My Next Changes

Over the last six years, I have made many changes in my life. I started out as an extremely obese man. Admittedly, I weighed 527lbs. A continued life of sedentary was only going to lead to grandchildren who were frustrated I could not attempt to play with them, let alone expect I keep up with them for 10 minutes and many other frustrations. Death at an early age was my depressing future. Death was the life I was living. Then I had the courage to see my potential to change myself. I had the courage to see how I could help changing myself could also add to positive change in the world.

Making positive changes one by one became a part of life for me. I started out by changing my eating habits. The one thing I learned about this process is that change is good. During those years, I’ve had to eliminate processed foods. No more white bread, rice or those other goodies that you yearn for. I made my own bread out of whole grains. I ate brown rice. I avoided starchy potatoes and white pasta. I hated that because I loved spaghetti. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight over the past 6 years—275lbs to be exact.

I have decided to try to make another change to my diet. I will be using the “Primal” diet which essentially is to eliminate grains altogether and eat lots of animals and plants.

As to the dreaded exercise, I started out barely able to play with my granddaughter in the park. As of today, I have completely several half marathons, marathons and started an Ironman triathlon—and most importantly I can wear out that same granddaughter in the park. In early July 2011, I ran the sixth anniversary of my first race—the 5km Firecracker race. The first time I finished last, but the key thing to remember is that I had the courage to start…and I finished which was a nice reward for starting.

I remember dunking my head in the ice barrel at the end of that first race. And I now would like to announce that I have now stepped in the realm of ultramarathoner. On June 10^th, 2012, I will be running 250 km in the Gobi Desert over 7 days. There will not be any ice barrels in the desert. Instead, I will be continuing my quest to help kids suffering from cancer to someday dunk their heads in icy water after running their own race. Check it out at: http://www.4deserts.com/gobimarch/

I will be chronicling the journey from start to finish over the course of the next 12 months right here on Endure to Cure’s NoLimits blog. Stay tuned!

Jim