A Bizarre Turn Of Events

Three years ago, I spent the summer NOT enjoying one of my favorite activities, playing paintball, because I was at my heaviest weight ever at over 380 pounds, and just the effort needed to walk onto the field was getting to be more than I could handle. The few times I did play, it was a chore. I was moving slower and slower on the field, not to mention how my body would feel the day after. All in all, it just plain sucked.

Now here it is, I’m maintaining about 170 pound weight loss, and I’m still not playing any paintball. Which isn’t as bad a thing as it initially sounds.

Yea, I know, not the thing you expected to see after that first paragraph. So let me back up a bit and see if I can’t help this make some sense (for myself as well as you all).

That first summer after my gastric bypass surgery, I played a LOT. And it was great. I was even out on the field about five weeks after surgery. Yes, I took it easy and yes I was chastised by my nurse when I told her about it later. But by this point I had lost over 80 pounds and already my energy level was higher than it had been in years. I think I played more paintball that year than I had in the previous two or three combined. Honestly, being able to lay more paintball was one of the deciding factors for me in pursing weight loss surgery.

Last year was another great year, but I cut back a little bit to make time for other activities, biking, camping, spending time with family and my new girlfriend. Life was good, I didn’t have time to do all the fun things I wanted to do!

Then at the end of October, I got laid off. Lost my job in construction admin and management. The way things were at the time I was very optimistic about finding a similar job any time soon. As I started down the road to finding another job, I was also trying to figure out just what sort of job to look for. that’s when my girlfriend suggested going back to school. It’s something I’d thought about, I told her, but that I had no idea what I would go back for…

“How about nutrition or something related?” she said. Based on the things I had been doing with my cooking videos and blogging about food and such here, she said it seemed like something I was interested in and good at. So yea, after some thinking and some looking around, I signed up for a certification course to sort of test the waters. And it turns out that yea, I kind of like this stuff, and want to pursue it further. In the meantime, I’m basically working on starting my own nutritional coaching business while looking at what sort of further educational options I want to go for next.

In the meantime, I took a job at a previous employer, basically as a glorified parking-lot attendant. I monitor a self-service parking lot for customer and equipment problems, do light building maintenance things, fun stuff like that. The majority of the time is spent in a small server closet/storage room, where I can be online studying, writing or whatever while monitoring the video surveillance cameras. It’s not very challenging, and I work over 50 hours a week just to make ends meet, but I get some people contact throughout the day, and like I said… can work on other things.  And honestly, given the current business climate – I am grateful to have a job. Especially one that gives me some flexibility to pursue bettering myself in the meantime.

So yea, that’s why I haven’t been out to play paintball except for one time so far this year (and I have one more outting scheduled for September). It kinda sucks in some ways.

But you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world. See, this is where things start getting a bit bizarre.

I started formerfatdudes.com, not because I thought I was any sort of expert. Not because I thought I was special. It was basically because … well, honestly, it was probably to help myself as much as anything. I never hid the fact that I was looking in to weight loss surgery once I made that decision. For me, being open about it has helped with my accountability. It’s helped me keep focused on making (mostly) good decisions. Realistically, I know I’m not accountable to anyone by myself, but I guess a part of me feels that by putting myself out there like this for all to see… makes it just a bit more real for me. Even if nobody else was reading it, *I* know this stuff is out there, and so I know it’s something I have to live with, and live up to.

Two and half years ago, when I started this site, I had no idea… and no illusions of where things were going. So if you had asked me then, I would have never have been able to predicted the sort of summer I’m having now.

See, this whole nutrition coaching thing… even tho it’s not even really off the ground yet, has led to me becoming a co-host for a weekly radio show, The Wake Up Call. In some ways, this one alone is sort of a dream come true. I’ve been told for years that I have a voice for radio (or maybe they said face? not sure). I took a community education class years ago on doing voice over work. But my shyness, my lack of self esteem at the time… well, it went no where.

So yea, I’m on the radio. Oh, and don’t forget… I do videos, like my video explaining why you don’t drink when you eat. This video is getting hits on a regular basis from all over the world. And now… well, going to be adding TV to the mix, sorta. My surgeon’s clinic is filming some commercials this week that will air during a special NBC News program on the advancements in medical treatment, this one will be specifically about obesity. They called me the other day to ask me to be a part of the commercial.

On top of that, I’ve been asked (and I accepted) to be one of the Breakout Session speakers at the NW Weightloss Conference in Portland, October 28-30. I’m appearing on the same agenda as folks like Dr. Connie Stapleton, Chef Dave Fouts, and Katie Jay of NAWLS. I’ll be speaking about “Life and Weight Loss From a Dude’s Perspective”. Yea… ok. But I have no idea what I’m actually going to talk about… yet.

Again, the word that keeps popping in to my head… bizarre.

I have no idea what our listenership is for the radio show…? The station estimates between 3 and 4,000 people listen to the weekend shows. But we’re new, so no way to know what we’ve got at this point. That’s still a pretty big deal, but I’m in a room with just two or three people, talking. Getting up in front of 300+ people to introduce my friend Ian when he presented his fund-raising check at the WLSFA event in May – that was a big deal. I could feel my heart pounding, my throat swelling as I choked out the words. Others have said they didn’t notice anything, but I did.

BUT, that’s also something I simply would not have done a couple years ago. Now, I’ve committed myself to getting up in front of a crowd and talking… not for two minutes, but for.. 45. What the heck am I thinking? Maybe I’m not, but I’m doing it anyways.

I suppose the bottom line is, as bizarre as all this is, it’s a good thing. No matter how it turns out, I’m doing things I not only wouldn’t have dreamed up just a few years ago, but many things I just couldn’t have done before. Not just physically, but mentally as well. And no matter how it all turns out in the end, I can look back on all this with out wondering “what if?”.

I’m hopeful that by next year, the job thing will be more stable, allow me more flexibility to get back out on the paintball field more. I’m also optomistic about the direction my career is taking, as well as how things like these speaking gigs and other things will play a part in all of that. But I know that no matter what curve balls are thrown at me, no matter what unexpected turns things take on me, I am much better prepared to deal with it now than I was just a few short years ago, because of my decision to have bariatric surgery.

How about you? What plans did you make for life after weight loss? And how’s that plan working out for ya?

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