12 weeks of Perseverance and life changing results

Posted by bodybuilder

Posted: August 15, 2008 - 3:49 pm

Don came to me after he decided he was going to enter the EAS Body For Life Competition which lasts 12 weeks. When we started training together May 21st, he was 265 lbs. and 28% body fat. 12 weeks later, he weighed in at 219 lbs. and 11.5% body fat. Don has been through some ups and down throughout his life regarding his weight and finally decided he was going to commit to losing weight the healthy- but challenging way...training with me!

Don at the start of his 12 week transformation....265 lbs.

"Before" Back Pose

3 weeks along...249lbs.

He has had an amazing journey these past 3 months and as you can attest from his pictures, he's made dramatic changes in his physique. Don never missed a training session and put 100% effort into everything I had him do without complaint. He was disciplined with his diet and performed a diverse amount of cardio on his own time.

The 6 week mark, halfway done!

9 Weeks...3 left to go

Don after 12 weeks of hard work

12 weeks later...219 lbs. 11.5% Body Fat

Here is Don's story (in his own words) and why he decided it was time to start his life over and lose weight with a healthy diet and an intense exercise program:

I awoke on Saturday morning feeling a bit like Frankenstein. The new 7 inch diagonal row of staples running across my abdomen was far too strange to allow me to pretend it did not exist. I got up to go to the bathroom and spent several minutes staring at the new freakish design on my mid section before a series of sharp pains reminded me that it was time to take another Percocet.

With the pain medicine swallowed I noticed an odd swelling at the base of my incision. It looked almost like a golf ball had been inserted overnight and was causing me some additional pain. I woke my wife and asked her if she also thought it was strange looking. The expression on her face was all I needed to confirm the needed phone call to my bariatric surgeon.

Within three minutes I had an appointment set to come in that afternoon to have it examined. I layed back down on the bed hoping that it was something minor that would not force me to tolerate any more time in a hospital. What I felt next is tough to put into words. I felt a tearing, burning sensation in my “golf ball area” followed by an immediate hot wet feeling. As my head looked downward I saw a roughly 5 inch stream of blood shooting into the air. Before I could let out a sound it was soaking me, the blankets, pillows and mattress. Needless to say that when my wife saw the stream of blood shooting in her direction there was some screaming that went on. They say that time slows down in these moments but I cannot remember who called 911.

I do remember reaching out for a roll of paper towels and trying to keep pressure on it to prevent any more blood loss. In less than 5 minutes we could hear the sirens. I had already used up most of the roll of paper towels by the time the paramedics arrived. The shooting blood had slowed to a steady flow so I pulled on some sweats and threw a jacket over my shoulders. December in Alaska is no time to be outside without some covering.

Almost before the ambulance doors were closed they gave me the maximum amount of Morphine allowed. While it helped I was still pretty uncomfortable. The ride across town to the hospital was fairly quick and my arrival at the ER was followed up with several Doctors on call at the time who all told me that I had to wait for the surgeon to arrive. The nurses would regularly change my dressings and my wife showed up with her mother about 30 minutes later. When the Bariatric surgeon finally showed up it was not the man I had grown to know over the past two years. It was not the man who had coached and guided me and hospitalized me twice before for complications from my Swedish Adjustable Gastric Band implant. (SAGB)

The younger looking Doctor was apparently in the operating room with me a week prior and was an associate to Dr Todd. He arrived wearing a nice white shirt, tie and slacks. He put on some latex gloves and started examining the torn, bloody tear in my stomach. My wife, Mother in law and I watched in horror as he simply stuck his finger into my abdomen. I screamed in pain and rolled away. He told me to try to hold still as it was making his exam difficult. I told him it was very painful but he said they could not give me anymore pain medicine. I got a bit of revenge, however, when he next stuck his fingers inside the tear and I squirted a stream of blood directly across his nice white shirt from his collar to waist before I again rolled away. He looked a bit angry but inside I was smiling. How dare he show up late, stick a pair of gloves on and start probing around my innards without even so much as putting on a pair of scrubs.

Whatever it was that he was doing prior to seeing me was obviously more important and he was hoping to get back to it quickly with a couple of stitches. He told the nurses to prep the operating room ASAP as I had ruptured blood vessel that he needed to repair. Damn it! Back in the operating room again! Was this nearly three year saga ever going to end? I was only two days ago on Thanks Giving day 2006 that I was able to check out of the hospital to continue my recovery at home. Now here I was, headed back to the operating room for even MORE complications.

My story is probably not too dissimilar from many others in my youth. As a child, good behavior was often “rewarded” with MacDonald’s and Pizza Hut or ice cream. I held the opinion through most of my early life that Reese’s peanut butter cups and Cold Stone Creamery were perhaps the greatest creations since the wheel. I can remember having a conversation with my Dad at around the second grade when I asked, “Hey dad, why do I have extra skin on my belly?” to which he quickly informed me in a nearly scolding tone that it was “not extra skin” but rather, “it was fat”. I was always the “big kid” or the “fat kid” in school.

I remember getting a pass to go to the bathroom in the 1st grade. I walked down the hall when a passing 6th grader laid the foundation for years of embarrassment, bad posture, and a deep seeded fear of removing my shirt in front of anyone. The “Nice Boobs” comment in 1st grade may have been the first time I heard those particularly stinging words but it certainly was not the last time some variation of them had been echoed over the years.

My first successful big weight loss was in high school. I hated the way I looked and was at the age where I wanted more attention from the girls. I joined a nationally recognized weight loss program that required me to follow their diet plan and check in and weigh myself weekly. I would ride my scooter across town every week to track my weight loss. I was doing great and they decided to put up my pictures on the “Achiever Board” for all to see.

I managed to loose around 65 pounds but was hungry all of the time. The low fat low calorie diet was not ultimately sustainable for me. I remember how many carrots I had to eat. (To this day I hate carrots) My high school friends threw me a big party celebrating my achievement. My artistic best friend even drew a picture of me before and after the “Donnie Diet” as he called it but I found it difficult to maintain the weight when I finished the program. Throughout the rest of high school my weight fluctuated plus or minus 25 pounds. I was an active band kid and very passionate about the drums. College was not an option on my plate at the time so I began practicing hard to pass an audition for the Army Band. I passed my audition in my junior year of high school and right after graduation I was slated to go to basic training.

My recruiter told me what the minimum requirements were just to get in to basic training. With little guidance on how to run, do push-ups or sit-ups or even eat a good meal I I joined the Army after high school. I remember I could barely do the 13 acceptable push-ups needed just to be able to go to basic training. To graduate basic training 8 weeks later, I again just barely got out with the minimum scores but at least was on my way. I joined the Army in 1991 for a 4 year enlistment. I thought that with their strict height and weight standards it would make it easier to maintain my weight. Let’s just say that the band does not exactly contain the Army’s pinnacle of fitness experts and although I tried I was discharged under honorable conditions for being overweight in 1995 under AR (Army Regulation) 600-9.

Even with military’s mandatory physical training, my bad diet choices and minimal effort on exercise caused me to fail too many weigh-ins. The Army was good to me while I was in and I got to see some of the world. My first duty assignment was in Berlin, Germany where I married my first wife. It was a terrific station and I used to joke with people that I “defended my country by playing rock and jazz music every weekend in beer tents”. Once discharged, my weight exploded. Without the Army forcing me to exercise, I was free to enjoy everything that I thought I was restricted from. I have pictures of me blissfully eating pizza and Reese’s peanut butter cups like there was no tomorrow.

Tomorrow, however, did arrive. By 1998 I had reached a staggering 370 pounds! I was morbidly obese at the early age of 27 when other people my age were in prime health. I had chronic low back pain, acid reflux and sleep apnea and could barely get up a flight of stairs. My sleeping disorder got bad enough that I went to see a sleep specialist. I literally spent the night in a lab. Clinicians glued electric probes all over my head and monitored my oxygen level and brain activity while I slept. At around 2:00am or 3:00am one of the night watch nurses woke me up and placed a C-PAP machine over my face and nose.

They then monitored the oxygen for me for the remainder of the night. A C-PAP machine, for those of you who do not know, is basically just a machine that blows air up your nose while you sleep. It keeps the flapper at the back of your throat from closing when you lay on your back which aids your breathing. It also helps with acid reflux because when the flapper prevents air flow in your sleep the constant sucking for air action will draw up stomach acid. I cannot even tell you how many times I woke up with that awful acid taste burning my throat, my mouth and my nose. I would shoot up out of bed and cough for no less than 30 minutes. When the doctor at the sleep clinic tried to sell me the expensive C-PAP machine to assist my breathing and sleeping at night, he offered me only one alternative. He said I could loose 100 pounds! With a conviction unlike anything I had undertaken before, I started to exercise and simultaneously starve myself.

At first it was slow. 15 or 20 minutes seemed like I had just climbed a mountain. It was grueling at times and the results seemed even slower. I did primarily cardio based training on an elliptical type, or treadmill machine. I had no help or guidance with the diet and simply willed myself through the single biggest weight loss of my life. I had, at that time, no knowledge of the benefits of muscle or how to build it. I knew next to nothing about proper nutrition, protein or complex carbohydrates and basically ate next to nothing. I lost weight. A lot of it! I got all the way down to 220 pounds. I went from jeans with an almost 50 inch waist to a 34 inch waist.

During this weight loss period I was also going through a divorce from my first wife so my motivation to attract the ladies was quite high at this stage. I was fortunate to meet the love of my life who I am still happily with to this day. By the end of that high cardio, low calorie program I was exhausted all of the time. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a huge portion of the weight that I lost had been lean muscle. Largely due to the fact that I had been eating next to nothing for months. All I did was run a lot! And running all of the time with little lean muscle and almost no calories was quietly leading me to another failure. Having no long term plan to maintain my weight and feeling exhausted from an unsustainable work out regime, I eventually started back with my unhealthy eating habits again.

I had met my new love and was starting to relax. I ate more and worked out less. Within months I was living my nightmare all over again, the fat was coming back! 240 pounds, 250 pounds, 260 pounds. The weight came back even faster when my little brother, Aaron, was killed suddenly in October of 2002. Comfort food only sped up the weight gain. At about this stage I told my wife that I could not handle the yo-yo dieting anymore and began researching permanent weight loss solutions with surgery.

The two big options at that time were gastric bypass surgery and the gastric band. (I do not believe that there are any more commercially viable options even today). Both were risky and had different sets of potential problems but the Swedish Adjustable Gastric Band or (SAGB) was reversible and did not involve the cutting away of the stomach or intestine. I, like most frustrated obese people, was minimally concerned with the risks. All I wanted was to loose the weight and keep it off for good. The SAGB offered an additional benefit of being “adjustable” it touted the ability to have saline solution either injected or withdrawn through a port by needle. This would either contract or expand the size of the band allowing for a “no cut” adjustment if needed.

My wife and I were not rich. Far from it and the surgery prices were hovering in the $20,000 - $25,000 range! We continued our research and discovered a hospital in Mexico that offered the same surgery for $10,000. That was nearly within the limits of our credit cards and we dug even deeper. The Mexican surgeons, as it turned out, had all been trained in the US and this particular hospital had a US based liaison in McAllen Texas. (coincidentally the fattest city in America at the time) We would simply fly down to Texas, meet our contacts and they would handle it all. They translated, got us across the border, checked us into the hospital and allowed us the recovery time back in Texas after the surgery before our flight home. We contacted some people who had gone through this same organization for the same procedures and all of them had good things to say about the hospital, Doctors and Liaison Company. One couple was actually from Anchorage where we lived. That was all of the proof that we needed to go and FINALLY get a permanent fix to my lifelong struggle.

The (SAGB) was implanted and tied around my stomach when I was back up to about 290 pounds in 2004. (Think of it as a band tied around the top of the stomach to restrict the amount of food I could consume). At first things were fine. I got used to my new eating style. If I ate too much, I would vomit. If I ate too fast, I would vomit. I learned to eat slower and eat less. About 1 year after my surgery I woke up one morning and tried to drink a protein shake. I had a terrible cramp in my stomach. The shake came back up right away and I started to vomit my own saliva about every 15 minutes. This went on for hours.

Finally, at my wife’s convincing, I went to the doctor and had a local bariatric surgeon meet me at the emergency room. This was the first time that I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Michael Todd. They laid me on a table and sedated me which was followed by an upper endoscopy. The theory was that a piece of food, (potentially from a meal the night before) was lodged in the small passage of the band opening. They checked my band for an obstruction by running a long tube with a camera down my throat to remove anything that may have been caught in the band. Dr. Todd was able to find nothing and had no explanation. He then tried to adjust my band by withdrawing some saline solution through the port to open up the size a bit. To both of our amazements it was empty! For no apparent reason my Swedish Adjustable Gastric Band was empty which gave us no room at all. So much for the adjustable part! I was admitted for the night to be hydrated by IV solutions and given steroids to release any swelling that may have been causing my issues and released the next day.

I assumed it was a freak occurrence until the same thing happened again six months later. For no apparent reason nothing could get through the band and into my stomach. Not foods, not water, not even my own saliva. This blockage situation was very painful and if left untreated would quickly lead to dehydration. Collections of salvia would build up in my stomach until my gag reflex would react forcing me to vomit. By this point I was down to around the 225 pound mark but was really becoming tired of the complications. It would take me, on average, over an hour and sometimes more than two hours just to eat a bowl of soup! Taking clients, friends and family to dinner was terrible as I was always the last one done and usually unable to finish. I can’t tell you how many servers thought I was unhappy with my meals. I just told them I had already eaten or had an upset stomach. Over time the excuses got old. My tongue had now turned a permanent shade of yellow and no matter how often I brushed I could not get rid of it. This new condition led me to see our local (general practitioner) doctor after doing some research online. I was convinced that I had a vitamin deficiency from a lack of proper nutrition and our doctor agreed. She investigated giving me iron supplements through a syringe as I was unable to swallow pills. Was this what was next for me? Taking expensive vitamin shots to get my necessary minerals? I went through a total of FOUR EPISODES of this total blockage scenario before I, and the surgeon, felt I had no other option but to have the gastric band taken out.

People always ask me why I waited so long to have the surgery reversed. For anyone who has ever struggled with the prison of being overweight, the answer was simple, almost any amount of discomfort was better than being fat. Dr Todd’s words rang loud and clear in my mind. “You will be 280 pounds by Christmas if you reverse this” He was not being crass or mean. He simply explained that statistically when you reverse the ONE thing that has prevented the overeating, it was a near certainty to put the weight back on. “You simply can’t imagine how powerful these procedures are” he said. I believed him. He agreed, after all, to see me and help me when he was not the one that implanted the band in the first place. He could have said no. He could have said I was going to have to go elsewhere to seek help or try to find my original Mexican surgeon. I did actually try to find the original surgeon again but….No luck! The McAllen liaison company was out of business and I was never able to locate any of the Doctors or nurses again.

I took my chances with the weight gain and made arrangements to have the surgery reversed. It was supposed to be a quick, same day, laparoscopic operation and I was scheduled to go home in the evening. When the surgeons went in laparoscopically they discovered that I had so much scar tissue that they could not find my band! This skilled team of bariatric surgeons could not find what they had gone in to remove. While I was sedated they got permission from my waiting and horrified wife to cut my stomach wide open. In the process of cutting away scar tissue to simply find the gastric band, my spleen was nicked and I lost a massive amount of blood.

The long time issue with my gastric band was apparently my own body. It had rejected the band and gone through a process called encapsulation. My body had spent more than two years encasing this foreign object in scar tissue in an attempt to rid itself of my gastric band. I awoke from the surgery about 4 hours later with a seven inch diagonal slice through my stomach and, obviously, a bit confused. They explained what happened to me and the recovery took much longer. I was in the hospital for four days. I was released on Thanksgiving day 2006 with a stomach full of staples and a jar full of pain pills. I was happy to taste turkey and real food again. Food in general was a delightful experience. Things went slow for me over the next couple of weeks.

I now have no options left but to succeed with diet and exercise. My hope is that the links to what I feel to be ALL of the necessary tools to accomplish your goals and keep them off will be included. I have been able to eat often, eat healthy and exercise regularly. Muscle has replaced fat but more importantly it has replaced my fear. I am now confident in my ability to not only maintain my weight but finally be happy and healthy. Even though I had an extra large struggle battling an ultra slow metabolism due to years of severely reduced calorie intake I was able to persevere.

My whole life my weight has been up and down but I am no longer in a place of helplessness. You owe it to yourself to get all of the pieces to the puzzle and put them together. I owe my new life and health to the principles of this simple and effective strategy. I now know that I will be able to enjoy my body for the rest of my life.

12 Weeks 11.5% Body Fat

Strikin' a pose!

login or register to post comments