Diet & Fitness: Weight Loss: Weight-Loss Success Stories:

 Gregg N.

 When I was a little boy I was relatively skinny, then from third grade on I became chubby. My parents were very accommodating when I was I child because they were both thin, so they let me eat whatever I wanted such as fast foods and sweets. I had an awful sweet tooth. I loved chocolates, ice cream, and junk food. My biggest bane though, was soda pop. I drank at least two, two-liter bottles of pop a day as a boy. My diet consisted of mostly sugary products as a kid and I ate in excess. I had a massive appetite. I wasn’t lazy though. I always played sports, but my metabolism couldn’t keep up with my appetite. In high school I was a football player. I was a defensive and offensive tackle on the line, so the weight was essential to my success as a football player. By the end of my senior year I was burnt out from the rigors of sports so I had decided to never exercise again. That was a big mistake because I went from a pretty muscular 265 to a blobbish 285 pounds.

 In the summer time after I had graduated high school I went to Disney World with my family for the first time in my life. My very sweet aunt pointed out to me the excess in which I drank pop at dinner one night. I blew it off like it was completely normal because it always had been normal. Then we got the photos developed from the trip and I was horrified at what I saw. Never in my entire life did I look so bloated and heavy. I felt it was time for me to make a major life change.

 For the first time in my life, after four months of being a lazy blob I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to be active and slim, so that was when I began to do massive research on how to lose weight. I was used to a workout regimen of putting on mass and bulking up; never in my life had I done the opposite, so it was really exciting to try something new. My former football coach and my best friend Marc pointed me in the right direction and put me on a low-carbohydrate diet, which consisted of eating high amounts of protein, and abstaining from anything that was white, such as flour, sugar, most dairy, and potatoes. I ate meat, fruits, vegetables, wheat bread, and drank excessive amounts of water. I eliminated almost all sweets for a long time, and most importantly, soda pop. I stopped eating after 9 p.m., ate three meals a day of half the portion of food I had eaten in the past. Also, Subway became my new favorite place to eat. I had a foot-long sweet onion chicken teriyaki at least four times a week for lunch (that Jared guy has nothing on me). As far as exercise went, I went on an extensive cardio regimen. I started running a 10-minute mile six days a week then worked my way up to three to five miles, six days a week. Finally, I bought "Sly Moves," Sylvester Stallone’s workout book, and started using his weightlifting regimen as my own. Between the research I did on Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger's weight-lifting techniques I dropped a little over 100 pounds in a year and cut down to a slender 178. That was the lightest I had ever weighed as an adult, so I stopped there. It was an amazing transformation and was intensely fun to watch. Never in my life did I think such a good-looking guy would be under that chubby face.

 My self-esteem and physical appearance have been the key to my success. I don't mean to sound vain but after I saw what was underneath all of that fat, I vowed never to allow myself to become that overweight again. I was in love with the new me. It is truly a beautiful thing to feel good about yourself and your physical appearance. Especially if you spent most of your life dreading the way you looked. Let this be a testament to anyone who needs motivation. I'm not a super athlete, and I don't have a naturally fast metabolism. If a regular Joe like me could drop all that weight, than anyone can do it. All it takes is a positive attitude and the right motivation. I hated exercise in the beginning, but then I grew to love it, and so can anyone else.

 My sweet tooth and love of food are always constant thorns in my side. What can I say, I love to eat. My ultimate motivation though is age. Did you ever see those 90-year-old guys running around your neighborhood looking fit as a fiddle? Well, I want to be one of those guys. I want to be like Sylvester Stallone, who is over 60 and is more ripped than I'll probably ever be. If these people can do it, so can I. I hope to be like them when I'm their age.

 I'm an experimenter. For the past year I started purposefully packing on the pounds again because I felt too skinny, and I bulked up. But I started getting lazy again and using the bulking up as an excuse to eat excessively. So I had to re-evaluate my goals and start focusing again. Setbacks are tough, but you just have to keep on trying. You have to try and stay disciplined and just keep your eye on the prize and everything else will fall into place.

 The first time I looked down in the mirror and saw that I had a six-pack was a moment of ecstasy. There is something truly wonderful about being able to see your abs for the first time. I looked at my body in the mirror and thought "Damn you look good," and I haven't looked back since.