Posted on 01/01/2006 8:12:14 AM PST by Ninian Dryhope
Until Jim Bishop shows off his "before" pictures, his story is almost impossible to believe. Before was the summer of 2003: 31 years old, 600 pounds, a constant diet of junk, smoking, drinking, barely able to move.
"I was heading for death," Bishop says. "I became a recluse. I didn't want to see anybody, and I didn't want anybody to see me."
Now he's stabilized at 220, and he got there the old-fashioned way — no surgery, no drugs, no shortcuts.
Bishop, a data-security consultant who lives in Garland, says he was in a "contemplative state" for about a year before he finally acted.
"I was having difficulty taking care of myself, things like just getting in and out of the shower," he says. "One day I literally couldn't get my pants off because my calves were too swollen.
"I said, 'This is it.' I couldn't live another day like that."
He could hardly walk. So he got down on the floor, put his feet on the couch and did 20 crunches. The next day he did 25 and the day after that, 30.
"I did all that I could do, and I decided that maybe tomorrow I could do a little more," he says.
Feeling better Meanwhile, he swore off fast food, fried food, cigarettes and alcohol.
"I didn't make a rule about counting calories," Bishop says.
"I just ate a lot of vegetables and balanced meals. I never went hungry, but I had to teach myself to eat three meals a day, not one big meal that never ended."
He felt better immediately, he says, "and that inspired me. I didn't set out to lose 400 pounds in two years. My initial goal was just to back away from the edge."
He bought an exercise bike for the garage, where he pushed himself to do more calisthenics. After nine months, he started walking, then running.
All along the way were little milestones: friends and family noticing a change, a conversation on the stairs without becoming breathless, fitting into a button-down shirt.
"The healthier I got, the more I could work out," Bishop says. "The more I could work out, the healthier I got."
After six months he was down to about 430.
"I had set short-term goals," he says. "But then I started thinking, that was Phase One. I'm not just backing away from the edge anymore. Let's see what my body can do."
'A gym rat' He joined a Bally's health club. He took a course at the Cooper Institute to become a certified fitness specialist.
He trolled the Internet for different workout regimens that turned fat into muscle.
"I became a gym rat," he says. "When I'm sick or I tweak an ankle and I don't work out, it drives me nuts."
At 350, the needle on the beam scale (where you slide the weights across the top) didn't automatically plop to the bottom anymore.
By the start of 2005 he was at less than 300. By late summer he hit his current weight of 220, give or take a few pounds.
Along the way he's become an eloquent advocate for getting healthy and fit, speaking at area churches and encouraging fellow gym rats.
His immediate plans include a New Year's Eve wedding to Robin Dove, who stuck with him, literally, through thick and thin.
Dove, who has known Bishop for eight years, says she was concerned about the health dangers of obesity but didn't pressure him to lose weight.
"I had to let him find his own way," Dove says. "If I would have told him, I'd have been just another person nagging him. The entire time, I knew what he could be, and that's what kept me with him."
Although he's finishing a master's degree in business at the University of Dallas, Bishop thinks his future may lie in using his transformation to help others.
"People come up to me and say I've inspired them," he says. "That's humbling, but it's not about me.
"I take a spiritual view of the process. What I was doing wasn't living, it was dying. I really think God had better plans for me."
But he also knows that any encouragement from an outsider can only do so much.
"You have to flip the switch," Bishop says. "It has to be from within, and it has to be real. But you can do it."
What a transformation. Though, you can see his spirit even in the before pictures. But, good for him!!
I decided to do it as an email to many people so she wouldn't think I singled her out....I included all immediate family members.
Good luck with your goals. I am blessed with only needing to lose about 10 or 15 pounds....but it is soooo hard after 35 to take off even 5 pounds. I have always excersized alot & ate healthy....but then I had a foot injury and couldn't train for over a year.
"You should probably eat 1200 calories a day minimum to avoid going into starvation mode, which would slow down your metabolism."
"I do not believe that is true for a minute. Look at the POWs. They got very few calories and they lost lots of weight.""
That's a very poor example, lol. Sorry, but that's just goofy.
The advice I've read on caloric intake is mutliplying 10-12 (12 if you're obese, shift the number as you lose) by your body weight, and that's a ballpark for the daily caloric intake you need to maintain the weight you have - to lose, drop below this by 10-25% - more, and you are in danger more of having muscle mass scavenged for energy, which from what I've read is easier to have happen than the "starvation mode" (the definition of which, and the ways to enter are up to much debate). Heart muscle is something you do NOT want your body eating for energy.
That's been the explaination I've been told why yo-yo dieting by massive caloric restriction is so dangerous for anyone to do over extended periods of time.
The one thing that Atkins folks need to remember (I'm a lo-carber myself) is that Atkins IS a calory reducing diet, it's just easier to do, because the protein-rich food you eat the most of has by ounce fewer calories than carbs - it also takes longer to digest protein-rich food - overall your diet is less calories. The key is that the amount of fat in the diet (which is not a danger, if you're doing it right) gives you the "full" feeling longer, which is crucial mentally to help you overcome bad eating habits, and to not "graze" on snacks and such. When I started lo-carbing, I had to take a good long look at my bad eating habits (eating late at night, eating one huge meal a day (my believe is this is bad, because it takes so long to burn off all that food at once, a higher proportion of it is simply shunted off by the body as stored fat), and most importantly, triggers that led to binge eating. THAT process is fascinating, and if not done, will result in gaining back the weight later on.
Exercise is also in almost every case mandatory, for weight loss - some folks try lo-carb, lose weight for a while with no extra working out, and are thrilled...but then they hit the stall wall, which exercising will move you past, and they give up. It's good for you, you gotta do it, and over time you WILL come to enjoy it. The "burn" is fabulous. You don't have to be a gym rat, but you gotta do it. There's no way around it.
Lo-carb is my lifestyle of choice, for a lot of reasons (mostly my body chemistry reacts to sugar in very, very negative ways), it's just one way of getting the same results, but almost all "diets" are a sham - you need to change your lifestyle to lose significant amounts of weight, and continue that lifestye change to keep it off. You have to subscribe to the school of cold reality with a lot of people, there's no magic bullet, no magic pill, even the risky stomach stapling surgeries* are ways to do one simple thing: cut the calories. Basic laws of thermodynamics - you have to burn more than you take in. Lo-carb was my path, and I've done great things that way - other routes will be better for other people, but the basics are all the same - eat less calories, exercise to help boost the metabolism, get the muscles moving to reduce the risk of scavenged muscle tissue, and modify your mental and emotional relationship with food. Every hear someone say, "I could NEVER give up my bread!"? That person will never lose weight, meaningful loss, and keep it off, they have an emotional attachment to food.
Everyone has great excuses why they can't lose weight...would'nt it be better to come up with reasons why you CAN do something about it? We are all responsible for our bodies, what we put in it, how we move it and for how long. We're the only ones who can change that. (Yes, some people have medical issues, I know.) It's like anything else - quitting smoking, losing weight, saving money, quitting alcohol or drugs - at some point, it becomes something YOU control, or the addiction/laziness/denial takes over and wins. It's always easier to give up.
Yes, it's VERY hard.
And it's worth it. You realize that, in that moment, when a family member bursts into tears of joy at what you've done. That makes every second of discomfort and frustration and sore muscles worth it.
*(I'm personally against the surgeries, unless they are part of a larger therapy that addresses the emotional reasons why the obese person is eating so much, and even then, I'm against it. Losing weight is NOT easy, but it's possible, people overcome severe eating disorders every day without having their stomachs mangled. I'm sorry if this offends those that have had it, or are contemplating it, but that's my opinion. I believe more in finding the strength and will within to heal yourself, not relying on a surgery to control your eating. That's weakness, and is doomed to fail. We're given amazing, powerful tools within ourselves to change ourselves in positive, almsot miraculous ways, and surgery is simply a way of avoiding the harder path to healing yourself. Like I said, that's my opinion. It's NOT easy...but of you find that will within yourself, and learn to apply it to your life, it's a journey that is so worth taking, it changes you in every way, not just weight loss. )
"A fast and easy method to determine calorie needs is to use total current body weight times a multiplier.
Fat loss = 12 - 13 calories per lb. of bodyweight Maintenance (TDEE) = 15 - 16 calories per lb. of bodyweight Weight gain: = 18 - 19 calories per lb. of bodyweight
This is a very easy way to estimate caloric needs, but there are obvious drawbacks to this method because it doesn't take into account activity levels or body composition. Extremely active individuals may require far more calories than this formula indicates. In addition, the more lean body mass one has, the higher the TDEE will be. Because body fatness is not accounted for, this formula may greatly overestimate the caloric needs if someone is extremely overfat.
For example, a lightly active 50 year old woman who weighs 235 lbs. and has 34% body fat will not lose weight on 3000 calories per day (255 X 13 as per the "quick" formula for fat loss).
In simple terms, if I multiply my present weight by 15 or 16, this is how many calories I will need daily to SUSTAIN my weight. Reduce the calories, and I lose..Add calories and I gain. The more calories I burn, the faster I lose..it's simple :)
Good for this fellow! What a story! As a quick note to the reader, fat cannot turn into muscle, nor the other way around. Muscle can be replaced with fat, but not turned into it.
People I have known who weigh much less than 600 pounds would not even be able to do one "crunch".
At 600 pounds a person could have a basal metabolic rate of about 4700 calories. So at that weight with moderate activity he could easily burn more than enough to drop a pound/day and still take in three largish meals each day. When a person is that big it's the 4000-9000 calorie diets that are getting them.
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