One serious PIGGY!

So yesterday's questions from my FB post were these:

Where did he start?

• Dave's weight loss pursuit started at 425 lbs. He was a 4X Hanes T-shirt...pushing into a 5X with a 48" waist. He only wore t-shirts & shorts from Wal-Mart because the plus size clothes at CasualMaleXL were too expensive.

How serious did he have to be to make progress?

• Dave gave up all the bad foods. He was a frequent pizza eater, hamburger & fry kind of guy. Mounds of ribs, bowls of chili beans w/ a side a of mac salad at bbqs. He loved those super burritos filled w/ beans, rice, meat, sour cream, and cheese. 
• He says, "the pain had to become greater than the pleasure"...and after plantar fascitis developing in his feet, and his blood pressure moving up a bit...he realized that his weight was beginning to affect him physically, beyond just being big. Doctor visits were nearing his list of 'appointments for the week'. 

What simple things did he add to see progress?

• He first began with measuring out his food and keeping track of points as we did our home version of Weight Watchers. 60 lbs. came off in 6 months.
• Cutting fried foods, pizza on the weekends, drinking more water, and not eating whatever he wanted at family bbqs.
• Once he plateaued - working out was the next step. 

What things did he have to sacrifice?

• He sacrificed going along w/ what everyone else was eating.
• For a couple of holiday seasons, while everyone else was having stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie - he was eating his lean meat and veggies.
• Once he started working out, he sacrificed fun in the eve to sleep to get up at 4:30 to go to the gym.

How do you keep yourself motivated for such a long weight loss goal?

• Dave's #1 motivation was for Daniel, our 1 yr. old (at the time he made the commitment) to never know him as an obese dad.
• Then for the journey...and what kickstarted it overall: PRAYER!

The power of a praying wife is an amazing motivational tool in a marriage. When you see your spouse committing a behavior that you disagree with, does not glorify God, and puts his life in jeopardy, you better believe that prayer will work. I believed that it was not God's will for my husband to die young from preventable disease. So I prayed.

My prayer journey started as soon as he put weight on in the first couple months of our marriage. I prayed that he would have the desire to work out again, that he would have self-control. That's why when he said he needed to do that 'carb-depletion' in May '06 - I joined him. Because I realized, as I am praying and Dave is showing desire, I, his help-mate, needed to FULLY SUPPORT HIM!

Because I ended up pregnant in the midst of that, I could not continue on w/ the no carb/protein-fat only diet...and it seemed to go downhill with his eating from there. Fortunately, I did NOT give up. I prayed for 2 years for David to have the desire to lose weight...among a ton of other things, I prayed:

• God give David a love for his family that he refuses to eat himself to death.
• God give David the self-discipline to say 'no' to bad foods.
• God give David the desire to healthy and fit.
• God convict David when he wants to binge eat bad foods.
• God send people into Dave's life to speak to him about his weight (since he's not receiving from me.)

As a response to my prayer, toward the end of '07 after we had Daniel...a friend of David's went to him, with tears in this man's eyes, and said, "what are you doing to yourself?"..."I don't want to see anything bad happen to you (death) because of your weight!"...and then his friend just left, crying. This got Dave's attention because his friend was a man of few words, so when he spoke, Dave listened.



"Big"...is an understatement...as Dave looks at
this pic now...he says, "Dang, I was huge!"

Immediately following this conversation, another good friend of Dave's came to him and asked, "Man, Dave what are you doing? You're getting big buddy..." These were friends speaking truth in love...and were greatly used by God to get Dave's attention.
It was after these friends reached out to Dave that he realized he had to do something...and he began to take ownership of the idea that he HAD to lose weight...or else. Or else, he would die at a young, premature age from preventable disease.

At the beginning of '08, he had a couple of family members who started going to Weight Watcher's meetings, and Dave saw how easy they were losing weight...just by portion control. Since I was persistently & fervently praying...I was eager to join him when he showed the desire to start measuring out his foods.

I'll never forget...it was Easter '08 and I said to Dave, "So I have to know what you weigh to come up with the points you can eat..." His response, "Okay, I will tell you...but you have to promise me you will NEVER tell ANYONE..." I gave him reassurance that my lips were sealed...and then he said:

 "I'm about 425 lbs."

I had never known his weight before...tears welled up in my eyes...and I said, "Dave, this is a 911 emergency that you lose weight babe...we have to do something NOW!". The next day, we BOTH (since I had baby weight to lose) started measuring out our food & counting our points...and the lbs. started to drop for both of us.