The Journey Begins

I know this will not be an easy journey; it will require dedication, sacrifice, discipline, and planning. But I am not travelling this road alone. I have the support of my family. My parents have offered to help in any way they can. And I know their moral support will be a key to my success. I also am looking to my brother. He has struggled with weight his whole life. But he is an inspiration. When he was in college, he weighed in at about 380 pounds at his heaviest. But with discipline and support, he dropped over 180 pounds prior to the birth of their son.

I have also tried to approach this process with forethought and diligence.

First I committed myself to the task. While it was an easy decision to lose weight, the commitment to the task required much more time. Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight, especially a lot of it, knows the amount of work that goes into the process. More than once, I have tried to lose weight, but would eventually fail because I couldn’t make the long term commitment. There would be some success, but the weight would not come off as fast as I thought it should, and would quit. So with this decision, I took a lot of time to prepare myself mentally for the task. In December, I began to think about the process, and what it would take to reach the goals. It took over four months of mental preparation and planning to get to the point of actually making the change in my life.

Next, I informed my family my goals. Of course, they support me in the decision. My mother and her sister have both fought weight their whole lives and understand the struggles of trying to lose weight, while still living life. Dad, on the other hand, has never dealt with the struggles of weight, but having two sons who have battled weight, he has seen what limitations obesity can have on a person.

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Introduction and Goal

My name is Petey, and I am FAT.

Allow me to further explain, I am a 26 year old farm boy from West Central Illinois. I tend to tower over most people at 6’-4”, but I also weigh 464 pounds.

My entire life I have been “big,” for as long as I can remember. At the age of four when I was in preschool I was bigger than everyone else, and it has only progressed from there. By third grade, I weighed 130 pounds.

I remember this because it was one of the first times in my life where I understood how big I was. During class one day, I believe the lesson was on weights and measures. The discussion turned to how thing of different size or shape can have similar weights. As the teacher was making her explanation, she began to talk about her size and weight. A tall, thin woman, she stands somewhere between 5’-10” and 6’ and thin as a rail, 120 pounds. She asked if anyone in class was about that weight. Everyone looked at me. So I got to go to the front of the class and be part of an explanation about how people and objects can have similar weights, but be shaped differently.

In Junior High School, I wanted to play football. Seventh grade was fun, but in eighth grade, it really started to become obvious to me that I was really big. When we were getting equipment, there was no helmet to fit my head. So the coach sends me to talk to the high school Varsity coach. He had a helmet that would fit. I required the biggest helmet in all the varsity equipment. A helmet too even big for any of the high school players. Four years later, I played football again for my senior year, and when I was getting my equipment, there was no helmet for me, they were all too small. I had to go find the helmet I had used in eighth grade again.

Quite frankly, I am sick and tired. I am tired of being the big guy who people feel sorry for. I am tired of having to worry about what furniture I sit on for fear of breaking it, especially at someone’s house. I am tired of the back pain that goes with carrying this much weight. I am tired of always having to worry about when I am going to have blood pressure or cholesterol problems. I am tired of the constant joint pain. I am tired of being too big to fit into chairs at concerts, or on airplanes, or buses. I am tired of being the big lumbery guy. I am tired of getting winded after climbing a couple flights of stairs.

But I am going to change all this. I have made the commitment. I am going to change my life. I will be able to run and play with my dog. I will play baseball with my nephew. I will be able to hunt the grasslands for pheasants all day, or be able to go all day hunting elk or bear.

The Goal

So I have my task in front of me. From 464 pounds to my goal of 245, I am going to travel this road to become happier and healthier.

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Welcom to my journey

Welcome to my journey.

One morbidly obese man who has made a commitment to himself to "change his stars."

I don't know how ofter I will post here, and it doesn't really matter. The point of this blog is to serve as a journal of my progress, and a place where I can hold myself accountable.


There will be periodic progress reports, weigh-ins, and measurements, etc. There will probably be pictures. They will probably embarrass me, but it is something I have to do for me. And no level of embarrassment from said pictures can compare to what it has been already in my life.

In the next couple of days, I will be writing an entry to explain who I am and where I am coming from.
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