Rich Wood 3

Food is Fuel

A Journey Through Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Diabetes and Lifestyle Change

Through the way I was eating and living my life, I got up to 265lbs. One day I was at work and I was bending down to snap on a video screen and I was so out of breath and my belly was so in the way that I told myself “that’s it, I've got to change.” The next day I woke knowing I was going to try to lose weight but not sure how I was going to do it. 

It was a hot summer day and I was driving with the windows down. I drove past a popular ice cream/burger franchise. The smell of the hamburgers being cooked was in the air and for the first time I thought to myself “I don’t want to eat anything that smells like that ever again.” I came up with a diet on my own that consisted of eating  nothing white – no white bread, no dairy, no rice, etc. Later on a found out this was a well known diet, I didn't know it at the time. I kept fried chicken strips in my diet – tell me I wasn't setting myself up for failure. I joined a gym, I started lifting weights, I skipped a lot of meals, overate things that I thought were healthy, and I lost 65lbs. 

I also started training Chinese Kenpo Karate with 8th degree black belt Sid Gee. This had a great and positive effect on my life and my health. Sid has an important role throughout my story. We met when I was 200lbs, and his words of encouragement stuck in my head when I got to my heaviest at 275lbs. He simply said “don’t worry, you’ll get it back.” Even though everyone would say I was doing great, and looked great – I knew there was a chink in my armor. I began to think that if I worked out hard enough I could burn off the bad food I would allow myself to cheat with. I’m at 200lbs. at this point in my life - not doing the best workouts and not eating properly.  (http://www.sidgeekarate.com/)

On Christmas of 2008, I went to a party and ate whatever I wanted. This included lots of candy, which I had completely excluded from my diet. This began a slow descent back into my old ways. My workouts  started falling off, and I would allow myself bad food more and more often. This would continue at a slow pace until the following year. I went on a trip to Memphis in December of 2009. This was the tipping point where I no longer cared about working out, and what I ate. 

At night I was taking two complete meals back to my hotel room – a hamburger with fries, and chicken strips (there they are again…) with fries –then I’d have desert. I was setting a new pace now. I was burying my old heavy self with a new version that cared even less. Now the real problems began. It started with not being able to sleep well. I had health problems that I was not telling anyone about. I made a doctors appointment in March of 2011 because the fingers on my left hand were going numb and because my vision had become so poor – I had to find out what was going on. Little did I know, my whole life was about to change…

Next week: Diabetes, Debbie Portell, and the Powerhouse staff

Rich Wood

Rich Wood 2

Food is Fuel

A Journey Through Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Diabetes and Lifestyle Change

I was not an overweight kid. I played sports, rode my bike…all the normal things that a teenager does. I trace my weight gain and my battle with food back to February of 1990. I was a passenger in a serious car accident. The result of this left me with extreme soreness all over my body. I stayed home in bed for weeks. This was the catapult for me no longer caring about what I ate, when I ate, or how much I ate. I would eat whole bags of chips while I was waiting for a pizza to be delivered. After I ate the pizza, it was time for dessert. I say all this to be as honest as I can because you may see yourself in these traits. I would eat fast food all the time. I would eat fried food all the time. Vegetables and salads were not a part of my life at all. I didn’t exercise, and I carried around a tremendous amount of stress (more on that later). 

All these things led up to feeling terrible, not sleeping well, and not being happy. I was 24 years old and I was going down a dangerous path with my health, and I didn’t care. Food meant so much to me, and it was so visual for me, that if I saw someone eating something, it would set off a craving in me. It didn’t matter if I had just eaten and wasn’t hungry, I wouldn’t be satisfied until I got the food I wanted. It took me years to find out that this is an addiction just like any drug or alcohol – it’s filling up a need for something you’re missing in your life. I want to paint this dark picture for you because I can’t stress enough how bad I felt and looked. I would stop at fast food restaurants and eat in the car on my way home to have dinner. I would pretend like I hadn’t eaten yet. This pattern would continue for many years at an alarming rate.

I’m giving you a glimpse into what I was going through in case you can relate to it, to help you to start making the changes in your life that you need to make. Back then, I wouldn’t have admitted to how I was conducting my life. Through hard work and surrounding myself with knowledgeable, positive people I can look back at those days and share these memories because I’ve found a way to never return to that lifestyle again.

Next week: My first uninformed try at fitness and nutrition – and why it didn’t last.

-Rich Wood

Rich Wood

Food is Fuel                                                                         

A Journey Through Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Diabetes and Lifestyle Change

Think about how your relationship with food started.  Did it start off healthy, or unhealthy from the very beginning?  I was raised by a single mom, aunts and grandparents who ate very unhealthy.  Even as a child, everyday I was asked what I had a “taste” for.  I didn’t come home to a prepared meal, they prepared what I asked for – which was never anything healthy.  When my mother picked me up after work, due to time constraints, the obvious choice for dinner would be fast food.  All my meals were then followed by dessert.  This started a cycle of unhealthy choices at an early age.  I was not an over weight kid, but this love affair with bad food would come back to haunt me later in life. 

My goal in writing this is to prompt you to begin to look at why you’re making unhealthy lifestyle choices.  I want to share with you how I made a permanent change by not being afraid to take that first step…into a gym, and into a meeting with a personal  trainer/nutritionist.  What is keeping you from making a healthy lifestyle change?  Are you afraid that you’re going to be judged by all these incredibly “in shape” people?  Are you concerned about the cost?  Are you worried that you physically won’t be able to do the workouts?  Please stay with me through this blog, and I will explain each week how I got over different hurdles, reached new goals, how my goals have changed and how my trainer/nutritionist Debbie Portell and the Powerhouse Gym staff helped me along the way. 

Next week: How the weight gain began…

-Rich Wood