My Quest to Lose Weight

What I hate about these stories is not that someone has lost the weight, I feel very happy for them. I hate how there is always some miraculous berry or drink that is required to aid in the weight lose. I also don't like how there is some special exercise machine that is required to aid in weight lose.

My quest for weight lose is a simple one; health. My solution was to internally motivate myself. My key to motivation is to associate pain with what you want to change, in my case my weight.

I have always struggled with my weight. It held me back in my military career. Many promotions were held against me simply because I did not meet military standards. I was able to retire, but I should have retired at a much higher pay grade.

There was a time that I lost a lot of weight when I was in my young 20s. I used to run and bike ride everyday and I would eat very little. However, I felt very weak and could not keep that pace up. Soon I got married and had children and I put myself last. Running and exercise in general never really appealed to me, I never could see the point. The long term benefits were too far off to see. Wow I could run, but why?

After I retired from the Military I got up to 285 lbs. I never thought I was fat, I thought I was just big. After all denial is the best friend in gaining weight.

Two of my daughters wanted to try out Karate. My wife and I were at first reluctant thinking that the children would just beat each other up. We watched a few classes and thought it would benefit the children so two of my daughters started doing karate regularly. I sat there and watch my children have fun and learn a great deal about themselves in a relatively short time.

I was very happy for my kids. Karate always looked so much fun to me when I was a child, but we were too poor to afford it. I was glad I could afford it now for my children could have fun.

When my daughters went for their first belt testing I got to take a good look at myself in the mirror, I was so much larger than everyone else. It is easy to deny your weight when you are alone in the bathroom mirror, or on your private scale, it's harder when you are comparing to everyone else. It was then that I decided I wanted to have fun and join karate also.

I soon learned what karate is all about; hard work, perseverance, respect and spirit. I went to karate 3 times a week for an hour each session. I soon learned that my karate dojo requires black belt candidates to run 3 miles in 30 minutes and knew that I had to get in better shape to do it. So I got motivated to work out for an hour at lunch time from work on top of my karate time.

I started just riding the stationary bike for an hour. I later moved to the elliptical for an hour. After that I graduated to light running on the treadmill for an hour and now am up to an hour on the stair-master. I realize that I need to do a minimum of an hour or hard aerobics everyday to keep my health up.

Since I started karate about 8 months ago, I have lost 54 pounds. I am now lingering around 230 pounds. I went from my belly over lapping my 42 inch waist pants to fitting comfortably in my 36 inch pants. I still have more to go. I have increased my martial arts training to include Muay Thai kickboxing. I haven't taken any miracle berry to lose weight. But the best part is; I'm doing it with my children! They practice with me, they spar with me, and we are spending time together. Years from now hopefully the kids will say "Dad thank you."

Karate filled that gap in my life. It provided the structure of ranks that I was used to in the military. I gave me a purpose to exercise. I could see immediate results. Unlike when I used to exercise before when I was young, I did not feel weak. I feel strong. I feel confident. I would recommend martial arts training to anyone, at any age or any level of physical health.