Waking Up and Pursuing a Dream
It was summer 2010, I was just trying to run and play with my two-year-old daughter when I felt a pain on my right knee. I knew I was overweight (with 280 lbs at that time) and running was not really a good idea for me. I went to the doctor and he said I had osteoarthritis due my obesity. We started with a treatment (fluid injection) to alleviate the pain but ultimately I needed to lose weight. That was the point I realized I had to change. Unfortunately, the real change didn’t start until Fall 2011 when an old friend of mine invited me to see him competing at the Heart of Texas in Dallas. The interesting thing about this invitation was that I introduced to this guy to a gym in 2007 and four years later he was inviting me to watch his debut. I was super excited about him and also felt a big motivation to pursue an old dream that I had when I was teenager: compete in a bodybuilding show.
During this competition, this friend of mine introduced me to Greg McCoy, owner of the Metroflex Plano and we started working together on a lifestyle change (because I really don’t like calling diet – either you change your lifestyle or you will probably fail to maintain down the road). We started making changes on my nutrition plan, which included six meals a day with three hours interval in between meals. For the first year, my calorie intake was about 1800 per day. My training routine also changed a lot by focusing on one single muscle group per day and finishing the training with 30 minutes cardio (I had one rest day per week). I was clearly losing weight faster than I expected – my metabolism was working hard and I was getting results every week. However, keeping up with the daily routine when you are on the road seems to be one of the biggest challenge that many people face, including me. That, and also time management, make it difficult to get things that you need while traveling and the right time. So I started to look for some alternatives to keep my daily calorie intake while on the road. It was during this time that I first tried a Quest Bar. I never really liked any protein bar because of the after taste, the high amount of carbs, and sugar. However, when I tried Quest Cinnamon Roll protein bar, I was amazed by the flavor and the nutritional facts, mainly the high protein value and for having no sugar. Since I really like chocolate, I also tried the Chocolate Brownie flavor and immediately said to myself: I don’t need to try anyone else, this is it! Since this day, Quest Bar became part of my nutrition plan and it definitely helps.
Well, first year was taught but I managed to lose 100 lbs and got to 180, my lowest weight since I was 18. I felt like I recovered twenty years in one year – it was an awesome feeling! While the result of the first year was great, the journey is still in progress. To read more about how this journey is going, see a recent article that I wrote: The Difficult Task of Starting before the Starting Line.
Enjoy your journey and good luck!
By Yuri Diogenes (@yuridiogenes)
IT Professional – Candidate for Master of Science in Cybersecurity
