There is hope
Hello All, first off sorry for the long post. I've been a lurker on this board for a while but now I am going to share my story with the hope that it will help others. I imagine like a lot of you I've always been a big guy. I'm 42 years old 6' tall and at this time last year weighed 292 pounds. I graduated high school weighing north of 200 pounds and wearing 38" jeans, and have never been athletic, I played football for one year when I was about 12 and had to weigh in before every game to make sure I'd be allowed to play, I was always at the max weight allowed for the league. I never broke the 10 minute barrier running the mile at school, you get the drift, I've always had a weight problem. Last October some buddies and I were on a trip together and we decided to have a 12 month weight loss challenge. I started to watch what I eat, mainly watching calories, making wiser decisions in general on food, and I got myself a gym membership. I started on a variety of cardio machines that were terribly boring but pretty effective, I lost better than 40 pounds by February, but I hated the gym, and at that point I was far ahead of all of the guys in my weight loss challenge and I was losing incentive. So I came up with a new plan, I chose to incentivize myself with something that I love with hopes of making this more permanent. I love to travel, and my favorite place to go is to Greece, specifically the Island of Crete, where my family is from. Well I've been there a number of times and the wife is less excited about going back so I challenged myself (with her blessing) to compete in a Triathlon in 2019 on the Island. So in February I bought a road bike after never owning anything of the sort before and I hit the roads in preparation for a future triathlon, along with swimming and an occasional run. Thats when I joined this forum and started reading your stories. Fast forward to now and I've learned that I still don't much care for the gym, I hate running, and tolerate swimming, but I love bike riding. I recently hit my 100 pound loss and just completed my first Sprint Triathlon, (I had to take myself out of the Clyde class for the Tri) as I lost weight faster than anticipated during training. I am truly looking forward to next years bigger challenge in Greece and am confident I can keep this going for months more and hopefully much longer. A year ago if you told me I'd be at the weight I was as a Sophomore in High school and just completed a Tri I'd told you that you were mistaken, but it can be done, I'm living proof, there's hope for you as well. I'll post up some pictures once I hit my 10 post requirement.
Paul