How I know what I know...I think

I mentioned in a previous post that I would explain how I know what I know.  

Mind you, what I know applies to me, because it was specially tailored to me.

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to be selected to be a part of a biggest loser-type program ran by a Texas-based grocery store, H-E-B.  As part of this program, the Slim Down Showdown, I was to participate in a week-long boot camp type experience where I would be weighed, measured and assessed, and then instructed on ways to improve my health and wellness.

This program was - and is - amazing.  It helped me LOADS.  It lasted only a few months, but the information that I took from that still helps me to this day.  The picture above is what I looked like at the beginning of the program.  Heres what I looked like when I finished:

It was a BIG change.  Overall, I lost more than 50 pounds, plus put on some serious muscle.  

Here's what I am now:

Thats one of the aforementioned wedding pictures that I look at and cringe.  Again - the wedding, my wife and everything about it was the happiest day of my life to date, but when I look at myself I get ashamed.  I started eating again for a few reasons, but mainly because I didn't continue to address the emotional issues that I was grappling with, plus the feeling that I still had so much more to lose!

Now, I wish I am where I was back then.

Anyway - at the program there was a fantastic team of nutritionists and dietitians that tailor-made a program just for me.  Overall I was in good health - no outstanding numbers as far as cholesterol, thyroid, etc., and to top it off, my muscle mass was twice the usual muscle mass of the average person....meaning I burn more calories per day just by doing not a damn thing.  

I haven't had a proper analysis since the end of the competition, but I do have the knowledge of the diet (diet meaning pattern for eating, not a strict program you get from a book or website and has a "stop" date) and workout that will keep me going strong.  

I still keep in contact with a few of my fellow contestants - they are another peer group that really "gets" what I am going through and what it is like to face the every day struggle.  Before the wedding I also started, though with less-than stellar enthusiasm, to get back on program.  H-E-B even hosted an "alumni day" for those past contestants of the showdown to get back in touch with what they may have lost, what they still have to go, or what they are succeeding with.  The knowledge that in another 6 months I will be back there at the NEXT alumni day is another reason for me to keep going strong and keep doing what I am doing.

I will look like the middle picture again.  

Anyway, that is how I know what I know, missed with a little self-reflection and insight into my mind.

Keep on walking'

PS - I didn't post a recipe on Monday because I didn't really cook anything interesting this week for lunches.  It was baked chicken.  Whoop-de-do.  I will have something more interesting next week.