Do You Fight Daily Battles or Run From Them?

It has been a few weeks since my last blog. I need to get on here more often, but it is hard because I am using the computer at the church. If anyone has an extra computer let me know and I would be able to stay on top of this a little more.

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.