My name is Dennis and I'm currently 500 pounds. A couple months ago I decided I was not only tired of my weight but I would do something about it. So here's a brief history of my story to bring this up to date. About a year ago I bought a tracking device, of which I will not divulge the name, but most anyone who reads this would recognize. I bought this tracker because, at the time, I was 525 pounds and I wanted to see what I could do to help bring that number down. Also, I work for an insurance company, once again I will not share the name, which rewards efforts to manage weight. So, I felt buying this tracking device would assist me in earning rewards and ultimately losing weight. I used the device for the rest of 2016 and stopped at the beginning of the new year because to continue earning rewards I had to see the doctor for basic health numbers to be updated. That brings us to a few months ago when I began using the device again. At the time I was 517 pounds and ready to get serious about losing weight. So, before I get into specific numbers and information, let me explain why I'm doing this blog.
I went back and forth trying to decide whether I should blog my progress in my mission to lose weight. On one hand, there are plenty of haters out there who just look for opportunities to heckle people they don't know from the cowardly shield of a computer screen. On the other hand, how many down to Earth, real life 500+ pound people are online talking about the daily struggle of staying motivated to do the work of losing weight? I haven't checked, but I'm guessing there aren't that many. So my goal here is not only to stay motivated in my pursuit, but also to hopefully encourage others who can identify with my struggle to keep pushing to better themselves through weight loss efforts. I guess I'm imagining that scene in Forrest Gump when he ran across America and gained followers who ran, not because they understood his reasons, but because they felt it had a positive message. I can't promise I'll be on every single day, but I'm going to try at least once a week, otherwise this blog really has no use. So, if you find this blog useful and encouraging, it has done it's job.
So as I said before, using my tracking device and the accompanying app, I am tracking progress in my mission to become three-fifths the man I once was. In the beginning, in July 2017, I started wearing the tracking device without doing any additional exercise to see what I was doing in a day through my normal process. I work at a desk job so additional exercise takes extra effort. I found that in a normal work day, I would take about 1,200 steps. My tracker also tracks stair climbs and I learned I climbed stairs about 3 times a day. My food intake averaged about 3,500 calories so overall I was burning more calories most days than I was consuming. I tried an online exercise through the FitYou app on Roku and I couldn't make it more than 5 minutes so I knew that wasn't my best route to success. I decided to increase my steps to 2,000 a day to start. Through increasing my steps to 2,000 a day, I watched my weight go down to between 507 - 512. Over time, in increments of 250 steps, I've increased my steps to 3,000 through last week and last Sunday I weighed in at 500.4 pounds. I should mention, I weigh in once a week because weight fluctuates and weighing too often can become a de-motivator. So from this point on, I'm going to post more specific information, food intake with calories, steps and stair climbs. I've attached my starting picture taken today at 500.4 pounds.
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