My (New) Beginning

I thought this first post would be a great way to share my story of where I came from and where I'm at now. It's been an incredible journey that I've been on and it's hard to believe that it only started a little over 3 months ago!!!

I'm a web developer by day for a radio station/publishing company in Nashville and I'm a music composer for film and TV during the evenings and weekends for shows such as the Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Oz, Nate Berkus, It's A Brad, Brad World, Duck Dynasty to name a few. I have a blog for my music career that you can find at http://blog.bigbluebarry.com. I've been including some of my weight loss updates on that site but I wanted to make a clean break and start a new blog that focuses on the health and fitness aspect. So here I am :-) 

Over the last 6 years I've led a very sedentary life, basically sitting in an office chair for 8 hours a day doing web design, and then another 4-6 hours a day in an office chair composing music. Exercise was not part of my life. I tried doing the Body For Life program back in 2004 and had some success with it. I lost nearly 30 pounds and was down to around 250. But once I began trying to get my music career off the ground, the weight came right back. Which brings me to my "moment" when I knew I had to make a change.

That moment was March 15, 2012 in Louisville, Ky. I'm originally from KY and I'm a HUGE UK basketball fan, I bleed blue through and through. So on that day I was at the first round of the NCAA March Madness tournament to watch UK play Western Kentucky. I had to walk about 6 or 7 blocks to get from the parking lot to the arena. By the time I got to the arena, I was out of breath, my legs were tired and I was sweating up a storm and I was just physically exhausted, and honestly, a bit embarrassed that I was that bad out of shape. I knew at this point I had to make a change but I didn't know where to start.

That night I saw an infomercial for P90x. I was amazed at the transformations that I saw take place in 90 days. It was almost too good to be true. The next step was figuring out what the next step for me was going to be. I looked up more info about P90x and learned that it was part of a company called Beachbody. It was at that point that I remembered my friend Brenna was a Beachbody Coach. So I got in touch with her and we talked on the phone and discussed a number of programs and finally decided that RevAbs was going to be the best fit for me.

So we came up with a plan to start out doing the 2 week Jump Start program that's a part of RevAbs and then I would begin the 90-day program. But in addition to beginning an exercise program, I knew that a change in nutrition was also going to take place, which my wife was VERY excited about. So we quit drinking diet colas cold turkey and replaced them with water and unsweet tea. We replaced sugar with Truvia and Stevia. We replaced white bread with whole wheat bread. We cut out processed foods and began shopping at Whole Foods buying all natural organic foods. We started using Shakeology for one meal a day. We began eating 5 times a day. And we cut our portion sizes down. For me, 1200 calories a day for the 2 week jump start, and now, no more than 1800 per day.

So on April 16, my weight loss journey began. I weighed 319.5lbs with 34% body fat and a 54.5" waist. By the end of the 2 weeks I had lost 22 ponds, 1/2" off of my waist and my body fat % dropped to 31.7%. By the end of Phase 2 of RevAbs I had lost 52.7lbs, 7" off of my waist and my body fat % was down to 26.3%.

As of today I've lost 69.9lbs! My goal was to be under 250lbs by the end of the program and now that goal has been reached with one week left to go in the program! I knew that this was a crazy ambitious goal but I wanted to aim high. In my mind I've already lost the weight, I'm just waiting for the rest of my body to catch up to it! I'll be posting some before and after shots next week once I've finished the 90 day challenge.

My next goal is to lose between 30-50 more pounds by the end of October. I know that's going to be just as ambitious but I'm ready for the challenge! I hope my story can inspire others to get healthy as well.