Lose weight or your mom dies

[cbs42]

Hi all, I just signed up today. I'd never heard of this site before, but stumbled across it while trying to find some info about strength training. Here's my story, for what it's worth:

 

I've always led a rather sedentary life, being the gamer geek that I am (mostly tabletop, but some videogames). I joked with my friends that I'm an "avid indoorsman" but I guess that caught up with me when I got out of college, got an even more sedentary job (Java developer) and started having kids. At the age of 39, I had ballooned up to about 290 lbs. Last December, my father spend a month in ICU after an emergency surgery to correct an a problem that resulted from a prior surgery to correct an abdominal aortal aneurism. My mom was in the hospital at the same time, with failing kidneys due to long-standing kidney disease. I pretty much lived at the hospital during that month. When the doctors decided that my dad wouldn't be recovering, my family and I walked down the hall to my mom's hospital room to talk with her about it, and ultimately had to make the call to pull the life support. That was rough. Really rough.

 

The reason I'm here now is because my mom needs a kidney to survive, and she won't last long enough on dialysis to get one from the national donor list. So I decided to be a living donor. The doctors told me I need to lose a bunch of weight and get my blood pressure down before I would be an eligible donor.  

 

So I'm on the "lose weight or your mom dies" diet plan. That's pretty motivating. Since January, I've lost 50 pounds, so I'm at 240 now, through a combination of healthy diet and daily exercise (cardio only). My goal is to have the first digit on the scale be "1" ... even if the next two are 9s, and I want to do this by the end of the year. So clearly my current pace isn't going to get me there.

 

Anyway, I have little idea what I'm doing with exercise and diet, having never really done it before. So I need to speed up the pace. From the info I've read so far on this site, strength training seems like it'll be the way to go. While the kidney donation is the short term goal, I also want to get generally healthier so I can be around a long time for my wife and kids. Here's a pic of the family, to put a face to my name:

 

 

[shaar]

Okay, that is REALLY motivating!  Your hard work and dedication are going to be able to help two people get better, and that's awesome.

 

Good luck in your quest, you can definitely do it!  Make sure to post a link to your battle log if you make one, so we can cheer you through your progress.

[marymama08]

Wow, this is a pretty amazing story. I wish you the best in your epic quest to save your mother. You are a good son!!!!!!!!!!!! There are a lot of people on this site that have so much knowledge of how to go about this. I am not one of them. I do know that Paleo and weights are something you may want to look into. But remember your ultimate weight goal may change as you gain muscle. You  are looking to be healthy not skinny. Good luck and keep us posted. 

 

You have a beautiful family

[Nephthie]

Amazing story and goal, you're family is adorable and I can't imagine a more pressing reason to get fit.  NF will have your back on this one.  Welcome!

[cbs42]

Thanks for the encouraging words! It's going to be really helpful to have a support community for exercise, even if it's just a virtual community. I've been doing the exercise thing alone for months now. While I'm still just as motivated, and not at risk of quitting, it's becoming much more of a chore that I'm not looking forward to each day. So I think a change of pace (moving into strength training) is in order.

 

Thankfully I have free access to multiple very nice fitness facilities through my employer, and I charge up to 3 hours of work-time per week for physical fitness. I appreciate that very much, and I realize that a lot of people don't get that benefit, so there's an additional motivation for me. I'm exercising more than 3 hours per week, but I'm happy to say it's made little impact on my available family time.

 

It's nice to get the family exercising together as well. Never too young to form a healthy habit, right? So another goal of mine is to spend part of each weekend doing something physical with the family, like hiking, biking, etc...

[Big_Show]

Wow, helluva thing to go through! Good luck hitting your target, I'm sure everyone will be rooting for you.

[starsapart]

Sir, I salute you.  You are amazing.  And you're absolutely going to save your mom!  What a fantastic son you are.

 

Losing weight is primarily related to diet - exercise is wonderfully helpful, but in the end, as many of Steve's posts say (and sadly, I know to be true, sob) "you can't outrun your fork."  Is there still room to improve your eating habits?  You may be able to speed up the weight loss with (healthy and sensible) diet changes, especially if you can still function at full throttle on a slightly steeper deficit.

 

As far as exercise being a chore... man, I feel you, and I used to be right there with you.  if you're doing the same thing all the time (especially if your spouse isn't on board), it's bound to get boring.  Can you mix it up?  In my personal experience (grain of salt time!) strength/cardio combo classes at the gym - like a bosu of bootcamp type of class - are awesome in that they offer the benefits of both strength training and the quick calorie burn of cardio.  They're also exhausting, granted...... Strength training in general is amazing in how well it seems to work in getting the weight off, though, and there are plenty of variants if you get bored with dumbbells/barbells.  Bodyweight work is wonderfully variable and generally awesome (though I will say, I'm biased towards this).  Cardio alone.... is slow.  Very slow.

 

Basically, tl;dr, I am cheering for you!  Would love to follow and support you once you create a battle log or a challenge thread.  If you ever need anything, let me know!  I'm fairly new to the site, but been at this fitness thing a little while.  Still learning every day, but even so!

[blkhole24601]

Wow, that's an incredible story, and I know you'll reach your goal!! 

 

The support system around here is pretty much awesome, and echoing that if you have any questions, any of us will be more than willing to help out! Having a gym at work makes a load of difference, as I'm learning now at my new place of employment. As for exercises, if you can take a class either through your employer's gym if they provide it or going to a free trial class elsewhere around town if you can find one, it'll be a great place to start to find something you'll enjoy doing. That said, as far as bodyweight exercises go, the nerd-based workout plans Steve provides are absolutely wonderful. I'm essentially a n00b when it comes to strength training myself (what is/how do I lift for example), but Steve's workouts, I found, are a great place to start! Someday soon, I want to start his Legend of Zelda series.

 

As for physical things to do with the family, feel free to think outside the box! For example, this summer, I learned the fitness benefits of chasing friends around an empty theater with a Nerf gun in a pretend-zombie apocalypse. It's basically HIIT, but more fun, because Nerf guns. After all, as they say, "Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional."

 

Best of luck to you, and I'll definitely be following you through your journey!!

[evedaline]

You probably don't need me to tell you this, but you are a badass on a super epic quest. Keep going! I'm excited for what you'll do next and the positive things you'll attain for yourself and your family along the way.

 

I'm new, but I'll follow along and chime in.

[goodbye_farewell]

Wow, what a story. Welcome to NF. I do have some questions. What is your goal weight (or bodyfat %) in order to have the surgery? And do you have a timeline? I assume the timescale is short, so you really need to crank up that deficit as much as you can stand...

[ErikDawnbringer]

Whoa, whoa, geez, wow.  Man that really sucks dude.  I wish you and your mom the best of luck.  I'd offer you some you some encouragement for motivation, but it seems like you have all the motivation that you will ever need.

 

Now I feel really shallow and superficial, because the reason I want to get into shape is so that my nipple doesn't touch my stomach when I sit down.