Now when it comes to ideal and real the one thing that will defeat you every time is comparing  yourself to someone else. If you feel like they are better than you then you get depressed or if they are worse off than you, you say to yourself, “at least I am not as bad off as that person”, and you slack off and don’t work as hard.

We need to set goals for ourselves and work towards those goals at an achievable pace. If you are wanting to lose weight don’t hit the gym for an hour a day for a week and get burned out. Start slow and work your way into it. Or if you eat really bad start cutting stuff out of your diet a little at a time and make a lifestyle change. If you go on some crazy diet it will only last for a few weeks or a couple of months and then you are right back where you started. My weight has been a roller coaster ride for years But I have just now realized what I was doing wrong all those years. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. I would like a girl and try to lose weight, or someone would encourage me and I would do it for them. Or I would look at other people and not like what I had so I would try. You can use that type of stuff to motivate you, but it can’t be the source behind your motivation or it will burn out and you are worse off than where you started because you feel defeated.

My challenge is that you look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you are ready to truly change. Think about your future and what you are doing to those around you. How your problem affects other people. Obesity is selfish. I didn’t care about others, all I cared about was making me happy and fixing my depression. I wasn’t thinking about my future kids having a father die when they are teenagers because of my weight, or my wife someday having to take care of my because I am too big to do it myself. Or all the medications I would have to take for diabetes some day if I didn’t change. Think about how much fun it will be to go into any store and buy clothes and not worry if they have your size or if it is going to cost a lot of money because of how expensive larger clothes are.

We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. To non-Christians that sounds cheesy, but if it wasn’t for God I would not be where I am today. I would not have had the power to keep going

This is a cry from my heart to help people. I was dying and I thank God for the life He has restored in me. I still have a ways to go, but I feel amazing now and know that I will only continue to succeed. Keep your head up and know I am here to help you. Feel free to ask me any questions.

This year can be the best year of your life. You need to make the mental decision that you want to change. It has to be for you and because you want to live a healthy life. For me, I looked at myself in the mirror and told myself I was worth the fight. My future wife, kids, and all my friends are worth the effort to save my life. Everyone is a leader and has someone looking at them as an example. We need to realize that God is our strength and if we make the decision to change He will be there with us through the entire battle.

It will not be easy, but it is so worth it. I have never had so much energy in my life. I have more energy and stamina now than all of my friends who are my age. This next year I am going to continue to correct my life and my goal is to help 50 people lose 50 pounds this year. If you want me to help you be accountable and help you with your diet and workout let me know. This is one of my passions and I want to help you gain the knowledge you need to be successful. You need to have the knowledge of what you want to do before you start because you will get burned out in a short time frame. You also want to set realistic goals so you can see progress and use it to drive you to the next level. I am here for you just let me know if you want some help.

The next few months are going to be fun and crazy at the same time. I am really stepping everything up a notch for the second half of the year-long project. I also lost a bunch of sponsors due to economic struggles. I am not worried because God has provided what I need this far and has given me the strength to keep pressing in. I have two challenges: if you can please forward a link to your friends letting them know about this site, people that need help with their weight or people who might be interested in sponsoring me for the last half of the project and second I need some sponsors to get through the last six months. Anything will help and you can donate through the church and get a tax break for your donations.

Get ready for a great year. You are going to do something great with your life this year. God loves you passionately and cares about every aspect of your life. Pass this site on to everyone you know, especially the ones who are struggling with their weight.

You can donate through Paypal by clicking on the donate button to the right. If you would like a tax break make the check out to Hope Church and send it to Gene Milstead PO BOX 156 Colleyville, TX 76034

Love you guys.
Gene

So I have lost 116 pounds now. The past few weeks I have really stepped up my lifting and I can tell by the way my body has been feeling. This is the strongest I have ever been and I am burning a lot of calories because of it. For every pound of muscle you add you are burning any where from 6 to 30 calories per day. That does not sound like a lot but I have added 30 pounds of muscle since I started my journey. That is anywhere from 180 to 900 calories I am burning every day that I do not have to do any exercise for.  Muscle is very important for men and women. For you women who don’t think you need to lift, you are wrong. If you want definition and you don’t want your body to sag you need to lift weights. You don’t want to add bulk, but lifting is the only way you are going to tone your body. Use lower weights and do reps of 15 to 20 and you will start to see a difference. What you eat is still more important, but lifting will take you to the next level and give you the body form that you have always wanted.

If you are a 300 pound pear shaped person and all you do is cardio then you will be a 120 pound pear shaped person. You will have the same body build just a smaller mass. If you want the tight nice looking body you will need to lift.

There are many aspects of weight loss that you have to take into thought when you start a lifestyle change. One of the areas I am going to touch on now is the mental side. We spend most of our lives living in a fear of failure and we never really live our lives. That is why my saying is, “Choose live, don’t just exist.” I feel like most of the stuff holding us back is our self image. This is why you see so many people who are forty and fifty years old dealing with the same thing they were dealing with when they were in college. That is what triggered me to start on the journey that I am on. I was six months away from turning thirty and I started looking at my life. I was still facing the same fears and problems that I was facing twelve years ago.

That is when I decided I was no longer going to live in fear. So many people line up for battle and they never engage the enemy. We train our whole lives to go to battle and we never even engage in the war. Can you imagine a Navy Seal going through all that training and then going to war and watch all his buddies go out and fight while he watches from the Hummer. No he is trained to do whatever it takes to make sure his platoon buddies get home safe. We have that same responsibility. We have family and friends who rely on us every day and we are killing ourselves and letting them down everyday that goes by that we do nt decide to act.

Obesity is selfish. Basically what we are saying is that my emotional needs are more important than everyone and everything else so I am going to eat myself to death. That sounds harsh but it is true. I got up to 460 pounds because I tried to cover all my problems with food. I missed my mom and dad so I would go and eat. I was tired of being fat and rejected so I would go and eat. The only problem was all it would do is make me larger and make me more depressed and I would eat even more. It was a pattern that I was in and it was killing me. The main reason I think that obesity and depression is selfish is because if you are crying and pouting about yourself all the time when do you have the time to focus on others.

We have to make the decision today that we are going to stop being selfish and think about the people we care about the most. They need us to be around. I need my parents and they are not here for me because they chose not to take care of their bodies. I have to suffer because of their lack of self-control. I refuse to let that happen to the kids I am going to have some day. I want to be able to play with my grandkids some day.

If you don’t do it for your family do it for yourself. You deserve a long and healthy life. The rate we are going as a country is scary. We need to make the choice to be different and live a healthy life.

Like always, I am here for you and I will help you in any way possible. If you would like to help in any way with my journey please let me know. Also, I need some size 3X clothes as I really don’t have the money to go and buy clothes every time I lose into a new size.

You can send them to:
Gene Milstead
PO BOX 156
Colleyville, TX 76034

You can also mail a check to that address if you would like to make a financial donation.  Make the check out to Hope Church and you will get a tax break for it. Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement. This has been a real emotional journey and the support and encouragement is really helping me to keep my head up and to stay focused.

I am currently doing a five day workout. Mon, Wed, & Fri I am lifting weights and doing cardio and Tue & Thu I am just doing cardio. Mondays I am doing all push weights (chest press, decline press, shoulder press, and triceps press). On Wednesday I am doing all pull weights (seated row, lat pull downs, back extensions, bicep curl, ab machine). Then on Fridays I am doing legs (angled leg press, leg curls, leg extensions, and wall squats). On my weight training days I am doing three miles of cardio and on my two off days I am doing six miles of cardio. My plan is to build up more lean muscle so it will burn more calories. Muscle burns calories while at rest. Fat just sits there and does nothing. Now when you have more fat on your body you do burn more calories because you have to carry that weight around, but I would rather work harder because I weigh less. Since I have now lost 101 pounds I am having to work harder to burn the same amount of calories I was burning at the beginning. That is a great sign because it means I am getting smaller. But if you add muscle mass it will burn calories 24 hours a day. Muscles need food to survive. So the more muscle you have the more food it will need and if you are still on your reduced meal plan, then the excess calories burned will mean more weight loss.

I ran/walked my first 5K this past weekend and it was awesome! My friend Mark Mendoza and my roommate Gil Butler came out to support me. I also ran it with my friend Miranda Massey. It was great, and I finished with an official time of 48:50. My goal was to finish within an hour so I beat my goal by 12 minutes. Mark actually met me half way and motivated me to push harder. I sprinted the last .20 miles and you could hear everyone cheering for me when I got close to the finish line. I was just glad that I finished.  It was a great moment and the environment was great. I had people coming up and giving my high fives and telling me good job. I wanted to say something back but I could not breathe. My body felt great.

I feel like I am looking better every day. That is what it is about, how you feel about yourself. Everyday when I look in the mirror I feel good about myself. If you can’t live with yourself how can anyone else? You need to do this for you not your friends and family. They can be part of your motivation but this has to be a choice that you make. I have tried to lose weight on numerous occasions and I was unsuccessful. I am not doing this to get a girl, or because someone asked me to. I am doing this because I want to be healthy, I want to be able to fit into a canoe and it not tip over every time I move, I want to be able to ride a bike for more then ten minutes, I want to be able to go rock climbing, I don’t want to be afraid to sit down because I might break the seat. You have to be motivated to change and save your life.

Last but not least, I received my study guide to become a personal trainer. I am starting a 40 hour class from Cooper Institute. It is one of the top personal trainers courses in the US. I want to be able to learn more to help me on my journey and I want to use the knowledge I am gaining to help as many people as I can. I am in the process of putting together another fundraiser. This one is going to be one that gives back to you. I am going to have a Saturday morning where we get together and I am going to bring in a couple of guest speakers on health and I am going to do a panel of trainers and do a Q&A with them. We will be able to ask them some questions that we have. Registration will be $10 and the money is going to help me get everything lined up for the weight loss home which we plan to launch after the first of the year. There is a lot of awesome stuff happening and I am glad that you are a part of it.

I am also still accepting donations. I have a lot of stuff that I am working on and your contributions are going to help a lot of people. I met two guys this past week who told met that because of what I am doing and through reading my updates they have decided to lose weight and have already each lost over 30 pounds. That is awesome and that is what it is all about. You can donate on the site through the donate button. If you need a tax deduction you can make the check out to Hope C3 Church and send it to 8137 Emerald Hills Way # 306 NRH, TX 76180 All the money goes to helping me with weight loss supplies and I need some new clothes. I have do not have anything that fits me right now.

Thank you for your prayers, encouragement, and support.

There are HUNDREDS of weight loss programs out there and each have testimonials of results.  So how do you separate the fact from the fiction, the real vs. counterfeit?

A few days ago I received a facebook message from a curious friend that was the inspiration behind this blog, she asked, “Are you on any special plan?  WW, ATKINS, Eat Clean, Count Calories…I need help and I don’t know how to push myself at all!!!”

The simple answer to this question is NO.  No I am not following any “special plan” and no I’m not on any of the trendy programs solicited on our airways and street corners.  With that being said, I believe most effective daily “diets” follow a bit of the truth that is mixed in with the chaos of ANY of these weight loss program and their theories.  Atkins preaches protein which protein is very important for our bodies to build, restore and fuel muscle (especially when working out) and burn fat more efficiently – however, eating the wrong meats in excess isn’t healthy for your heart and you begin to overload your body with saturated fat.  WW & Count Calories plans make you more conscious of “how much” you are taking in your body versus what is going out which in theory is “good.”  However, there are many followers who don’t spend much focus on the nutrition behind what they are taking in, just as long as you stay without your daily “budget.”  I’ve met numerous people (and used to be guilty myself), who would save ALL their points or calories to be spent on food such as ice cream.  According to these weight loss “diet plans” you are right on track because you didn’t exceed your limit, but is that healthy?  …anyone else see bad habits forming?

Do I disagree with those who are on the weight loss programs mentioned above, absolutely not! Do I think that you can save money by learning the tools on your own – ABSOLUTELY!

I guess the real question to ask yourself is, “Are they giving you the resources to continue on for life or are they giving you just enough to where you have to keep coming back and paying them MORE in order to be successful?

I don’t have anything “negative” to say about Clean Eating because I agree that our foods have become so “filled” with fillers, pesticides, toxins, chemicals and JUNK that are unhealthy and unnatural to be in our bodies – it’s no wonder that diseases steadily increase with each passing year.  The comment I have concerning that “movement” is it’s typically seen as a faux pas if you don’t stick strictly to 100% organic and unprocessed foods.  In a picture perfect world – that’d be ideal.  In a fallen economy where money is hard to come by and all-natural, organic, unprocessed foods are more costly than the “fresh” produce at your local Wal-Mart, you can’t look down on those who simply are unable to afford this type of grocery list.

AS FOR THE “PLAN” I’M ON: I “try” to eat as clean as I can nowadays, but I don’t feel like a failure if I have a processed or take out meal.  I love me some protein and earn my “activity points” with daily exercise.  I’m conscious of my calories but it hasn’t become my part time job.  I wear a body bugg (go read this funny blog about a similar product) that motivates me to “move more and eat less” but I don’t refuse myself anything completely.  Calories in vs. calories out really is important even if it’s a subconscious thought in the back of your brain and I don’t care what anyone tells you, there is truth to the theory but again, if my calories out offsets my calories in but my calories in all have detrimental effects on my body was it really effective weight loss?  Eating a balanced diet is important for given your body it’s proper nutrients and fuel but I don’t have a picture of the food pyramid on my plate (which isn’t even a pyramid anymore) – although those plates are kinda cool.  Skinny chicks really don’t eat salads and you aren’t going to find me shedding all my pounds by eating mainly salads either (don’t get fooled by popular salads out there anyways, with some you might as well have enjoyed a juicy steak and let your muscles munch on the protein because by the time you add the high fructose corn syrup filled dressings and other toppings, you’ve ruined it anyways).  If I feel hungry, chances are I’m going to eat so I typically have 5-6 meals a day to keep my metabolism alert and active and it also helps because I know it’s never long til my next meal.  To say I’ll “never” about a meal is unlikely but that doesn’t mean I’m unopen to having my personal opinion changed.  By no means do I feel that “my way is THE way,” but it has proven effective for me.


I always tell people that I am thankful for the WW program because it was a stepping stone for me.  I lost my first 25 pounds on program before growing wings of my own and gaining the confidence that I really can do this!  I walked out the door of my last WW meeting with my 25 lb milestone award and have since continued on with OVER 125 MORE pounds lost by being more conscious!  Conscious of what goes into my body and the effects it has on me (either good or bad) and conscious of exercise.

But seriously, what does a LIFESTYLE change really “mean”?

I believe this is something everyone needs to take some time and define for themselves.  It wasn’t until this past weekend that I really started to give this some thought.  I’ve noticed three main categories for weight loss if you will:

• “Dieters”
• “Surgery undergoers”
• “Lifestyle changers”

I won’t touch on the “dieters” or “surgery undergoers,” but since I am personally opting for the “lifestyle changer” route, I think it’s important to think a bit on what lifestyle change means to me?  There are some key factors that I believe are ESSENTIAL if you are calling this a LIFESTYLE change.

1.  Is it REALLY healthy?  Starving yourself is not!  Eliminating entire food groups is not!  Sticking to strict diet and throwing out exercise is not!  Aiming to lose “10 pounds or more” a week is generally not (although it’s possible, I’ve done it, but realistically it shouldn’t be a weekly goal).  Skipping meals in order to “cheat” is not.

2.  Is it manageable and realistic?  To say you’ll “never” eat out again with your friends or “never” have a sweet treat or “never” go off your daily routine is unlikely when making a LIFE change.  I promise you, when you tell yourself you CANNOT have something, all it does it makes you want it 1000x’s more!  Life happens and not everything is pre-planned in a food journal.  What about vacations, special occasions and holidays?  Is it realistic to refuse yourself the foods that may only come around once a year for the rest of your life?  Is it something you spend more time pitying yourself over or do you allow some room for grace?  Do you deprive yourself so much so that when something throws you off track or messes with your busy schedule that you are so ravenous that you have no sense of control? I’ve found that when I allow myself a little more “leniency” I’m able to make wiser choices when I eat out or go to an event because I don’t have my inner “fat girl” trying to “make up for lost time,” she’s still living happy and healthy and not battling that uneasy feeling of being restrained & restricted.

3.  Are you able to really, truly enjoy your LIFE according to this plan?  Is it more of a chore than it is natural?  Who wants to live a dull, boring, strict life (even if it’s only in their daily diet)?  I believe that with a real healthy lifestyle change you won’t feel like your day-to-day choices are a chore and bore.  I know that I actually ENJOY the healthier foods I’m eating and it doesn’t feel like a bland, boring fate.  Getting creative and experimenting with new ways to make your favorite foods healthier becomes FUN after awhile.  Concocting new shakes, recipes and treats is enjoyable and exciting to share.  Living this new life I’m creating is something I now WANT to do and not feel obligated to do.  I’m not going to lie, in the beginning it may take awhile to kick the old habits but if you are replacing them with something that feels more like an adventure than a assignment you’ll want to keep travelling the road your new life has you on.

4.  DOES IT HEED RESULTS?  Is your new lifestyle change causing you to do more than just drop weight? Check with your doctor, run it by a physician.  Get your blood work done and other tests to evaluate if your blood pressure, cholesterol, body fat %, lean muscle mass and such are improving.   Are you becoming healthier on the INSIDE and out? Do you feel healthier and cleaner inside – stronger and more energetic on the outside?  When you are fueling your body properly, your body really does start to “feel” great!  It’s amazing, what I used to think a “good day” felt like at 342.2 pounds.  I was so used to my body being achy, bloated, stiff and easily tired that I thought it was normal.  I now know that my BEST day then is like my worst day now.  I can move without losing my breathe, I can jump without hurting my knees, I can bend and touch my toes, I can sleep without my body stopping it’s breathing.  I can fit in restauran booths, shop at normal clothings stores, ride amusement park rides and use a normal bathroom stall.  I CAN LIVE A LIFE THAT I LOVE…


I challenge YOU, think a little one what a “lifestyle change” really means to YOU!  Don’t base it off of what I’m doing or what you’ve seen your neighbor do – what is healthy and realistic for Y-O-U (I cannot stress the HEALTHY part enough)?  Write a blog defining YOUR lifestyle change if you are a blog writer.  I’m interested to hear about the journey YOU are on and what this change means to YOU – email me at Demesha.Wright@gmail.com if you’d like.  I just want to see people loving themselves (inside and out) and living a healthy & active life that they LOVE!

Verse of the Day:

Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
 
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

 I want to share something with you that has really been on my heart about focus and dreams. The story of Joseph is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. He got a vision in a dream when he was a child and he never let go of that dream no matter what he went through in life. We can learn a lot about success from Joseph. We can learn a lot about what to do and what not to do as well.

 We are going to start off by what not to do: Joseph was very cocky. He was his father’s favorite son and he had a coat of many colors that his father made him. He would strut around in his coat in front of his brothers and brag about the dream that he had saying you guys are all going to bow down to me. Anybody who is an older brother knows this is not going to happen. So because of his arrogance his brothers sold him into slavery. When God gives us a dream we need to pray and strategize how we are going to make it happen. We need to look to God for wisdom and be prepared for opposition to come. Dream hatters will do everything they can to kill your dream. Like when I started my weight loss journey I had a lot of people try to talk me into getting a surgery. If you are one of those people sorry, but I am going to hate on you a little here. But I still love you. For some people this works and it has been great for them. But for me I want to be able help a lot of people lose weight. In order for me to do this I need to be able to do it myself. The dream I have to help people is all based around my success. Those people were trying to kill my dream and they had no idea. They wanted the best for me but they didn’t know my dream and my will to make it happen. We just need to use Godly wisdom and surround ourselves with people who are going to help us achieve our dreams.

 The second thing we can learn from him and the most important is that he kept a righteous attitude no matter what circumstances came against him or what others said or did to him. It was his attitude that brought him favor in the eyes of God and man, which eventually brought him from the pit to the palace. He kept his attitude right before the Lord, took whatever action was necessary in the face of adversity, and never gave up until he saw the fulfillment of his destiny. When he was a slave he rose to the top, and when he was in jail he did the same thing. Because he knew he was going to be great he focused on where he was going instead of where he was at the moment. My pastor and the man I consider to be my adopted father, Paul Cole, always says, “It is not what you are going through, but what you are going to, that defines who you are.” An example of this is with my weight loss, four months ago I was 460 pounds. I could not keep up at work, I was always tired, I had isolated myself from a lot of my friends because I was ashamed of what I had become. I have known for years that my future was going to revolve around me losing weight and helping others do it. I had prayed about it and I knew it was going to happen. I got to a point where I no longer wanted to be defined as Big Gene. I no longer wanted to be defined as a guy who could not sit in a booth at a restaurant, a plastic lawn chair, in a sports car, or on anything that comes from IKEA. Now that I have a focus on what God has planned for my life and I am keeping an attitude of victory things are going great. I have hit every goal I have set so far.

 The best part is that we are all called to do something great. We all have a destiny and we all have had stuff in our way to try and stop us from reaching our destiny. We can take these principles and apply them to our life and be successful. Philippians 4:13 (Your Name) can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

 A lot of awesome stuff has happened over the past few weeks. I spoke with Pastor Paul and he is going to take my ministry under the church as a covering so now people can give to me through the church and receive a tax write off for it. You can make the checks out to Hope Church and then just send them to me at:

 Gene Milstead                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     8317 Emerald Hills #306                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 NRH, TX 76180

 Of course you can also still donate directly to me online through my website (no tax write off).

 Also, I am also working on getting some shirts made that will have Choose Life, Don’t Just Exist on the front and NOMOREBIGGENE.COM on the back. If anyone would like to order some, just let me know. I am going to sell them at cost just so I can get the word out there, and am looking into costs now.

 It is awesome all that God is doing. The connections He is putting in my life are awesome. Hopefully I will have the weight loss home up and going sometime after the first of the year. Keep in touch and have a blessed day. Keep your head up and let me know if you need anything.

Choose Life, Don't Just Exist!

I am working to get my 501C3 in order so when everything falls into place we can just hit the ground running with the weight loss home I am going to do. God is really opening up a lot of doors. Just last night my friends uncle who is a big man at UPS said he was going to check with one of his clients about getting me some protein bars and Muscle Milk from them. I am meeting people daily who see what I am doing and the cause I want to fight and they are jumping on board. I met another trainer at 24 hour Fitness who is pumped and wants to help now and really help whenever I get the house going. If you cannot afford a trainer just ask them questions. Most of them are in that field because they really care about people. Send them some referrals and they will be happy. LOL. I had another lady come up and talk to me for 30 minutes at the gym and told me she was going to start sponsoring me. I just met her through my friend Brittney who I also met at 24. I have at least one person a week tell me that they are starting to work out or they have gotten a personal trainer because of what I am doing. That makes me get out of bed and helps me not eat some of the stuff I want to eat because it is already getting bigger than just me. It represents a lot more than just a big guy losing weight. I want it to become a movement, literally. A lot of people and their bodies moving.

I also read an amazing book this week called Red Letters by Tom Davis. He was my first youth pastor, and he and his wife Emily had an amazing impact on me when I was growing up. He is now the CEO of www.hopechest.org. The book is about all the suffering that is going on in the world through Aids/HIV, starvation, and homelessness of kids. It broke my heart to hear some of the stuff that is going on and how as American’s as a whole we have the way to stop this. It blows me away how many people in America are so overweight it is killing them when in other countries people are starving to death. Something is not right. So I urge you to check out his website. Sponsor a kid or just pray for Tom and his ministry team. It is time that we start standing up for the less fortunate. That is the main reason why I want to start doing what I am doing with younger kids and weight loss. I wish someone would have sat me down when I was 13 or 14 and showed me what I am learning today. It would have saved me 15 years of obesity. I would not change it for anything in the world though because of the outreach I am gaining now. This is a serious issue with our young ones in America. We need to take control of it because it is already out of hand.

Thank you so much for your support, prayers, and your encouragement. If you want to donate you can click the button to your right or mail a check to 8317 Emerald Hills Way #306 North Richland Hills, TX 76180. Have a blessed day and go do something active.

The last two weeks have been very tough on me. I started a part time job to supplement my income. I am selling Clear Internet. I am able to build my own schedule. It is just something to make ends meet until I can get things lined up with sponsors. I am also working on an action plan to make this a long-term outreach to help those who are struggling with their weight on a daily basis. This is an epidemic that is taking over our country, and we need to make a stand for what is right. Over 35 percent of America suffers from obesity. This is a scary fact. If we don’t make a stand now and start shrinking that number one pound at a time, we will not have to worry about a war. The other countries will just have to outlive us. We are killing ourselves. There are new illnesses being discovered every day and doctors have no idea what is causing them. I feel that it is because of what we are putting in our body or the lack of what we are putting in our body. We must take control.

This week, I am busy getting everything in place for my upcoming fundraiser/30th birthday party. There is much to celebrate! Here are the details:

Date: Monday, July 19, 2010
Time: 8-10pm
Place: Hope Church 1803 Tarrant Lane Suite 100 Colleyville, TX 76053
What to bring: A case of water or something healthy to eat.
Price: I am asking that people donate however they feel led—loose change, big checks, or your piggy bank. LOL

There will be live music from John White and Mandi Holmes and a few other yet-to-be named guests. It is going to be a fun night of entertainment and fellowship for a great cause. Invite as many people as you want. Have a great week.

The biggest revelation of knowledge that I received in my studies this week is that every time we step foot into a gym we need to know exactly what we are going to do. We need to know what exercises, how many reps, and how much weight we are going to do. We also need to know how long it should take. If we are not focused and know what to do we are wasting our time. We will mess around and do a few things with no exact meaning and either not get a good enough workout or over work a muscle that should be resting. Working out is like a science. If it is done correctly it can be very beneficial, but if done wrongly it can hurt you.

I have noticed a couple people ask me about how often I weigh in, so I am going to throw this new knowledge out there. You only want to weigh yourself once a week at the same time preferably with the same type of clothes on if not at home undressed. This way you are consistent and can get a accurate reading. You don’t want to weigh after a workout one time and then before a workout the next time. It will look like you have gained weight. This goes back to the science in it. You have water weight so when you work out you sweat it out and you weigh less. This is what boxers and fighters do to get down to weight.

Another thing I recommend because it is working so well for me is the 5 to 6 small meals a day. It keeps your metabolism working the whole day and you burn up more of the food in your system. Every time your metabolism works it only burns up so much. This is different for everyone but if you are putting in too much at once the rest is stored as fat. You also don’t want to eat to little because your body thinks it is starving and will store whatever fat it can get. If this is happening then your body will start to eat away at your muscle which is never good.

I recommend if you are looking to make a lifestyle change learn as much as you can. The more knowledge you have the more chance at success you have. I am here to help you with anything you may need. If you have questions let me know. I don’t know a lot, but I have a lot of friends that do. Lol

Love you guys and have a blessed day.

You know it can be tough when you look at the big picture sometimes. I was thinking the other day that 260 pounds is a lot of weight. That is a huge mountain to climb, not too different than what it must be like to climb Mount Everest. Mount Everest is 29,092 feet above sea level. It has five camps along the way, which gives the climbers a chance to regroup and focus on the overall goal and to rest up and get ready for the next challenge that lies ahead of them. Also, if you want to climb Mount Everest you have to make plans in advance and strategize to make it happen. You do not wake up on a Monday and say, “Hey I think I am going to go and climb Mount Everest this weekend.” It takes strategy and a team of people to help make it happen. You have to put together a team who is going to help you get to the top.

What I have discovered with weight loss is that we have to do the exact same thing. If I look at my big challenge to lose 260 pounds to save my life it can get extremely discouraging sometimes. It can seem like an endless battle that I will never achieve. Five pounds a week, compared to 260, seems like it will never come and like it is not a big success when 5 pounds a week is actually really amazing. What I am doing is setting camps (goals) throughout my journey. My first goal was to get below 400 pounds. Now that I have achieved that my new goal is to get below 350 pounds. With setting goals along the way, it helps revive the overall goal and gives you a sense of achievement. No one will ever climb Mount Everest without stopping along the way to regroup and it is the same with weight loss. If you focus on the big picture and you try to do it without a plan you will not succeed.

We have to be focused on the next camp in our journey. That should be our only focus. I don’t need to focus on a size 40 waist while I am still at a 50. I need to be focusing on a size 48 and then on a 46. It is easy to get discouraged when your camps are too far apart and you are starting to get malnourished because you have gone too long without rest or you end up going back to the bottom because you took on too much to handle. There is a lot we can learn from the journey to the top of Mount Everest that we can use in our every day life. Climbing that mountain is one of the toughest feats in the world. Living a healthy life is not nearly as tough and it can be done.

Surround yourself with a great team of people who have done it before you and want to see you succeed. Then put together a game plan and set up your camps along the way. And last but not least, use your experience to help others get to the top with you. It is life changing, and your experience will drive others to be better people and be more self conscious about their actions.

Love you guys and really hope that you got something out of this.

Gene