200by40 – Weight Loss the Right Way

Thank You, Everybody

Click to enlarge

<< BTW, this is NOT the best picture of me. My face looks…well, deformed or something.

This is a goodbye of sorts.

As you may well know, I started 200by40.com with the intent of tracking my weight loss progress as I tried to reach my goal of weighing 200 lbs. by my 40^th birthday.

Today is February 14^th, which is also happens to be my 40^th birthday and, as you may also know, I reached my goal of 200 lbs. on September 27, 2008—way ahead of schedule.

I have decided that, while I have derived great pleasure in blogging about everything having to do with [my] weight loss, it’s time to put things into perspective and temporarily walk away from the blog.

While this may not be the final post here, it may well be the last one for a long time as I will now concentrate on training for the Disneyland 5k—my first one ever—taking place this September. In between now and then I will do a few 5k walks and, should I have a camera with me, I will post pictures of the events. And don’t worry—all posts will remain intact as will the domain, meaning anything you may have bookmarked will still be in the same place.

Once again, I would like to thank everyone who left comments, e-mailed me, or simply came by to visit (except for you spammers who try and get past Askimet’s death grip–you’re fools for trying!). I do find it a bit humbling and amazing that a normal guy like me would inspire many, many people to get motivated into losing weight. What started out as a simple goal turned out to be something life changing to those who recognized that it’s entirely possible to lose weight if they put their minds to it.

Before I sign off here, I would like to wish all of you good luck with your weight loss program. Regular visitors know that it wasn’t uncommon for me to say things like “You can do it!” or “Never give up!” in my posts. What many don’t realize is that those weren’t just words; I meant them from the bottom of my heart. If I can do this, I have no doubt that anybody can.

Why? Unlike those trying to push diet pills, I’ve been there. I can relate to and understand the struggles of weight loss and being overweight. I know what it’s like to wear size 48 pants, run out of breath when playing with my son, have clothes get smaller and smaller, be ridiculed about my size, be stared at when going to fast food joints, barely fit into the seats on the train, look in the mirror and not like what I see, be intimidated when entering a gym.

But I chose to change all that. I challenged myself to get busy and change my lifestyle and here it is, my 40^th birthday and I weigh 197 lbs. I went from a sloth to someone who is going to run in a 5k. Think you can’t lose weight? I beg to differ. (By the way, at today’s weight I have finally reached the golden 100 lbs. lost level.)

While I could go on forever, I want to share with everybody some things I learned about weight loss since starting this blog. In no particular order, here is that list.

Continue Reading Thank You, Everybody…