Let’s face it this journey we are on is awesome. As we continue to work hard at eating real food, and moving our bodies we will undoubtedly hit our goals. When this occurs our bodies go through changes and/or begin to simply look healthy. The outcomes will be different depending on our starting points, body types, and goals. For example: Amy (wife) is constantly focused on her nutrition and fitness and weighs in at a slender 120 lbs. When she is following her plan by eating well and hit her exercise routines the outcome is clear skin, bright blue eyes, glowing auburn hair and simply looking healthy. On the other hand we have me, who started his diet bet journey at over 325 lbs and to date has lost 55ish lbs, going through major body shape changes. While I am sure my skin, eyes, and overall healthy look is improving it is way outshined by the massive size change that I am going through.
The interesting thing is no matter what changes you are going through either staying about the same size but looking healthy to shrinking at an insane rate… people notice. My wife gets as many comments as I do, and I think that is fantastic.
The sad thing for the wife is her positive comments come only from outside her immediate family. Unfortunately, the comments received by her sisters and mom are not always positive. I’m not quite sure why that is, but, I assume it is maybe a bit of jealousy that she has been able to reach a pretty ideal healthy state not by dieting or killing herself in a gym, but by simply eating real food and performing simple movements (i.e. running with me each morning and going on our weekly family hike). I tell her often to flip the comments in her head to not negative, but, in fact very positive. While it may not be apparent in their comments, they are undeniably inspired by her good health and smile.
However, it is not all a loss for her mother. While she maybe more critical of Amy, she is completely set back by the changes she is seeing in her son-in-law. As I have stated in a few comments in my games lately, Amy’s mom has started having some pretty intense conversations with me regarding diet. She opened up to me as I am pretty much smaller than she has ever seen me in my 16 years of being married to her daughter. She has been one, since I have known her, your typical yo-yo dieter. I don’t say this as a negative because we all have been there. The problem is nothing has ever clicked with how to change from dieting by the mindset of calories in calories out for weight loss, to dieting to fuel your body for life.
She asked what it is that I have done to make the changes I have. She specifically wanted to know my ‘diet’ I am following. This one always causes me to cringe a bit because I hate the word diet. I am one of those people that believe in the true definition of a diet, which is what we habitually eat to survive, not to focus on cutting out anything (change to add in the good stuff and the bad will simply disappear). As I collected my thoughts because I did not want go on a diatribe about that, I explained to her if you want to define my diet it would be somewhere close to the paleo diet. Basically, I said if it can be grown or raised, and can be eaten in as close to it’s natural state as possible I will eat it, if it has to be processed in a lab to make it edible I will stay away from it. The only mantra I live by is “no sugars, no grains”.
Something in that simple explanation clicked and she jumped on board. Since then she has asked me to be her mentor, texts me about 50 times a day, and to come up with a quote she could put on her fridge to remind her of her path. As such I will leave you with that quote as cheesy as it is: “If made from above, eat it with love. If made by man, avoid is the plan.”
My name is Travis and I am here to heal myself!