Sam Lost Weight, But It Found Him Again - 1st Entry 5/26/10

Hello! My name is Sam Carpenter. I am 30 years old and for most of those 30 years, I've had a battle with weight.

Inspired by NBC's "The Biggest Loser" and sick and tired of being sick and tired, and after seeing a picture of myself taken around the first of January 2008, I decided on March 30, 2008 that it was time for a change. From March 30, 2008 to February 11, 2009, I began my own diet and exercise plan and went from 330 lbs to 185 lbs, losing 145 lbs. I kept a monthly record of my progress and my plan on my MySpace page and was shocked and pleased to discover that I was inspiring so many people and that so many people were interested in my progress. It was through God's blessings of strength, determination and will power and the kind words and encouragement of friends on MySpace that I was able to achieve what I thought was the impossible. I continued through the year of 2009 following my exercise and diet plan - growing and changing and feeling sure that I would never go back to my old ways again. I went from wearing size XXXL shirts and 46 waist pants to M-L shirts and 32 waist pants. I went from trying so many ways of hiding my body to actually being happy that I could show off a muscle or two! I learned just how strong I really am and learned that my weight had really trapped me and caused me so much unhappiness. I hated life. I didn't want to be part of anything. I stayed in the house all of the time, avoided friends and just ate my sorrows away. Through this journey, I laughed, I cried, I cussed, I walked, I ran, I smiled, I cried again, and through it all, I grew stronger and more confident than I had ever been...ever! I found myself - someone that had lived with all 29 years that I had been alive, but was someone that I had never met before. I was a new person who went from spending an entire life frustrated, upset and sad with himself to a person that was alive, vibrant and would let nothing stop him. I went from being out of breath from just walking to running/jogging 4 miles every day, lifting weights every day, doing 1000 crunches every day, counting every calorie everyday and never going over 2000, I went from a hermit to someone shouting, "C'mon life, show me what you've got!" Little did I know that just around the corner would be tragedy for me.

As we approached Thanksgiving 2009, I started to worry about holidays and overeating. But, I did make it though Thanksgiving with no problems. I ate well and exercised my butt off...no problem. But, I knew Christmas and New Year's was coming. I knew that with these holidays would be going out with friends for fatty foods - I knew that there would be more cookies than the house would hold...I knew that there would be a lot of eating. I handled myself very well. On Christmas Eve, I worked out for 2 hours - went to Christmas Eve service at church and amazed so many people that hadn't seen me in some time and was feeling good. We came back home and I did "pig out". Christmas Day came. No exercise, but I ate, and ate, and ate...and I think I ate some more. Well, it was Christmas Day and I was 195 lbs at this point and feeling great...so no worries, right? Well, by the end of Christmas Day, the guilt was overwhelming. I had no idea how many calories I had consumed. I was sick. And even worse, because I was so strict about my diet and rarely ever ate any cookies, pie, cake or anything like that, it seemed that once I introduced those sugars to my body...I craved them...I mean, MAJORLY craved them. I shudder to think just how many dozen cookies I ate between Dec. 26, 2009 and Jan. 2, 2010. There was no exercise during this time either. It seemed as though the switch had been shut off. I didn't want the exercise that I had craved so strongly not so long ago. Now, I craved cookies, cheesecake, donuts, etc.

One week back at work from the holidays in January and I started thinking, "Ok, so you slipped up. Everyone does. It was the holidays. Next week, you'll be back on track. After all, you're starting to feel like crap now, and you don't want to gain anymore weight. You'll be fine."

Then, the next thing I knew, it was Feb. 14, 2010. I still was not back on the diet. I was trying to watch calories, but was still not eating very healthy and still was not exercising.

Then, it was March 15, 2010 - my 30th birthday. Of course, there was cake. And I ate it...along with just about everything else in the house...or that's how I was feeling at the time. I remember on my birthday, it was like I was out of control. I ate until I was sick and then I ate some more. I was spinning out of control. I continued on this path for weeks, stopping off at the grocery store almost nightly for cookies, cake, pie, and all of those "goodies". And I ate and ate and ate them.

Then, the depression returned. I was upset with myself for not getting back on track. I was so sick from eating so poorly and that only made me more depressed and to top it all off, by April first, my clothes were not fitting, I had to start trying to hide the fact that I was gaining weight and that only depressed me more.

May 1, 2010. I had now moved from my large clothes to XL. My waist size slowly grew from 32 to 34, then up to 38 and today, we are at 40.

But, the biggest slap in the face and looking back now, the biggest wakeup call was when I had to get dressed up for work two weeks ago and none of my dress clothes fit. I had to go to the store and became instantly depressed when nothing fit. I bought what they had and made it work, but was completely uncomfortable and was even more depressed.

How could I have left this happen to me again?! All of my life, I lived this way...I was finally free and now this weight is back again! I came home from work on that most uncomfortable day of being dressed up and finally decided that I needed to get on the scale for the first time since 12/24/09 and see just how much damage I had done. I knew it would not be pretty. After all, on top of the clothes not fitting and my old clothes getting tighter and tighter, I was feeling terrible, I was depressed and I was having a terrible time sleeping.

I stepped on the scale and broke down in tears. 264 lbs stared back at me. The day was 5/18/2010. Almost 5 months had passed since I exercised last and even cared about what I put into my body...and here was the result of my carelessness.

When I look back on what has happened, I think I set myself up for this. Around the holidays, I put so much worry in gaining weight, that I think it's possible that I drove myself to this. Also, as the entire losing weight experience was a learning experience, I learned from this that even when I was 185 - 195 lbs, I was still trying to lose weight. Being 6'2", a weight of 185 - 195 is great, but I wanted to lose more. Before I "fell off the wagon", my co-workers called me "emaciated". Everyone told me I was maybe too thin, but looked good. I felt great, but also felt like I needed to lose more. But looking back now, I think part of the problem was that I never transitioned from weight loss mode to weight maintenance or weight management mode.

So, here we are today, exactly 5 months later - sick, depressed, upset and disappointed in myself for losing faith in myself and ending up with nearly 1/2 of my weight gained back.

So now, the time has come to stop gliding through each day...telling myself that I'll start tomorrow...being more and more depressed about how I feel and how much weight I've gained. The time has come to get back up in the horse - and to quote a new line of clothing that many of the Biggest Loser past contestants are sporting lately - it's time to "SHUT UP AND SWEAT!"

So today, I begin my journey again. Not quite like it was when I began the first time but in some ways, harder than it was the first time.

I am hopeful that through this blog, I can once again encourage you to either get started and start again to accomplish any goal that you have set for yourself - whether it be for weight loss or anything you want to do to make a better you.

We can do anything...it is true. Set your heart to it - believe you can do it, picture yourself being victorious and trust in yourself to achieve your goals.

Throughout this process, I will post updates on my progress, struggles, achievement and try to provide a guide of what I am doing - hoping that it will help you as well.

To get started, I am just going to improvise on my original plan.

- I am going to keep track of all calories eaten - in the beginning not to exceed 1500/day.

- I will start off by exercising EVERYDAY, by walking at least 1/2 hour everyday...trying to get back up to 1 hr every day.

- Will work in weight lifting after one steady week of walking.

-After one week of only walking and working in weight lifting the next week, will alternate one day walking and one day weight lifting and will start introducing protein shakes back into my diet.

- I will only drink water and ultra skim milk.

Below is an outline that I followed faithfully in the past that worked well for me –

- 1200-1500 calories per day
- 30 mins exercising, working towards 1 hr EVERYDAY.
- 100% Cardio for the first 30 days – rotate cardio one day, weight training the next.
- In bed by 10:30 pm at the latest each night

- Food
o Breakfast –
 Either a banana (100 calories), Cereal Bar (140 calories) or Protein Drink with Skim milk (230 Calories)

o Lunch –
 Nutri-System cup meal and fruit
 Take one multi-vitamin with lunch

o Snack –
 Cereal Bar, Fruit, protein drink or String Cheese, almonds

o Dinner –
 Usual Lean Cuisine dinner with veggies (100 calories) and yogurt or Turkey burgers, veggies or Jell-O for dessert and/or salad.

o Night Snack –
 Glass of milk

Ok, so that just about does it for my first post. I hope you will stay with me through this second time around and I hope that you too will start today working on a better you.

Take care!