Guest Post

Brand Sloan:
My whole life I have pretty much been over weight. Ever since my family got our first Nintendo I have been a big guy. Then I served a mission and without a whole lot of effort I was able to lose a lot of weight while in Alaska... I was "in-shape" for about 2 full years until I met and married Diedre. She ended up getting pregnant and with her cravings I decided to eat as if I were eating for two as well. That first pregnancy Diedre and I each gained 60 lbs. Unfortunately for me she lost about 35 lbs instantly on the 7th of July 2008, and I was stuck up near 300 lbs. In my mind I just got complacent and even though I knew I was fat Diedre always told me that she thought I wasn't and that I was sexy. So I got no motivation from myself or my spouse. Here I just want to point out that encouraging your spouse to be fit,exercise, and not have 3 helpings at every meal is not selfish and should not be construed as malicious. Diedre and I over the last 6 months have really realized that a marriage is all about helping each other become better people, and telling them that they are "PERFECT just the way they are" is unproductive and quite frankly lying!!

So 6 months ago Diedre came across this blog at mixersnutrition.blogspot.com and we decided to give it a chance. I had a goal of losing 35 lbs in the first 8 weeks and over the course of the next year to get back to my wedding day weight of 220 lbs. I started my weight loss journey at 306 lbs (the biggest I have ever been in my life). The most important changes that I feel that I made in my life was that of my diet. I decided to rather than focus on one specific "main stream diet" to lose weight by simply counting calories that I ate and burned on a daily basis. I limited myself to 1400 calories over the course of each day. For me consistency was crucial to my success. So I began each day with a bowl of red berries special K cereal, a piece of fruit between breakfast and lunch, a 300 calorie "lean gourmet" for lunch, and about 700 calories (about one helping) of whatever Diedre happened to make for dinner that night. Other huge changes that we made was cutting out most red meats and replacing them with ground turkey, implementing vegetables into every meal that we made (excluding breakfast) and cutting out desserts entirely. As far as exercise is concerned we made goals of going on walks around the block as after dinner family activities, we all bought running shoes for Christmas last year to help with this, we would do lifts, push-ups, sit-ups, and danced while we listened to music at night or even while watching "The Biggest Loser" on Tuesday nights!!!

After two "8 Week Challenges" Diedre ended up losing about 12 lbs. (However now she is pregnant with our third and is now gaining healthy weight rather than losing:) And I lost a total of 58 lbs. So much of my success is owed to the Schwabs... for the last 4 years I have known I was over weight and needed to change something, but the answer was always, "tomorrow"!!! Thanks to mixers nutrition and the encouragement that they give on their site I have chosen now to get healthy. It is so much fun being able to run around with my two sons and not feel trapped by my own body. Thanks again mixers nutrition and keep up the good work...