As I was sorting through old pictures yesterday (getting ready to post new progress pictures), I came across this quickly fading memory:
My wife took this picture of me in October of 2008. I was tipping the scale at close to 350 pounds (though I didn’t know it at the time) and I was extremely obese living an unhealthy lifestyle. This was a lifestyle that was going to end with me dying in 30 20 10 years weighing 500+ pounds.
I want to give you a glimpse into my lifestyle before 344 Pounds:
The above picture was taken at Chili’s on October 11, 2008. It was sent through my iPhone to Facebook as a mobile upload, which is how I have a timestamp of the picture. I asked my wife to take a picture of me as I wanted a new (emo, apparently) picture for my Facebook profile. We took about 50 different shots because it was hard finding a picture that I was happy with.
It was hard taking a shot that hid all the fat on my face (notice the hands).
Once our Glamour Shots session was over it was time to pick my poison, so to speak. While I can’t recall what it was the night the above picture was taken, it was always either sweet tea or soda, depending on what I was in the mood for for that particular meal. Both sugar drinks are roughly 150 calories or so a glass — I’m sure I had at least 2 or 3 refills that visit, as I always did.
That’s at least 450 calories.
Once my drink arrived, the appetizer would soon follow. I’d always order a serving of southwestern egg rolls (delicious, but 810 calories). My wife would have a couple, but I’d eat the remaining 600 calories.
We’re up to 1,050 calories and the main course hasn’t even arrived.
Ah, but here it comes: chicken crispers. Strips of chicken battered and fried, served with french fries, corn on the cob and honey mustard. Mmm, this is so good I think I might die.
Calories in Chili’s chicken crispers? 1,880 calories.
That brings the total calories I had for dinner over 3,000. It wouldn’t be so bad (okay, it’d still be bad) to enjoy this type of food if it was only once in a while and you went to the gym for 3 hours shortly afterward.
But it wasn’t. And I didn’t.
I lived an unhealthy lifestyle that created the selfish 350 pound man you see in the picture above. I don’t recognize him, nor do I have a shred of respect for him — he was consciously making choices on a daily basis to kill himself. All of the comfort and pleasure he derived from food was more important to him than the desire and desperate pleading of the people around him to simply not die.
Granted, the guy in that picture is dead. That unhealthy lifestyle is dead, too.
I’m all that’s left.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Thats good! I would like to see more recent photos of you.
Yeah, me too! I totally agree though, the old habits that I had before I started losing weight were just ridiculous. You could also say that I had an unhealthy lifestyle — shockingly bad!!
It sounds as if the same things are on our minds. This is very similar in topic to my post that I am preparing for today. Keep up your good work!
Thanks guys!
I still can’t get over the feeling that we really used to hate ourselves in those days… Thank you for always being such an inspiration!
I don’t hate who I used to be, I hate my actions.
Hey, I remember that day. We were talking about the baby. I was pregnant, but we didn’t know if she was a girl or a boy at that time. That was a good day. I loved you then. I love you now. ;-)
A great post, man. I often think back on the really bad choices I was making to get to nearly 300lbs, and just shake my head. We’re the lucky ones, because we figured it out in time to fix it. And it sounds like many of us who go through this develop a strong desire – almost an obsession – to help others who have the same struggle. Thanks for doing what you do, Tyler. You’re changing peoples’ lives!
What strikes me the most about this is the reality that eating a meal like that with an appetizer and four sodas? Is “normal” in our country for so many people. If you said, yeah I went to Applebees (or whatever) and we had an appetizer & meal, no one would think it was weird. Yet, when you count up the calories & ramifications on health, it totally is a big deal, and it’s WAY too much.
“I lived an unhealthy lifestyle that created the selfish 350 pound man you see in the picture above. I don’t recognize him, nor do I have a shred of respect for him — he was consciously making choices on a daily basis to kill himself. ”
You are a gifted and compelling writer, and what you are accomplishing with this blog (both for yourself and for others) is outstanding. Keep it going!
Dan
Casual Kitchen
Hi Tyler,
I found your blog linked from Yoni Freedhoff’s blog and I’m SO impressed with the progress you’ve made! Keep up the good work :)
Mmmmmm sweet tea. You’re such an inspiration Tyler, but pleeeeease smile in your next picture :) Seriously, you keep me on track with this blog…. thanks!
Will – you still read my blog?
Daniel – thanks, Daniel!
Rachael — it is scary, isn’t it?
Vincci – thanks for reading!
Coryad – no :)
While people need to be held accountable for their own actions, and while it is not asking much for people to understand their own bodies, I get frustrated with these chain restaurants for trying to suggest that eating a full meal while their guest is a totally average thing to do. People do need to learn how their own bodies work – calories in, calories out – but don’t you wish restaurants would step up to the plate and generate reasonable portions cooked in a healthy way? Certainly they’d save money by serving less food!
I recently visited Las Vegas for the first time, and was downright appalled – NO one needs to eat burgers and sandwiches and servings that large.
Good choice of haircut update as well.
@kate, eating a full meal as their guest IS the average thing to do. The average thing not to do is do it every night. Like Tyler said, it’s the once in a while and go to the gym later to make up for it, not the every night and then collapse into bed/couch/computer chair with a food coma.
Maybe I should say @other kate? Bleh.
Thanks for the blog. I am on my own weight loss journey. Starting at 290 I am now down to 260 in 2 months. I started using EA sports active, having recently completed the 30 day challenge along with some bowflex 2-3x a week. I am now moving to power 90. I like the challenge goals (30/60/90 days) and have been including healthy lifestyle activities (geocaching, kayaking). I been using your playlist for my workouts *THANKS!*. I also have been keeping around 1800-2000 cal a day eating healthier but not all health food. Keep up the good work and see you at 200.
Wow…The Scariest part of this post is that this is me; well add 50 pounds (topping the Scale @ 402) and I am the same guy. My friends and I would go to are local food chain Hangout and I would order a pitcher of pop or ice tea for myself as I felt that the waiters couldn’t refill it enough. Then just two or three Apps, as they were half price. Every one of my friends would get a kick out of it and it was a normal Friday / Saturday night for us, every week.
This Blog has really opened my eyes; I tried to change at the beginning of the year and failed. But seeing that it is possible to lose weight but someone like me, I’ve put my foot down. I’m starting a new day, So to speak. Thank you for helping me realize what needs to be done and keep up the good work.
Eating out and eating healthy do not go hand in hand, it’s quite a challenge. I have been cooking at home way more than I used to using as many raw, unprocessed ingredients as possible.
I remember going to UNO’s and eating an order of pizza skins, (2,050 calories and 48 grams of saturated fat!!) and then an entire pizza by myself.
I started small by switching from regular soda to diet. then I started cutting out the really bad junk food. now “junk food” is rice cakes. now I need to start working out. moving incrementally for me is working because it’s a change in lifestyle, not a “diet” If you can do it, so can I.
I read this and started crying. You are (were) my husband. He’s 31 and very near 400 pounds. I’m terrified that he is going to leave me by dying. He works a high stress technological job where he is on a computer 14 hours a day. He eats crap. (His bad luck for marring a crunchy granola hippie.) He does not exercise. Since we’ve been married, his clothes have gone up a size. There’s so much more that I see that concerns me.
I just wish he would make himself a priority for once.