September 15th 2009

It’s been raining for days. My knees hurt. My feet hurt. I’m feeling run down, and my mind is full of doubts and clouded with desolation.

I was running the 1.4 mile trail in front of my office when the weather changed from a drizzle to a rain and eventually to a down pour. Now, I’m just mad and getting madder by the drop. I need this run--I have to have it.

The last 1/4 mile is the longest stretch uphill, and the City of Flower Mound decided to leave the high powered sprinklers on full blast, watering what, as best I could tell, was the sidewalk. With a fence on one side and 4” of mud from the monsoon on the other side, my only choice was to go through it, so through it I went. As I got past the pressure washers and to the top of the hill, Mother Nature sent a 20mph gust of wind into my face practically freezing my running shirt to my chest.

I was all but done with this miserable day and wondering what the heck I was doing running in the rain to begin with, when I started hearing the voices in my head:

“You’ve lost a lot of weight. You get the lap band”…
“He lost too much too quickly. He had to have had surgery”…
“Guys just lose weight faster than girls”…
“XL. Congrats! You’ll be at that size for a while”…
“Wow you look great! What’s your secret?”…
“It’ll take years to lose 200lbs”…
“180 is good, but that last 20 is going to be the hardiest”…
“A mile is good. Talk to me when you want to run a 5k....10K....”…
”Good luck keeping it off” …

Then I remembered the one voice that started this whole thing November 17th 4:45am:

“Get up this isn’t happening fast enough. The only person that can change you is you.”

That’s when I made the turn to run the lap for a second time, realizing my knees and feet were sore because I hadn’t stretched them out in a week. My mind was cloudy because I hadn’t had that time to reflect the way that I like to do daily during my run, and I was feeling run down because I was making excuses.

I ran 4 more laps, 7 miles total, through the sprinklers and the rain.

By the end, the rain had stopped, the wind had died down and the sun actually peeked out, just for a second--I think to say “nice job.”

Hi. My name is Christopher and this is my Blog.

On November 6th, 2008 I weighed 406lbs. Now, I’m less than 200lbs. I’d like to share some stories and tips on how I did it.

I will update this daily with thoughts, tips and ideas, but please feel free to ask me any questions as I go that might help you personally.