My name is Dustin and I am excited to be part of this challenge. As a young kid I was weight proportionate for my size. One summer before 5th grade that all changed. In those three months I probably put on 20-30 pounds and to make things worse I was short in stature. So this is how I entered middle school and high school. Because I was always teased about my height, being teased about my weight didn’t bother me and didn’t really seem to hinder me too much. I still played sports, had plenty of friends, and was never one to judge people so it helped weed out girls that were judging me based off my overall shape.
Then college came around and it was a different ballgame, options and competition became fiercer in life and the dating game. This brings me to my first successful weight loss. I decided I was tired of being heavy and seeing girls I knew were good at heart fall for obvious jerks just because of how they looked. I went on a low calorie diet and 60 minutes of cardio a day and over 6 months probably lost about 40-50 pounds. During this whole process I started seeing someone and as our relationship moved along and we became more comfortable, the weight started adding itself back which leads me to the second time I was heavy.
For ten years my weight slowly grew until I was much heavier than I ever was before. How could this happen when I worked so hard to lose it in the first place. Looking back now at it is easy to explain, I lost it for the wrong reasons. I lost it to be purely vain and hence selfish and once I accomplished what I wanted and set out to do, the desire was lost and thus the drive and purpose was no longer there to continue. I was also able to now make excuses that I felt were worthy of the reason I let myself go. I just got married, we just bought a house, I’m concentrating on my career, I became a father, I had a second child, etc.
Then I experienced your typical oh crap moment, I ended up in the hospital. Now it wasn’t anything serious but enough to scare me. I have asthma and have always gotten this bronchial seasonal cough because of it. One year right before Christmas it was so bad I broke two ribs and tore the outside mucus lining on my lungs. While I was laying in the hospital all I could think of was how selfish I was being and two things kept running through my mind. I’m a father and now my kids are worried, how long if I continue down my current path will I be around for them and in what capacity? That was it I needed to do something, not for me but for them.
I started, a second time to diet and exercise. Again I started with a low calorie diet but now I was so out of shape I started exercising lightly and tried to make it fun. For a couple of months I exercise using only Wii Fit. When I noticed that this was becoming too easy and the results were plateauing so I started using the treadmill, first steady cardio only (mainly walking) and as I built up endurance interval training (walking, jogging, sprinting). For about 6 months my goal was simply weight loss and to build up the strength of my lungs, so all I did was cardio. I went from about 235 pounds to 145 pounds (from wearing pants with a snug 38 inch waist line to a comfortable 28 inch).
I was so bent on losing weight I didn't realize how quickly I lost the weight and how sickly I was beginning to look. One of my co-workers who was into fitness asked me if I was doing any strength training, when I responded no he offered me his P90X videos and I dove right in, they were awesome and they sucked. I thought I was in good shape before I started these videos and was quickly proven wrong. I couldn’t do a single pull up (if you’ve ever done the videos you know how many pull ups you do in a session). But I stuck with it and completed the program and felt stronger, healthier, and while it wasn’t important to me this time around I looked better. It taught me that you really need a balance of everything to be in shape: cardio training, strength training, and a healthy diet (not as in any type of fad diet but a balanced healthy diet).
Since then I have constantly been trying to better myself from a health aspect. I have along the way learned that everything works and fails to some degree. I like to tinker to see how things react and adapt, I think most people do. There is so much in this world we can’t control, if you are employed, married, or a parent you get it. Our body is something you can take some what control of. I am constantly experimenting (disclaimer – no drugs) to see what I can accomplish, how hard I can push, how my body and mind will respond. I try to change my workouts every 4-8 weeks and I’ll change/modify my diet as well. There is no perfect workout or diet and everyone will respond differently. The key is to find something you can enjoy (I enjoy lifting) and to find foods/dishes you enjoy that are healthy but also to push yourself. I hate running any distance more than 5K so I thought what better way to challenge myself mentally and physically than to run a marathon. So last October I ran the Chicago Marathon, while I hated everything with the training, the race itself was the most incredible thing I have ever done.
My advice is to commit to changing your life and to do it for the right reasons. You can’t succeed if you don’t commit but be able to be flexible. Most individuals do not have the ability to give 100% all the time in all aspects of their life, understand you will make mistakes, you will at some point eat something you will regret later, you will miss a workout, it happens. The important thing is that you move pass it, you shouldn’t be striving for perfection just to be better and put yourself in a position to succeed. Find healthy foods you enjoy, if you need to have ice cream once a week than do so, etc. I work out in the morning because I know it is the only way to guarantee I do it, there are too many distractions that can arise throughout the day. I eat primarily the same meals throughout the day, this is to keep it simple which means I am more likely to eat healthy. You need to experiment to find what works for you but you need to give it time, nothing happens immediately.
I have chosen to do this challenge for two reasons. First I want to help support my fellow Juggernauts, it is a great group of people who truly try to help each other, hence I don't see this as a competition but as a support opportunity. Second there are things I would like to focus on. My goals for this challenge are two increase my flexibility (I will be working towards a split), balance (I will be working towards a chair handstand from a seated position), I also want to do a Physique Competition in October and will be working toward adding size.
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