course worn below the dreaded belly, beer gut, barrell, call it whatever you want. Yesterday I went shopping for some shorts since it's beginning to get warm up here only a couple months away when I can wear them regularly. I bought a bunch last spring and summer but those are too big to wear now. The new shorts I bought were waist 34 worn at belly not below belly, pic to prove it, with of course my old belt before I will cut it and say begone to the old me. oh yeah, I didn't have to cut the bottoms either and they look as long as they should, no manpri's this year.

As you can see I am still fighting the loose skin battle in the pic, but it goes down little by little with a bunch of core mixed into my workouts   Those aren't manboobs, that's my actual ribcage, which leads me believe I am done losing for the most part.   For losing 190 lbs in 14 months the skin could be worse, I guess.

Thanks for reading

That's what I would have thought going for my annual check up the last time I actually did go for an annual check up.  I can't remember when that was probably before I went to college.  Come to think of it the last time I actually had a doctor was when at the age of 28, living in Tampa, FL, with my now wife, I thought I had a heart attack and rushed to the emergency room on a Sunday afternoon.  Back then I was 340 lbs, hated dr's, but now I needed one.  I had an EKG done, a bunch of blood work, some xrays, etc...  $50 bucks later I walked out of there knowing that I didn't have a heart attack, didn't have diabetes, didn't have high blood pressure, but I learned from the overweight doctor that I had to loose weight to clear up my psyiatic and find a better way to deal with stress.  What it did do was scare the shit out of me.  I knew the feelings my body was having were actually happening and all those commercials about heart attacks and strokes (what to do at first signs etc...) and the dreaded WebMd, caused me to have panic attacks. 

It worked briefly after my trip to the ER, I got a follow up appointment with a local doctor, I finally had a dr in 10 years sort of.  From Sept of that year to January, I started walking a couple miles a day, a few days a week, and I know it sounds funny, but I did my version of the Subway diet.  It worked pretty good, cause between early October and January I shrunk from 340 to 318 and didn't really feel like I was dieting, I drank alcohol regularly, I was still eating some crap, but not the absurd amounts.  I say I sort of had a dr, cause the guy seemed a little quackish he looked at my results and didn't realy give me any input, besides telling me when he was my age he ran alot.  He was a nice enough guy, but I needed more of a kick in the ass. 

When my now wife and I moved back to Massachusetts, I got a little too comfortable and gained not only all the weight I lost, but an additional 40 lbs, it is a lot more difficult to exercise in New England in the winter time and I am sure a lot of it was being happy with life and my relationship and being back near family.  To say I let myself go would have been an understatement.

I haven't had a doctor in New England since probably highschool and the visits to him were minimal, so minimal I don't even remember his name.  Being a morbidly obese man, I wasn't a big fan of dr's when in actuality I should have probably wanted to see him for my health since it was always in questions.

Fast forward to recent time, I had my annual or we will call it decadual checkup and after going over my story with the dr she is very impressed, she was able to pull up my last blood test results and was in shock to see how my numbers have gone down across the board.  Glucose went from 243 to 80, etc...  She's like yeah you're definately not a diabetic anymore.  She is a former collegiate athlete and looks to be in  great shape.  She was like wow, your LDL is even better than mine.  She said that she was always proud of her cholesterol numbers. 

We talked a little about the loose skin, she thinks I should wait and see what I can do in the next year on my own and consult with a plastic surgeon.  She was surprised to learn that I didn't have Gastric Bypass surgery to lose the kind of weight that I lost.  Her jaw dropped when I told her I weighed close to 380 last January.  She had to ask the question twice.  She also told me she had another patient that lost alot of weight with Gastric Bypass and he is fighting with his insurance company to cover the loose skin.  She said I should be very happy with my accomplishments thus far, I am of course, she asked whats driving me to continue to lose and be fit.  I told her basically just setting new goals for myself, loose skin or not I want a 6 pack and I also told her I wanna run a 1/2 marathon.  Which after reading about how to train for it, I should ask my dr.  She said you should have no issues with it from a health standpoint.  YAY. 

She said there is really no need to see you for another year, and to keep up the good work.  She then asked when the last time I had a tetanus shot or some form of tetanus shot.  I really wasn't sure, but she said with a baby on the way it would be good to get so she sent the nurse back in with a shot for me. 

Come to think of it, I don't think it was tetanus, but the medical name sounded like that to me, I said to the nurse I am not planning on stepping on any rusty nails barefoot anytime soon, she just laughed and said something about Lupis or some other old school sounding disease.  She then attempted to administer the shot, we being the wise ass that I am said, "You call that a needle I was hoping for bigger", she laughed and the way she was giving me the shot she was kind of hiding it with her hand.  I strained my neck and head trying to watch, she's like are you trying to watch the needle I said yeah, She's like "it doesn't freak you out", I said, "you obviously don't know who you're dealing with, I love pain, the bigger the needle the bigger the pain, THE BETTER"  She laughed and said I was weird.  You think this is weird, just wait til I get comfortable. 

One thing I learned from now on out, I am never gonna take my health for granted and an annual check up will never become a decadal check up.  I have a lot of family and friends who support me on this never ending quest and I thank you all for it.

So, last weekend, I get a call from my buddy.  He just got back from a Florida vacation with his family.  They went to the west coast for some sun and relazation.  He said Ray, his trainer, wants me to call him. 

A little backstory, I had a free pass to his gym and worked out with my buddy last March.  I did a little treadmill, played some racquetball, and since his wife wasn't feeling good and had to leave her appointment with Ray.  My friend said, "hey why don't you use up the rest of her session", I said sure why not.

I didn't drink enough fluids and wasn't eating enough to exercise as much as I did that day and a trip to the emergency room was in order.  Everything was fine for the first 15 minutes to 20 minutes, and then all of a sudden the shit hit the fan.  I couldn't hear anything, it sounded  like my ears were clogged with water and everything got all bright and blurry.  Since a guy just died on one of their treadmills a couple weeks ago, they called an ambulance. 

I learned alot that day.  I learned my exertion level and I learned to tae it slow.  Ray was a nice guy about, he felt really bad about it.  I take all the blamethough, it was my fuck up not his.  I walked a couple miles on the treadmill and sweat out what felt like 10 lbs of water playing racquetball.  Apparently my friend would always share my results with him and Ray would ask how I am doing, etc...

My buddy's daughter turned 1 in september and I saw Ray again at her birthday party.  He was kind of looking at me, he didn't realize that it was me.  When I first saw him I was around 350 lbs, and in September I was around 225 lbs.  He was surprised I was able to stick to what I was doing and was very congratulatory over what I accomplished.

My wife and I did a weight loss program at a local hospital and we have sort of become spokespeople for it, sort of.  We did a magazine article in The Atlantic, we did a youtube video for the hospital, and more recently we did a news story for the local NBC affiliate a month or so ago.  The weightloss centers enrollment has been up a bunch since the story aired. 

Some of Ray's gyms clients are getting on board with the program that my wife and I did.  Ray wanted to talk to me about the program and see how he could get involved since he has a friend that is overweight and is going to orientation for the program.  He asked me if he could go to the orientation with his friend to learn about cause he wanted to support her and help her, unfortunately for him the orientation is booked solid, so I talked to the people and was able to get him in.  I stopped by his gym on Wednesday to see him, I haven't seen him since September  to pass along the news that I was able to get him in.  They call him down to the front desk and I am just standing there waiting for him.  I start walking to his office and he was like Holy Shit, I was wondering who this guy was that was steering me down.  I am like it's Jay.  He wants me to come back and speak to all his trainers as to my experience with the program as well as nutritional information that I am following now. 

He's like we can't pay you in money, but we will give you a free membership to the gym.  This gym is different than my gym, there's a lap pool, a running track, a couple other things that mine doesn't have.  He introduced me to the GM and he was on board with it.  So I got myself a second gym membership out of it.  I can play racquetball with my buddy, just not this week, he's feeling ill.

I told Ray, I don't need money for something like this, I am here to help.  I was once a morbidly obese people and if I can help other morbidly obese people out, it's my honor, but thanks for the free membership.  I will use it from time to time, the gym is about 15 to 20 mins away, where my gym now is only 3 miles away, so I am not giving up my old gym membership, but it will be nice to change things up a little on the weekends and be able to workout with one of my best friends, I was the best man at his wedding. 

So I was working out with my trainer today and he always asks me questions about how I felt when I was at my heaviest, how I feel now, what my tendencies are now versus then, what keeps driving me now that I am at a healthy weight.  He's a very nice, he's just never been in the position I was in with my weight and health, etc... 

Back in 2007 before my wife and I got married, we decided we wanted to get into better shape because we had a wedding coming up in October.  So while at the gym I inquired about a personal trainer.  We talked with one of the managers about our goals and he matched us up with Haley.  Haley was great to workout with she kept us motivated, she made workouts fun, she was easy to talk to and at the time I was probably around 380+ pounds.  I was worried about the personality of a trainer, I always thought that they thought they were better than everyone in the gym.  I thought they were a little vain and snooty.  That was until we met Haley.   She was the exact opposite of my initial thoughts of what a personal trainer's personality would be.  Who was the judgemental one, not her but me. 

Katie and I did group workouts twice a week for six weeks, but with a wedding we were planning and extra money being hard to come by, we stopped working out with Haley.  Soon after that, we stopped going to the gym.  We did well with her I lost about 30 lbs and my wife around 20 or so.  I can't remember exactly it was 5 years ago.  She actually gave us diet guidelines, well at least to me, since my wife has always been going to weight watchers.  Within a couple months those lbs that I lost were back on. 

Fast forward to 2010, my wife and I want to start a family and realize that at our heavy weights it was hard to not only conceive a baby but to have the energy levels to keep up with a child would not be fair to the child or others that would have to help us out.  We tried for a few months nothing happened and then one day I brought up Gastric Bypass surgery after talking to some guys I work with and Katie began doing research on it.  We found out for us it wasn't worth it.  But in researching it we found a weight loss program at a local hospital and we began in January 2011.

In the strict part of the program through 6 months I lost 120 lbs and my wife lost 100 lbs.  What kept us motivated well I can't speak for her, but for me, was the money we dished out for the program and I wanted to get the most bang for my buck.  We were on extremely low calories, but getting alot of nutrients needed to not ever feel hungry.  We were monitored by drs, nutritionists, psychologists.  I remember the first time I met with the psychologists, I guess the feel you out by asking questions to see how serious you are about losing the weight.  He asked me, "What are you gonna do when you get hungry?"  My response was,"not eat".  He had a follow up question to dig deeper, "so do you think you can do that?"  My response, "Fat people don't get fat by eating when they're fucking hungry, fat people get fat, by eating when they're bored, stressed, tired, Fat people get fat by not knowing when they are hungry and just eating just because"  Then I kept going my whole plan with this program is to learn what triggers my hunger as well as learn tips on how to figure out if I'm hungry".  Doing the strict calorie restriction for me worked cause it helped me realize that food is a fuel, and that I should only eat when I needed fuel.  His response, "well I never had anyone respond to the question that way, but you are totally right about that"  I guess noone ever dropped an F Bomb in their response. 

So in August we were off the program completely and put on just a regular lower calorie diet and since we were only really allowed to do cardio I decided to change things up a bit and get a personal trainer.  I went back to the gym for the first time in 376 days, since up to this point it has been pretty nice outside and I would normally walk, jog, run, do a little wii fit at home.  I didn't feel like doing wii fit and since I never got rid of my gym membership I decided to jog on the treadmill.  The guy behind the desk started clapping after I waved my keycard.  I said wow what a welcome, why the fuck you clapping.  He started laughing and said welcome back, it has been 376 days since you were here last.  I kind of got a chuckle out of it, and then he said is that your keytag.  It looked like someone else, where did you get it.  I said no that's me.  Then I showed him my old license, with a heavy fat Jay pic.  He said holy shit, you lost a lot of weight.  I said yeah about 140 lbs.  Then I asked him if Jeff still worked here, he was part owner and the head trainer at the gym as well as Haley's fiance who I met through working out with Haley.  We never really talked, but I knew Haley left the gym shortly after we stopped working with her for a better oppty.  The guy told me Jeff started up his own personal fitness studio in the next town over about a year ago.  He wasn't sure what it was called.  I googled Jeff and his last name as well as fitness and google pointed me in the right direction.  A went by there and walked in to find Haley training some woman and Jeff training some guy.  They stared at me not recognizing me at first and I was like what you don't remember.  I reintroduced myself and they damn near shit bricks. 

I started working out with Jeff on 9/12/11, starting weight was 235.  We discuss a lot of things.  What my goals are?  Why am I here? what drives me?  what do you plan to do when you hit your goals? what motivates you now and then when I was heavy?  He has become somewhat my psychologists too.  I told him that I want someone that is gonna be tough on me.  Someone that will tell me when to slow down, someone to tell me when I am doing something half ass.  My biggest worry was becoming exercise anorexic.  I needed someone to be completely blunt with me.   

I guess I am writing this cause he says you should write down your thoughts with some type of regularity.  I know I usually only post blogs when I have some type of success story, but things are gonna change a little bit.    I will still write about those, but also my feelings more regularly.  The good feelings and the bad feelings. 

Jeff got me thinking today, He asked me, "What is one thing you'd like to change?"  I went to reach into my back pocket and drop the loose skin line on him, and before I could, he said excluding the loose skin.  I guess the one thing that I can think of is my mind, I still feel like a fat guy even though my body fat% is in normal range.  Once I can fix my mind, I think my body image will follow.  I guess they kind of go hand in hand.  It is getting better though, even with the loose skin I can begin to see a healthy guy in the mirror.  My love handles that use to hang way over that area right below my belly have shrunk where they are inline, my waist to hip ration is around or a little under 1.0, even with the loose skin.  One thing I would still like to change though is the size of my ribcage, I said to Jeff.  He started laughing when I showed him my third boob.  I call my sternum my third boob.  cause it protrudes out, I could be the back up in Total Recall or was that The Running Man.  I lifted up my shirt he grabs my skin around my ribcage and said there ain't any fat on there.  It's just skin and some muscle. 

One thing I am very happy with has been my increase in strength as well as the definition that is starting to form in my upper body and arms as well as seeing the way the skin kind of falls off my abs, it's not really a 6 pack more of a pack of capri suns. 

Later this week, I will have my first real physical in a number of years with a new dr my wife and I are going to.  I never thought I would be excited for seeing a doctor. 

Thanks for reading.