If you spend much time on my website or Facebook page, you will probably get the idea that my passion is to help overweight men advance their mindset, so that they can lose weight, and live the fulfilled life that they desire. You would be correct regarding my focus, but ultimately my desire and drive is encapsulated in a statement that I wrote a few years ago while going through Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles:
My purpose in life is to awaken others to the dreams and desires that lie within and inspire them to live authentic lives helping to identify and destroy the real and imaginary chains that bind them.
It has been 2 years since our daughter had a life changing day. This post hopefully captures the gravity and hope that can be gained through what others may call a very unfortunate day.
On October 6, 2017, while driving home from work, I received a call from my wife Angie, that during a routine physical, our 15 year old daughter Ashley’s pediatrician, Dr. Elmarie Sabban, spoke these words, ” Go to Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital Emergency Room in Jacksonville now, I have called ahead and there is a team waiting on Ashley to arrive.”
That day Ashley was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes, she was ( and still is!) a beautiful, intelligent, healthy, fit, kind, and did I say beautiful, young lady.
Her pancreas just decided to quit. I’m not going into an explanation of what Type One Diabetes is, please understand it isn’t Type 2. Google it if you don’t understand, but there is no cause and currently no cure for Type One Diabetes. Type 2, while very serious, is not the same.
What I am going to explain is the incredible opportunity that our daughter Ashley was given that day. Most people would think that I am crazy for making a statement like this but stay with me.
In a million, trillion years, I would not wish for Ashley or anyone to be diagnosed with any disease, especially a disease that is so challenging. Every day Ashley and over 1 million others with Type One Diabetes face countless blood glucose ups, blood glucose downs, injections of insulin, and finger pricks to check their blood glucose levels. They face it in the middle of everything else going on in their lives. While most of us that don’t have Type One Diabetes, complain about any and every inconvenience, Ashley and others with T1D just push through facing everything that you and I face plus the challenges of T1D. So when you think that you cannot press through whatever challenges that you are facing, think of each and every person with Type One Diabetes.
While in the hospital that weekend in 2017, the gravity of the changes that lie ahead for Ashley were beginning to sink in to her. 2017 was the same year that I lost 129 pounds publicly posting my scales daily to Facebook and while weight loss and obesity normally do not belong in the same conversation with T1D, it caused me to realize something, within every challenge lies the seed of tremendous opportunity and hope. My obesity was completely self inflicted but Ashley’s Type One Diabetes diagnosis had nothing to do with anything that she did or didn’t do. It came from a crummy pancreas. However both had the seed of opportunity.
Today because of my self inflicted obesity I help men change their mindset to lose weight.
Ashley’s diagnosis has given her the desire and motivation to go to medical school and find a cure for this insidious disease.
While she was sitting up in her bed at Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital 2 years ago, I spoke these words to her,
“Ashley, maybe not today, maybe not next year, but some day in your future you will look back and realize that you have reached a place, a good place, that without this diagnosis, you would have never reached.” I believed that then, I believe it today. She is a spectacular young lady with a magnificent future and will achieve more, not less because of the diagnosis.
Be grateful for life’s obstacles, within them are life’s greatest opportunities.
Overcoming obstacles is likely to never be comfortable.
Comfort is overrated.
Put every aspect of your life on the scale and weigh daily.
Pressing Post as I press forward.
Alan Thomas
I facilitate a mastermind for overweight men that believe that their weight is holding them back from living the future they were destined to live.
It is focused on changing the mindset to shed the weight while creating accountability, and community.
It’s called the From Fat to Fulfillment Mastermind.
If you are interested in applying send an email to