If I didn’t know Marcus during this entire transformation I might think the before pictures were photoshopped. It has been amazing to watch him transform his physical body. Here is his testimony, hopefully this will inspire and encourage you!
Wow! I cannot believe that I am finally here at the end of this Healthy Holiday Challenge. This HHC has been a time of fantastic growth for me, but in reality was the tail end of a journey through 2011 that took just over eight months. It’s hard for me to cull out the last eight weeks aside from the rest of this journey in 2011, but I will do my best. I started back on April 11, as a broken man. I was over 306 lbs., medicated for depression/mood problems. I was engrossed in a marriage that was totally devastated, and I genuinely wanted to die. I hate to use language that strong, but it’s so true. I travel locally a lot for my job, and I would pray a macabre prayer as I started my daily travels…”Dear God, please take my life in a car accident today, because I cannot go on any longer.” It brings a lot of pain to me to read these words because I am a father of five wonderful children. I was such a mess; my mindset was clouded with such a sense of worthlessness that I felt as though my children would be better off without me in their lives. It was a terribly dark place; a place that I never want to revisit again.
The week before my start date, I read Transformation from cover to cover. I was voracious with this book; I simply couldn’t get enough. In the past I had experienced some positive physical results with programs such as Body for Life and others. But something sparked in me when I read this book. Something clicked, and I never looked back. I took my before pictures, measurements and wrote out my eighteen week goals. I had nothing more than a set of Selectech dumbbells, a bench and a spin bike. And I was off. I was making great progress, and then the wheels came off the wagon of my life in June. My marriage of 12 years ended, and I was separated from children by over three-hundred miles. I was completely devastated. I was crushed with pressure to fold in on myself and let depression and despair consume me. I had lost all control of my life, and I didn’t know what to do. It was during this time that I received a text message from Bill Phillips text alerts. It said something that has been a guiding principle for my life over the last several months. It said “Living healthy is an every moment decision. It’s all what you do today, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Are you living healthy right now”.
As I reflect back on what I learned from this experience and period of my life, there are two clarion lessons that ring out to me, and what I hope to express to others as they move toward their own transformation. First, I am totally powerless over the nouns and pronouns in my life (people, places and things). I am not; however , powerless over myself. As my life came apart, I realized something…I controlled the very next piece of food that I shoved in my mouth. I controlled whether or not I rolled my rear out of bed at 4:30am to get in my workout. I controlled what I focused on first thing in the morning and the last thing before I went to bed at night. I have been learning to leave all the nouns and pronouns up to God, and I will attend to what I can control. The second lesson is that I only have this day in front of me, and I only have to win today. I have often been asked over the last several weeks and months, “how’d you do it”. My answer has become very simple…”Easy, I won at 5 simple tasks a day, one day at a time”. My precious Savior taught that I should pray “Give me THIS DAY, my DAILY bread…”; I only have today and I refuse to squander it any longer in futile attempts to control those things that do not have my name on it.
Now, here I stand a champion in my own life. My life is far from settled and perfect, but I am well on my way to a new way of living. I deeply desire to make carrying this message of transformation to others as a living testimony to the endless possibilities that exist for those that will simply BELIEVE (as I was frequently reminded by my t.com coach and mentor, Mary [Seattlered]).
Here are my results so far this year, and for the 2011 HHC:
Start 4/11/2011:
Weight: 306.2 lbs.
Widest point on Body: 44.75”
Body Fat: 36%
Start HHC 11/7/2011:
Weight: 195.4
Waist: 35”
Body Fat: 13.7%
HHC Final 1/1/2012:
Weight: 178.2 (-17.2)
Waist: 33.25” (-1.75)
Body Fat: 9.4% (-4.3%)
The best part of this whole journey for me is described in the picture at the center of my collage (which by the way was taken by my T.com pal Laura [LauraK]…you have an amazing gift friend). That moment with my children was truly a joyful day for me…for the first time in my life, I truly feel like a champion for them.
Thanks for taking the time to read my story!
Marcus
