The picture on the left is from June 27, 2016, the one on the right is from today June 27, 2018.
Now, I know I haven't lost the most weight in the fastest amount of time, or the most progress ever, but this is the first time in my life I had the goal to lose weight and have been able to do it and keep it off. The picture on the left I was 272lbs and on the right now I was 214lbs this morning. That's not the least I've weighed since I started this journey either.
This all started exactly two years ago, when one day I woke up and looked in the mirror and realized I was getting heavier, and step on the scale for the first time in a long time. Looking down and seeing a weight that was 20 lbs heavier than one I had ever seen before, I realized something needed to change. Right after seeing that number, I went and took the picture on the left. I knew that something had to change and this time it needed to stick.
At that point in my life everything was falling into place. I was on track to have my biggest month in Real Estate ever, I was dating the girl I thought I was going to marry, and everything was going well. My dad came to me about two days later, without me telling him that I was trying to lose weight, but he offered me $5,000 if I on Christmas Day I could get on a scale and be under 221lbs. Now at the time I knew nothing about how hard it is to maintain weight loss, or that it was virtually impossible for me to achieve that goal, but it was something to strive for.
Now it seemed like I was about to have the perfect life, with a great career, great girl, more money than ever, but that was all about to change. With in a week the girl that I thought I was going to marry just up and disappeared. She stopped responding to me, no explanation, no call, no text, nothing. The girl I was falling head over heels with, "the one", was just gone and out of my life. Nothing in my life had ever been so painful. Hurt beyond belief, I made it through the next week just focusing on work and going to the gym.
Then, less than two weeks later, my biggest buyer I had ever dealt with who was planning on buying 3 properties from me called. Two days before my biggest closing ever, I answered the phone to a wife saying 'Kyle. My husband died this morning, I can't live in this house without him. You have to get me out of this.' And just like that I lost $30k in potential commissions. I was devastated. After already having hard times in Real Estate, it just kept taking blows at me. I knew a friend of the wife, and after everything I called to ask what happened to the husband, just needing closure on how he died. The friend told me that he had taken his own life.
These two events wrecked my life for the next months. I quit doing Real Estate, not being able to take the swings of it. I fell to rock bottom. I had never been so low in my life. I went through a deep depression, and the only thing I had to live for was the goal that was set before me to lose weight. I went 3 months without a job, and the only thing I did was workout.
When people say working out is a therapy, they aren't lying. I will be the first to tell you, that the only thing that got me out of my depression was working out! It saved my life. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have the gym to look forward to every day. I know that I have not made the most progress, but I will say that I am so happy with the progress I have made because it is lasting progress, and it is progress that saved me.
