Hello everyone

I must say. The journey of the last 3 years has been incredible. I have seen much and have experieneced even more. I have had friends stand by me, friends leave me, and people who don't even know they helped me come and go. As it is, I have been putting off comming back to this blog so a few reasons. Mainly was that it was a mark of failure. I failed even when putting as much effort as I could into this. 

But, with that said, I can come back now I think. When I started this blog I was sitting at a whopping 412 pounds or so. I lost a bit, got sidetracked, got addicted to WoW, didn't care and balooned up to 460 pounds. 

There I was August of 2008 in my parents basement playing video games, with no real education sitting at 460 pounds and 23 years old. Pretty much rock bottom. With the help of my mom I wrote my GED, passed and applied to Fanshawe College. After going to Fanshawe I realised I couldn't sit in any of the desks. So I started walking some more, trying to shed some weight.

The major turning point was sitting at a friends house looking at old pictures and people going "wow, what happened Tyler". What did happen indeed. This was the point I commited myself to a life change. 

Now, 8 months later I am down to 325 pounds from the 460 I was last August. Life is better, I am healthier and I feel as though I can come back here and post my thoughts without feelings of regret. Hopefully if you have come here, this blog can show you something. The true struggle people who are overweight feel. It is a diary, or a window into the souls of the pains we go through, the highs and lows and truly the mental state this issue puts us in. 

Thank you again for everything.

- Tyler

WooT New Place!

Well sorry for the few days there. I did alot of crap this week!.

First and foremost I signed the lease on my new place. I am finally moving out of my parents house. It only took me 4 days of searching and I found the perfect place. It is 10 minutes from work and 15 mins from school walking. Right now work is 2 hours from work and 2 hours from school walking, or an hour and a half on the bus each way. This will make my life by far much easier to manage.

I also managed to put in 65 hours this week. Combined with 60 hours last week and all the stat holidays I will have the cash for first and last! =)

I have been keeping to the gym, working up my endurance and will be getting some help with a workout this Friday. I am planning to play football at University so will be working towards getting into shape for that.

I need to go pack, I'll post pictures of the new place once I move in, February 1st. =)

Can I cut off my legs please?

Yep thats right. Chop em right off, throw em in the trash. I'll cycle with my hands if I have too!

I went back to the gym today for the first time in forever. It was also the first time since I canceled WoW. And the first time I've done any actual real excersize since I started WoW. Needless to say I am sore. I feel like every bone in my body is crying and I just want to roll over and die.


Btw...

The workout lasted 10 minutes....

Thats right, 10 minutes on a cross trainer and I was ready to die.

I think my muscles started deteriorating, just slowly died away as they were not needed to play WoW. In 7 years I am predicting a mass influx of wheelchairs for WoW players, all 7 million+ will need them, since we do...nothing.

So what does this tell me?

That I am literally in the worst shape of my life. I have never, never been not able to do less than 30 minutes on thos machines. I could usually do an hour fine. So here I am, worst shape ever.

So what now? I mean, ouch, 10 minutes and I die?

Well for that motivation we will go to a picture of a good friend of mine...

Tom

Tom was wheelchair bound and on oxygen. Now he bikes regularly for a few hundred miles a week.


Here will be my motivation to get back into shape.

So I will post tomorrow, and let you all know how it went, how many minutes I did.


10 minutes...

sigh..

To Love Life, 2007 Commeth

And so this year finally comes to an end. Goodbye 2006, a year of hard lessons, one that I think had made me, and many people grow wiser and one that has prepared us for 2007. A new year full of possibilities and new things to do, hold onto and create.

So what have I learned from 2006, what lessons has it taught me in life?


Number one, is never to take anything for granted. Joey and I went through a few scary momments with each other where I thought I could, might lose her to health issues and other things. Every time we bounced back and stayed together. Each time I realised how empty I feel without her and how thankfull I am for her. As well my mother, who is suffering from MS. I am thankful for her and have learned to not take for granted the everyday things I hold little value too. These two people have kept me grounded and aware of the little things life has to offer and that I should appreciate.

Number two is procrastination is the death of all of us. How often do we all use excuses like "after this show", "after this game," "Im just going to finish this first". One of the hardest things I have done in my life is admit to myself I was doing nothing with it, and admit it honestly.

Thirdly we have games. My struggle that I pray will be put behind me. Gaming is not wrong, it is an entertainment to keep us amused of course, and due to that it is not wrong. It is only when you begin cancelling commitments you have that it steps over the bounds of a entertainment to an addiction. Playing for 2 hours a night when you have nothing else to do is fine. When you are skiping school and work, avoiding friends to play and putting off homework to get that last piece of equipment is when it becomes an addiction. This would be the hardest lesson 2006 taught me, and one of the cruelest. A lesson well learned though.

New years resolutions I think always fail. We always have these huge expectations of what we want. Every year we put it down into writing and strive for it with all we are!

For about 2-3 weeks.

Than we are done with that.

I have many plans for this year, for 2007. I plan to make this a year to look back on and go "That was a golden year". The only resolution I have that I will put down in writting is this.

I will grab life by the horns and ride it for all its worth. I will experience life and taste its feast with all I am, and when 2008 comes, I will have a hundred stories of laughter and sadness perhaps to share. I will be able to look back on 2007 and say "That was a year I want to live over and over". For 2007, my resolution will be

To love life.

Where to begin

I have come back to that which made me feel good about myself again. Christmas is a time of reflection, and one of looking back on things you have done, and trying to figure out where you went wrong.

Willpower is a funny thing, go to a speech and you can be motivated for a lifetime, a year, a month, a week, a day, or even no more than an hour. What do you do when the motivation runs out? You can continue to find new motivation of course, as much as you can. Eventually though, the same things keep motivating you and than you find that nothing can any longer.

I myself have an addictive personality when it comes to my time. I don't become addicted to chemicals, such as smoking, drugs or drinking. Time sinks seem to addict me though like nothing else can. Games are the perfect time sinks and those seem to be my weakness. The last entry in this blog was made at the same time that I started playing World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is a beautiful game, made from perfection as Blizzard is known for doing. It is also a time sink. I do not blame the game for any of my undoings, I myself did not have the willpower needed to juggle life and the game as many do.

So I come back to the crossroad. I have gained back the weight I lost, but am motivated to start again. Hopefully with this new sense of knowing of why my motivation failed I will not be motivated by the thought of being motivated any longer.

In the words of one of my favorite persons in the world

GIT-R-DONE

What a weekend

Well this weekend was my brothers 19th's birthday. In Canada that means he is of legal age to drink, so we spent most of the weekend drinking. I overdid it and spent all of yesterday sick with the shakes ect. That is what I get for not drinking for so long, than drinking as much as I did in such a short period. So with that said the diet went to crap over the weekend. I am back to eating clean today.

Will be getting my bodyfat checked this Friday and will start meauring my progress that way. I start class in 2 weeks which will be fun. I have been getting up at 11am-12pm the last 3 weeks and will now start getting up at 7. I will update again later as I need to go get ready for work.

1 week

Well today marks the 1st week of my diet, and I have to say I feel pretty good. I have more or less stuck too it (save 1 cheat meal of Alfredo pasta..mmmmm) and I am feeling damn proud of myself heh. Tommorow morning I start Cardio at the gym daily. I plan on doing that for a week before getting back into weightlifting so we will see what happens with that.

Came across an interesting article last night on BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4793455.stm

There are now more overweight people across the world than hungry ones, according to experts.

He told the International Association of Agricultural Economists the number of overweight people had topped 1bn, compared with 800m undernourished.



Now this to me was really suprising. Who would have seen this one comming 20 years ago? Where the world hunger would be starting to be cured, only to be replaced by world obesity.

The author of the article than went on to suggest this

He said food prices could be used to manipulate people's diets and tilt them towards healthier options.

"For instance, if we charge money for every calorie of soft drink and fruit drink that was consumed, people would consume less of it. "If we subsidise fruit and vegetable production, people would consume more of it and we would have a healthier diet."

So his issue is that the food that makes us fat is always the cheapest.

So tonight, I am going to compare prices of a day of meals and see if he is correct. I personally think it is more laziness and people not wanting to take 30-45 minutes a day to cook food properly. I will post my results tommorow. :)