I am so excited to introduce you to Rik. Rik e-mailed me shortly after my skin removal surgery to say that he just had the same surgery, and he enjoyed reading my blog about what to expect. We talked about Ragnar Relay, and he said he would love to get together a team of people like us--who had lost a lot of weight and become runners in the process. He could captain the team (a job I was terrified of), and I could find people to fill the team. It worked out perfectly.
Since then, I've definitely come to think of Rik as a friend. As silly as it sounds, Rik has this very calming effect on me. When I feel anxious (like I did the night before my marathon), I like to call him to talk and he has a way of making me feel better. He makes the perfect captain for our team! While I could go on and on about Rik, I will let him share his personal journey. His story is a little longer than the others I've posted, but Rik doesn't have a blog--so I don't want to cut out any of his story. It's totally worth the read!
As long as I can remember, I have always been fat. It was
always just a matter of HOW fat.
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| Rik "before" |
I come from a long line of fat people and great cooks, and
grew up with an extended family that believed very strongly that you show love
with good food. I have always been trying to
lose weight. I can remember logging calories in a notebook every day in middle
school, and attending Weight Watchers meetings in high school. Nothing worked.
Of course, I hadn’t tried getting off my butt. It pretty
much never occurred to me. I was the last kid picked for the team in
gym class. I didn’t worry too much about it though, because my parents had
always put all the emphasis on academics. If it wasn’t for gym class, I’d have
been on the honor roll every quarter!
Between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I worked
third shift stocking shelves at a grocery store, and I didn’t have a car yet,
so I biked back and forth to work. At the end of that summer, I also had my
wisdom teeth out, and pretty much didn’t eat for a week. I went back to school at
169 pounds. It was the first time my weight matched my height, and I was
thrilled!
But I somehow didn’t put together the hard work of the
summer with the weight loss, and as soon as I got back to my college routine,
that weight started coming back. I felt powerless to stop it. I graduated
college in 1992 and married Cynthia, my college sweetheart, at age 22. And over
the next 15 years, I watched my weight slowly but steadily continue to
increase, topping out at 275.
As I mentioned, I come from a close family. My dad is one of
my heroes, and I've taken a lot of cues from him regarding what’s important in
life, and how to live it. For the most part, that’s a very good thing. But I
also have his genes, and his love of good food, and his prioritizing of mental pursuits over physical ones. Over the last several
years, I have seen him struggle with health challenges: he is significantly
overweight, has back trouble, a heart stent, and is diabetic.
And one day, at age 38, it hit
me. Looking at my dad, I was looking at a preview of coming attractions. I was
starting to see the beginnings of some ill health effects for myself:
borderline high blood pressure, sleep apnea, low energy. I was just exhausted
all the time. It was as if I was never fully awake during the day, nor fully
asleep at night. And I had spent over 10 years on medication for a digestive
disorder that had pretty much turned me into a shut-in. I could tell you the
location every public bathroom in the city. And I thought, if I don’t do
something, right now, this is as good as it gets for the rest of my life.
I should mention that I also
have my dad's proud and stubborn streak, which makes me insist on solving my
problems on my own and not admitting when I need help, thinking it to be a sign
of weakness. But after trying and failing to lose weight a million times, something
had to give. I finally got humble, and admitted that I needed to call in an
expert. It was January of 2008.
As they say, when the student is
ready, the teacher will appear. And that's when I met my personal trainer,
Myra, the woman who would save my life. Myra is a personal trainer that Cynthia
met at the gym. They got to talking, and we arranged for Myra to come to the
house and meet me. I was so embarrassed to even talk to her. I remember when
she asked me during our first session about my goals, I didn’t really have any.
And I thought, what an idiot. I should have a goal! But I didn’t know what it
should be. I said something non-committal about having her teach me some
exercises so that I could do them myself.
Our exercise session was one
hour, with her doing most of the talking and leading me through some exercises
in my basement rec room. I remember it was very uncomfortable and embarrassing,
and I didn’t say much. I couldn’t do one push up. But she was SO encouraging
and so positive, I thought, well maybe I should stick with this.
We met one hour each Thursday
night, and it seemed like a LOT of work. I would drag myself up the stairs at
the end, dripping with sweat. And Cynthia was always at the top of the stairs
in the kitchen, wanting to hear how it went, with a proud look on her face. I
love that look! And Myra would tell her in glowing terms how well I did. It was
a little embarrassing to hear, but I eventually got to like it.
Myra and I did that for six
months, until, at some point, it just seemed like part of my weekly routine. At
that point, we added a second hour on Monday nights. Something weird happened.
I started looking forward to our sessions. That was new! And Myra and Cynthia
continued to cheer me on, so I just worked all the harder.
At the new year, 2009, Myra
asked me again to set a goal. I said (and I honestly have no idea where this
came from) that I would like to try jogging. I’ve seen people in my
neighborhood doing it, and they look like they are having fun. But again, I had
to admit I didn’t know something--I had no idea how to run! Fortunately, I own
a treadmill, so Myra said, "No problem, I will talk you through it." And after we
cleared all the hanging clothes off the treadmill, dusted it off and plugged it
in, she had me up on it and talked me through the basics of a running stride.
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| Rik "after" |
Myra and I started dedicating
the beginning of each of our sessions to treadmill time, and after about six
weeks, I was able to go a mile without stopping. It took 14 minutes, but it was
a mile. I remember Myra asking me how I felt, and I said I felt like I could do
anything. And I meant it! It was the best feeling!
Not long after that, I started
training for my first 5k, three months away, in March. I remember showing up that
day VERY self-conscious and nervous, thinking everyone around me could tell
that I was new to this, that I didn’t belong there. My goal was to run the
whole distance without needing to stop and walk. And I did it. Another victory,
and this time, the feeling of being able to do anything lasted all weekend.
From there, I was hooked. I set
a new running goal every three months, eventually leading to my first marathon
in October of 2010. I was running on my own multiple days per week, and I LOVED
my training. Myra tweaked our sessions to complement the running. I even took
up yoga to help build flexibility, to help with the running. I built distance
and speed, and confidence. And I met a bunch of new friends along the way,
including a whole Ragnar team.
And the weight just FELL off. (You
can watch it happen on fast-forward in a little video at the end of this post). I
dropped 90 pounds, and all the ill health effects I
was suffering have vanished. My blood pressure dropped 30 points, my cholesterol
dropped 100 points. My doctor was amazed. No more medication, no more staying
home while everyone goes out to have fun.
My weight settled at about 185. At that point, I just
maintained for about a year to make sure I was truly done. In September of
2011, I went in to consult with a plastic surgeon about the extra skin around my
midsection, and he confirmed that I indeed just had skin there, that there wasn’t
fat there anymore. It was hard to believe, because what I saw in the mirror
just didn’t match what I hearing. But I booked the surgery for December of 2011,
again deciding to trust the expert.
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Rik was EXTREMELY nervous to post this picture, but I told
him he looks fantastic and has nothing to be ashamed of.
Now he doesn't even look like he was ever overweight! |
Cynthia stumbled across Katie’s blog while researching the weight
loss skin removal surgery. I was shocked. Katie and I had been on a common path
for a couple years, and here she was having the same surgery as me, just three
weeks ahead of me. Her honest and detailed account
helped me tremendously. It was like looking three weeks into my own future. Katie’s
blog was more informative than anything else I had read, or even what I had
heard from the surgeon.
While I was laid up for six
weeks recovering, I reached out to Katie to thank her. And we hit upon this
idea to put together a Ragnar relay team made up of people with stories like
ours. You’ll be hearing a LOT more about this project as it develops, on Katie’s
blog, on our team’s
Facebook page, and hopefully a lot of other places!
As I write this, I am a few
weeks away from running my fourth marathon. I’ve decided to set a lifetime goal
to run a marathon in every state, and so my next one is June 23 in Anchorage,
Alaska. My brother lives there and he hasn’t seen me in person in about three years.
The person I was five years ago
would not recognize me anymore. And at last, I finally know I will never go
back. I’ve worked too hard and I feel too good to go back. And I got so much
help getting here, I feel strongly about helping others achieve success. Instead
of going back, it’s now time to pay it forward.
The boxes come with five bars each. Naturally, I tried the Chocolatey Peanut Butter flavor first. The size of the bar was nothing to write home about--small enough that the calories are easy to fit into your daily allowance, but big enough to satisfy a sweet craving.
I was impressed with the taste! I actually liked it more than I expected to. When I was losing weight, I used to eat the Fiber One bars, and this reminded me of those bars. I won't try and fool anyone into thinking this is "health food", however... ;)
But I've never pretended to be a purist when it comes to food, and I'm not above eating processed ingredients sometimes if it satisfies a craving and helps me to stay on track for the long term. The nutrition info isn't too bad, and it's easy to fit into a daily calorie allowance:
I really liked the Dark Chocolate flavor as well--probably just as much as the peanut butter one. 
