Elyk's Journey

E

elyk

New member
I was always the skinny guy right up until I hit my thirties. Married, kids, content with my life and having a physical job, I never really had any issues. Then it happened. I was injured on the job with a hip injury and my life became very sedentary.

10 years later, here I am. Wow, 10 years. I am now self employed and the hip is probably as good as it is ever going to get. I have actually not had any pain in it for quite some time come to think of it. Now I am constantly refered to as the 'big guy'.

Anyways, I am overweight, tired all of the time, absolutely no energy to do anything around the house, with the kids, or even for myself. Quite a disappointment I have become. My life sucks and my family does not desrve this. I know who I am, who I want to be and how I want to carry myself throughout the rest of my life but this current situation I find myself in needs to change.... and it is about to.

So... overweight, smoke, no excercise, no cares with my diet. Truly sad. I am at 271lbs now and my goal is to get down to 190lbs in the end... I should say before I get to the end.

The journey begins right here, right now. I am looking forward to what Part II in my life will bring me.

I have to say.... I am greatly inspired by many people here, been through a lot of the before and during posts and I am very impressed. I am going to count on you to keep that fire burning underneath me hot.

Cheers!

My stats:
Height: 6' 3"
Current Weight: 271
Target Weight: 190
Current BMI: 33.9
Target BMI: < 20.0
 
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Hi Elyk! :waving:

You have a very unusual name! May I ask, are you a woman? It's just I've never heard that name before and you mentioned a few things that make me tip you either way... Please forgive me!

It's amazing how quickly we can go from being active to sedentary, isn't it? But also just as amazing how we can go from sedentary to active, and fit! I wish you all the best on this journey and I'm sure if you keep frequenting this site you will reach your goal!

Cheers! :)
 
Haha, I guess I never actually stated what sex I was ;) I am a guy. Elyk is just Kyle backwards.

I am definitely looking forward to being active and frequenting this site for the support!
 
Thanks, Emiko. I checked out your site, really interesting read! I have it bookmarked now.

Day 1 is over. I did not work out today but I intended it to be that way. I spent most of my time researching calories and tracking today's intake. I have an allergy to pectin so I can not eat most common fruits. Learning what others will give me the best bang for the buck ;)

I stayed within my calorie limit and did not find it too hard to do in the end. I still have room for a slice of meat and carrots if the hunger man shows up.

Cheers!
 
On my way now... had to get a few things in order I found before I could begin to focus on my sefl. Priorities mainly. Anyways, down 4 now and on track to where I want to be. Going to be a fun summer now!
 
elyk said:
On my way now... had to get a few things in order I found before I could begin to focus on my sefl. Priorities mainly. Anyways, down 4 now and on track to where I want to be. Going to be a fun summer now!
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Hello Elyk - I'm new here but just wanted to say Hi and congratulations on your weight loss!!
Good luck.

Sallybean
 
Well, here I am. Time to babble but my anonymity here is secure for the most part I suppose but I don't think that would be an issue in the end anyways.

It has been about 6 weeks since my last post. Time flies doesn't it. I am back to where I started. Busy with summer, busy with family, busy with friends, a beer here, two or more beers there. I need to be who I am and climb out of this hole I find my self in.

I am about to get a bit personal here, but I need to. I do not wish to turn to close friends, at least not yet. I will though in time, I am sure. Sure, some of it is not "physical" but, perhaps it has not helped.

My wife, a beautiful lady who I have known now for almost 17 years and married to for 14, mother of my two wonderful boys (and a third is hers whom I love dearly) , has ventured down a trail that has caused me great unease and finally tonight, crossed that line. I love her, she is my life and I love everything she has given to me but for the past few years, things just felt different. Maybe it was my weight, who I was... maybe it was who she is, or who she was. Not too sure but I know where and what I need to do for me.

Now some may say "WOW", not here dude, but you know, I get so much out of this site that only one can imagine and for some reason, right now, this is the time and place to get it out. Maybe because I work within the Internet/IT field I have realized there is more to the community here than what I experience in so many other "areas" of the Internet.

I know, I am babbling. Let me.

Anyways, for some time now, I have been overweight. I weigh in at 271lbs when a healthy weight for me is a good 80lbs lighter. This does not and has not stopped me from providing for my family, caring for them or giving them a life and a lifestyle that I never enjoyed when I was a kid. We have three wonderful children spread out over 14 years that I love dearly. I also love my wife.

Sure, we have had our problems like anyone else, but they have not been severe in anyway nor detrimental to our relatiuonship. If fact, I thought they made us stronger.

It started out as friendship, moved to flirting but now my wife is sharing some things that I never knew, had imagined, or crossed my mind with someone she went to highschool with and has reconnected via a "social" web site.

Don't ask how I know, my suspicions were awaken a couple of months back and I went from there. I have not confronted her, and will not for now, not yet at least. I do know, that after tonight, there needs to be some "me focus".

It just sucks.

Some questions were asked, topics discussed and the innuendo is strongly in place. What bothers me most, and what has opened my eyes to the fact it is time to put me first is the simple statement in a reply she gave that she would not have "the children she has now" if things were different. Ohhh, this is hard to get acrosss through a keyboard. Bascially, she is happy she has the lovely kids she has but nothing about anything else. It hit home.

Maybe I will delete this post after i re-read it. It is probably just a bunch of confusing sentences but this is how it is all coming our right now.

It hit me that "hey, she is not happy" then it finally punched me in the face. "I am not happy either". Not with her, but with who I am. Time to deal with me. Face on.

Who knows where or how things will go from here with the lady that I have truely loved so dearly and have shared so much with over many years. Who knows. We were strong once, maybe this is just a falter. I do not know. One thing for sure, is I am not strong any more. I don't think I can take on any sort of thing that may come from this as the person who sits here and writes this tonight.

I really do not want to regret anything in my life. I truly don't. But for some strange reason I do know if I do not change - yes mentally too - physically I am not going to be happy with myself. Who knows what the outcome may be between my wife and I but I do know how I want to feel about myself in the end. If it makes me stronger, than good.

The journey finally starts here.



I might as well bare it all here too. Yea, nothing special but there is a nice, loving and once cute guy under all that fat.
 
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Wow.
Well done for being honest... with us and your self. Its something that lots of people have trouble doing.
Having said that I agree that some things are private and its good to share them with 'anonymous internet people', rather than with the people you see face to face every day.

It's just the continuation of a long journey, but the start of an important part.

Good luck
 
I agree with the above post - sometimes the annonymity of the internet lets you get more feelings out than you would with friends.

I won't comment much on your family situation - it seems that your internet pals will just have to wait and see how things pan out.

Don't beat yourself up much about being "back where you started" with your weight though - a lot of us do that , a million times before we get it right! For example, I lost 15lbs and was 3 lbs away from my goal weight, went on a 3 week trip and had gained it all back, plus an added 2 lbs. I'd worked very hard to begin with, and blew it all away with a vacation. Now I'm worse off than where I started, but I KNOW I can do this, and so can you!

My biggest weight loss advice is to have a plan - plan your food, plan your exercise - make it all very reasonable, and stick to it - don't revise it when you get frustrated - come online when you get frustrated, lol.

You can do this - you know you can

Nicole
 
Hello Elyk,
I'm sorry to hear that you and your family are going through a rough time.
I hope everything works out for the best.

Take care,

Sallybean
 
Elyk,

This is absolutely the perfect place to bring your issue! You are experiencing stress, and my experience with individuals wanting to lose weight is that they turn to eating as a coping mechanism in such times. Your desire to get real with your situation and deal with it, will help your waistline (your weight issue is just a physical manifestation--a symptom--of your thinking). I am actually very excited for you (I realize I may be in the minority here), because what you are going through is the stuff growth is made of. Pure gold.

In coaching terms you are in "square 1" of the change cycle. What this means is that at least one area of your life is unraveling and you may feel you are a little (or a lot!) lost. This is actually very encouraging, your wife and what you perceive about her right now is providing a very important catalytic event--it's causing you to go inward and realize something incredibly important: you need to focus on you (as you have said). In order to truly change and grow, we need to dissolve some old patterns, habits and beliefs we have about ourselves, others and life. Think about it, how many people have you known that have made profound and positive change without having their world rocked? When we are content and things are going more or less smoothly, the motivation to change and grow is pretty low--we adopt a "if ain't broke don't fix it" or "don't rock the boat" attitude. Tell me where I'm wrong, but it sounds like you would have been content treading water with your current situation (even though "for the past few years, things just felt different.") instead of swimming along at a nice clip by improving your situation. Change can be scary. It definitely rocks the boat.

That's why catalytic events happen to us, so we can shed our old habits and beliefs to move forward, to be the amazing, brilliant people we are under all the unserving doubts and fear. Of course you know you are a cute, loving guy under all the yucky belief systems you've got floating around in your mind--they need to go, they are holding you back. The good news is once you really question your thoughts (which comprise belief systems), the crappy thoughts will start to leave you and you will be left with the truth (cute, loving guy who has so much to contribute to the world). Stage 2, btw, gets you to a place where you can dream big and actually name your goals--AND you will be in a place to act on them. Square 1, which is where you are with your marriage, is all about grieving and disbelieving (your crappy thoughts), until you do that part, you will never be able to fully enjoy the dreaming big process (and you so don't want to miss out on that, it's just too fun!), you'll get thrown back into square 1 again (yes, square 1 generally sucks for most people). When I say grieve and disbelieve, all this means is that you fully process that whatever you had with your wife is dead and gone--I have no idea what this means for your future: maybe you both move on from each other, maybe out of this period you both emerge as a stronger, more solid couple. But there is work to be done for sure on your part. It's actually none of your business (certainly isn't mine!), what you have to accept is that you have the situation at hand (don't have to like it, either, just acknowledge that's where you are), you can work on making the next moment better for you (and yay! for recognizing that you absolutely need to focus on you--so much power in asserting that, it IS the truth).

To help you dissolve some of the crappy thoughts you are most likely suffering from, I highly recommend you check out , it's free and super powerful. I use it on myself regularly, it's excellent mental hygiene :)

Also, I want to add, that you cannot control how another person thinks, feels or acts. Your wife is on her own journey and needs to figure out her own stuff, your job is to focus on your own inner work (which I'm seeing you totally get). Stay in your business. Love feels and tastes like freedom and peace; clinging feels and tastes like oppression and anxiety. The moment you NEED something from someone else, is the moment you surrender your power to them. Your loving cute self deserves way better than that, boyfriend.

Thanks for this very real post. Another important thing you must do in Square 1 is to take very good care of yourself. Comfort and nurture you, wrap yourself up in cocoon (literally!) and lavish self-care on you. You will have nothing to offer others until you fill yourself up first. Think of a caterpillar in his cocoon getting ready to emerge as a drop-dead gorgeous butterfly--that's where you're at right now, in a cocoon dissolving into person soup (this is what happens in a butterfly, fascinating!) getting ready to be a gorgeous butterfly. I know it doesn't feel great right now, but getting through it will bring you there. It's so worth it.

We're here for ya Elyk. You are awesome! Take care of you and post again if it gives you relief.

XOXO
Emiko
 
Emiko, I just wanted to say without leaving you hanging. I have read and re-read your post several times over the last 12 hours. Gonna swallow it up here a bit, but girl, you can be blunt. Not in how you wrote your reply but how it hits ones self when they take it all in. I may need to get myself a ticket out to California! ;-)

The situation is developing, but the best part is, so am I. I will write more over the weekend and I truly appreciate, seriously, the thoughts you guys have shared here with me. I will be stronger in the end. The environment may be different, but the best part is, so will I.
 
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Hahaha, I coach by phone, too, but you know you can always hit me up here for help :)

Glad to hear you are learning much from your current situation, that's what happens when you really listen to you. Just keep taking care of your needs and don't forget to catch any crappy not-so-good feeling thoughts that come up for you and question, question, question them. If you need any help with The Work, just holler :)
 
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