[Success Story] Javier’s story behind the 10.5 stone and counting weight loss* | VLCD

*Results may vary, this is not a guarantee.

 Hello there,

This is the story about a trip… A voyage from who I was to who I wanted
to be.

I’ve never been one to “take care” of myself, oh, I tried diets and such
every now and then, because, who likes to be fat and ugly, right? But I
smoked, and in general found it hard to make the effort to go to the gym as
I did not feel good about my own body, and doesn’t it seem to you that
everyone in the gym always looks way better than you anyway? Why do they
even go? but I digress… For many years I had my wife, doctors, friends,
family all nagging me, pushing, begging trying anything for me to lose
weight or care about myself. Of course they didn’t get it.. I “cared” I
just could do NOTHING about it; I had tried all the diets, I’d lose some
weight then regain it in a couple of days, I had starved myself I tried
going to the gym I was really so fed up of trying and failing… You fail
enough times you feel like a failure yourself!

Back when I was 18 I weighed 96Kgs, just borderline for my military
service, since then I went down the bad road till august 2013, when I hit
my peak of 172Kgs. Of course I had en excuse; I did quit smoking back in
August 2012 and any time I’d stuff myself with food I was telling myself
“hey, at least is not a smoke! You’re doing awesome!” The things we do
tell ourselves, right?

It was around this time my boss told me in no uncertain terms that I had to
get on a diet or he’d kick my butt himself. He pointed me in the direction
of the New You web site. In all honesty, I felt it was another stupid way
to throw my money down the drain, all us long time “fatties” know that no
real miracle diets exist. And those that do work involve great deals of
suffering and sacrifice no sane person would want to endure! But having
promised my boss (the guy on whom my livelihood depended at the time, and
still does!) I had to at least order and try for a month, just so I could
get it out of the way and done with.

Now, by reading the last paragraph you’re probably thinking “well, that is
not a very positive mindset to start a diet!” and I guess you’d be right 🙂
But while I did believe I was wasting my time I also wanted to set myself
up to win. And that involved a bit of introspection; I had just quit
smoking and that helped me establish a parallel… I had to assume I was an
addict.

Back when I quit smoking I tried to measure my days and weeks to measure my
success, I tried, you know, giving myself rewards (like a good doggie) for
staying on track… I found I spent more time thinking about cigarettes and
smoking during those times than when I was doing other things and
completely ignoring the fact that I was in the process of quitting. Back at
that time I used my wife and several friends as my “sponsors” (like the AA
type) who’d help me when I was feeling down or in danger of relapsing, but
I had abused them for almost a year and for a diet like this I wanted
something else, someone else. So I recruited my doctor to be my “partner”
obviously, she was delighted, no doctor likes to see their patients slowly
killing themselves!

One of my biggest issues with previous diets had been the fact I’d stop
losing weight 2 weeks in… Now, intellectually I know that the human body
has a mind of its own, and that great weight losses trigger internal self
preservation mechanisms that the body uses to hold on to what it has, hence
weight loss always happens in big jumps followed by periods of no loss at
all.. But when you’re the one dieting that counts for so much rubbish. We
decided that she would be measuring my weight loss without me knowing, she
also made sure I had my blood tested every month, and monitored my health
all through the process. She would be the one to tell me when I had to
stop, and I agreed to follow all her indications. (The amount of vitamin
supplements I took the first two months, you wouldn’t believe it! >_<) I
have to say if it hadn’t been for my doctor’s help and support I probably
would not have managed anything at all. But the day to day small
improvements; walking down the bus aisle and not touching both sides with
my tummy, being able to pick up things from the floor without 3G maneuvers,
etc. Those I could see and they were the ones giving me strength

I realize I’ve written about 700 words and I still haven’t said anything
about the dieting itself… I’m not going to lie to you at times it was
hard, I would find myself in the kitchen all of a sudden looking for
something I suddenly could not remember what it was… I called those
episodes “food hunting”, I still do it sometimes, Just walk into the
kitchen and open the fridge to see the sights, because it is just so very
interesting… (/irony) I also had to recognize my own lies, oh my, the
lies you can tell yourself! Lemme see if I can remember some: “This is
healthy food, I’m sure I can combine it” (suure I’ve seen the 800kcal
“salad” soo many times, pfft), “I’ve been dieting for x weeks now, surely I
deserve a treat!” (yeah, what are you a dog?), “omg, I’m so hungry I am
going to DIE, surely nothing is worth this” (how about yourself? are you
worth it?) <- For this last one I actually had to dump every last scrap of
food in the house to make sure I did not fall, hey I’m no superman!

Fast-forward 5 and a half months; January 2014. My doctor said that she
was a bit worried about the latest results I had on a test, and she wanted
me to get off the diet (in case you’re wondering it was unrelated to the
products it was a false alarm, I took the wrong vitamins for almost a month
:/). We compromised on doing 1 “normal” meal a day 5 days a week, my did I
feel guilty every time I ate anything! For five months I had convinced
myself I did not want any food, now that I could eat it I really did NOT
want it! The feeling soon fled though, and I could see how easily I could
fall back into my old eating habits, I am after all an addict! What i did
*not* realise at the time though was how much I had changed… I was then
at 105Kgs, looking good and feeling better. so I took up Kung Fu classes
twice a week.

Now I also ride my bike for 1 hour every day I don’t go to class after
work, I’m up to 10km and next week I plan on raising that to 15, every
night independent of what activity I did I’m exercising my abs and doing
press-ups. I’m still losing weight and working on breakfast and a normal
meal, but take either a NY soup or a NY shake for dinner, I’m well on my
way to my target of 90 and I ain’t looking back 😉

After re-reading this, I realized I had done some people a crass injustice
by not mentioning them here, as I said I did rely mostly on my doctor, but
there was times when I found reassurance and kind words from many others
and they helped me on my voyage. Obviously my family and some colleagues at
work, my boss too! And last but not least the staff at NY, whether through
facebook, email or even on the phone they always had time for me, even
though I bet they had better things to do!

If you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking of signing up for the NY
plan, or you’re in it at the moment and have had a hard day. All I can say
is I did it, and my self esteem was crap when I started, I had absolutely
nothing going for me and no hope either, even so I did it, and so can you,
just don’t think you need to do this alone! Find someone to be your.. call
it accomplice, sponsor, friend, anything you want, just don’t do it alone 😉

Best regards,

Javier

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