06/11/17
Day 89 Extreme Accountability Challenge
Starting weight 304 pounds
Destination weight 175 pounds
Total weight loss to date 56.8 pounds
72.2 pounds to go

Each day as I get on my scales for another entry in the Extreme Accountability Challenge Post on Facebook, I try to share what’s going through my mind, my determination, my doubts, my joy, and my frustrations.

Since I’m already putting a picture of my daily scales reading, I might as well share my heart. I do this so that someone, anyone, that has felt as hopeless as I have regarding controlling their eating and getting healthy might be encouraged. Being obese has felt like the biggest failure of my life. For so many years I’ve tried and failed at getting this stinking fat off, until now.
I’m the worst of the worst whenever it comes to sticking to a diet, until now. Frame this any way that you want, diet, eating program, lifestyle, blah blah blah. Reality and results are what really matters, I know that I have a lot of weight to lose still but it will come off forever. This accountability works.

If you have been watching all of us posting our scales daily, never liking, never commenting, it’s okay. I know that you are afraid to be noticed paying attention to this journey, but you are the one that I write to today. Just you. You may be 50 pounds, 100 pounds, 200 pounds overweight, maybe more, maybe 129 pounds overweight like me. It doesn’t matter, it really really doesn’t matter.

This whole journey may have been just to get your attention, all of us participating in the Extreme Accountability Challenge unknowingly, perfectly positioned, to get your attention before it’s too late. Maybe our weight gain was allowed to continue, just to get your attention as we lose the weight.

Your story may be like the story of the man that God told in a dream that his town was to be flooded but not to worry, he would save him, God would save him.

The story goes like this.

The rain came and the streets were filling with water, a policeman knocked on the door and said come with me to safety the waters are rising. The man said no, God told me he would save me.

The waters continued to rise.

The man moved to his second floor waiting on God. A rescue boat came by his second floor window and they said, come with us to safety the waters are rising. The man said no, God told me he would save me.

The waters continued to rise.

The man had to climb to the peak of his roof to wait for God. A helicopter came and from a loud speaker they yelled, come with us to safety the waters are rising before the house is swept away. The man said no God told me he would save me.

The waters continued to rise and the man was killed in the flood.

Upon arriving in heaven, the man saw God and asked, why did you not save me, God looked at the man and said, I sent a policeman, a boat, and even a helicopter for you but you refused.

The waters are rising, come with us to safety.

Press forward.

175 pounds here I come!!!

06/10/17
Day 88 Extreme Accountability Challenge
Starting weight 304 pounds
Destination weight 175 pounds
Total weight loss to date 57.2 pounds
71.8 pounds to go

For most of you that are following this Extreme Accountability Challenge, the thought of having to lose 30, 40, 50, 100, or in my case 129 pounds probably makes you want to gasp. It certainly made me gasp.
Most people that need to lose weight probably just need to lose 10 or 20 pounds. The amount of weight that some of the participants have lost is nothing short of amazing.
Almost everyday, I read in my posts and others, ” slow and steady wins the race” I’m not so sure that’s true. What?? The tortoise always beats the hare or does he?

If you remember the hare got overconfident, “cocky”, he clearly wasn’t performing at his best. He lost sight of his goal. I believe that the hare can win the race.

Many of the participants of the Extreme Accountability Challenge, while it may not seem like it, are moving at blazing speed through the fat that they have accumulated over a lifetime. When watching the scales daily it just seems slow, it’s not. Think about it, like I told Summers Duffie a few weeks back, if he gained weight at the rate that he is losing weight, the ambulance would be showing up, sirens blaring, sending him to the hospital. When there, the best doctors would be called in to figure out how he could be gaining half a pound per day. By the end of a year, if we were talking about weight gain, it would be an unbelievable 182.5 pounds gained!! Completely unacceptable. But because it’s going in the other direction, weight loss, it’s slow and steady. Hogwash!

Many of us are moving at blazing speed, not overconfident, not “cocky”, doing our best every single day, staying completely focused on our destination. No tortoises to be found. Just humble hares blazing to victory.

Press forward.

175 pounds here I come!!!

06/09/17
Day 87 Extreme Accountability Challenge
Starting weight 304 pounds
Destination weight 175 pounds
Total weight loss to date 56.8 pounds
72.2 pounds to go

This dieter’s lottery mentality (finding some magical diet that you eat as much and whatever you want and lose 10 pounds a day) that I have written about in several of my previous posts continues to stay on my mind. Also, losing weight just to get thin is probably not going to bring about lasting change. I know at first glance that sounds a little off, but indulge me.

If the only reason I’m losing this weight is to get thin, it’s probably just me living up to other people’s expectations regarding me. It’s the paralyzed man at the well, when Jesus asked do you want to be well. John 5:2, Jesus didn’t ask, do your friends, family, and all of the other paralyzed people waiting for a miracle here with you, want you to get well. He asked the paralyzed man if “he” wanted to be well.

This applies to so many areas of our lives, but, I believe Jesus was asking that man what his desire was. Crazy question. I don’t think so. Dig deeper.

When I look inside myself, why do I want this change, when I get what I am working so hard for, lasting weight loss, what’s going to keep me there, why, why why?

Am I buying a lottery ticket just for the money, or do I want real change? I suspect that the reason so many lottery winners end up broke and disheartened a few years after winning a lottery is that nothing held them there, the money just represented a place where they thought happiness existed. When there, the happiness was nowhere to be found.

For everyone that asks me, so what’s the secret to losing the weight. Well it’s a bunch of things. It’s having an eating plan that I know with almost certainty will result in weight loss, if I stick to my program. It’s the accountability of the Extreme Accountability Challenge that’s huge. The accountability is huge. But it’s the why, I know “the why” has become almost cliche, but it is the truth.

So really the question is, what makes me stick to my program?

It’s looking at my wife Angie and knowing how blessed I am to be called her husband, knowing that I married so far above me not just in looks, yes she is drop dead gorgeous, it’s all of the sacrifices she makes for me, every day, giving no thought for herself. It’s me thinking wow, the last 36 years with her went really fast and I’m 55 years old, I was 304 pounds, if I don’t do something about this weight, I may be ending this life prematurely.

It’s my children and knowing their potential, and wanting to see the coming achievements, the future grandchildren, the years of joy that are ahead.

It’s looking in the mirror and knowing that I have so much more potential that I haven’t yet realized, and knowing that I have so much to do and be.

Then there is you, whoever is reading this, what if you have so much more potential, and you do, and something that I say or more likely watching what I do, like sticking to my weight loss program, causes you to change, you look inside yourself and know that you have countless blessings yet to come, and you decide for yourself and “your” reasons that sticking to a program and getting to your destination weight is worth the price.

Well that gives me reason to stick to my program also. If it’s you, find the reasons, find a plan, stick to it every day, every hour, every minute, and every second and…..

Press forward.

175 pounds here I come!!!

06/08/17
Day 86 Extreme Accountability Challenge
Starting weight 304 pounds
Destination weight 175 pounds
Total weight loss to date 56.8 pounds
72.2 pounds to go

As I move towards the halfway point of this public weight loss journey, the thought of this being like a Marathon comes to mind. So far I have the distinction of having the most weight to lose, 129 pounds. When I sent out my first post to all of my Facebook friends, it was 2 things, one my declaration to the world that I would get this weight off no matter what, second, that I didn’t want to do this alone.

I asked if anyone wanted to join me and a few days later Summers Duffie came along then Mike Wrabel then my amazingly brave wife Angie Thomas, crazy girl! Then several others.

The results have been amazing, the Extreme Accountability Challenge works. For me and a few others this is a Marathon. Marathon runners fatigue, but this Marathon I will not give up. Boys and girls this is tough, but I can see the halfway point. For me halfway is 64.5 pounds, less than 10 pounds away.

I found this quote from an article about marathon runners.

How to Beat Marathon Fatigue
by Jason Karp for active.com

“Hitting the wall is a fear shared by all distance runners on race day. Fatigue is not something specific to slow or average runners. Even world record holders fatigue.”

Do not give up!

Press forward.

175 pounds here I come!!!