From Husky to Marathon Runner

 

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Before Name Carlos Age 38 Height 5'7" Was 228 lbs  Lost 64 lbs*  Weight 164 lbs  As of 3/10/2007 *Results Not Typical "I used to come home every night and sit and watch TV. I don't do that anymore because I realized that one of the things I used to do...was eat."

When I was a kid, there were emergency phone numbers on our refrigerator—and Carlos's diet. I was always chubby, and when I was ten or eleven, my pediatrician put me on a diet. My family is Cuban, and healthy cooking was not a part of my mother's repertoire. She would make fried steak with yellow rice and mariquitas, which are fried yucca chips, or fried pork chunks with white rice, black beans and fried plantains—delicious food but not exactly healthy.

We also got rewarded with food whether we were happy or sad. My mom worked at a factory and would get home late so I'd snack in front of the TV after school. A snack would be a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and an industrial-size bag of Doritos. Eating and TV became my best friends. We were copartners in bad habits, which sent me down a bad path with my weight.

I always hated the start of the new school year because I'd have to go shopping for new school clothes. I remember going to the kids' section of the department store, and none of the pants on the rack would fit me. It always ended the same way: The salesperson would announce over the intercom to the stockroom to bring out the husky pants. It was the most humiliating thing!

By the time I was in college, my fraternity brothers nicknamed me "Pillsbury," as in the Pillsbury Doughboy, for being the fattest pledge in the class. I hated it! There were so many other things they could have called me, and they picked the one thing I was most upset about—my weight. After college I tried my best to lose weight, and sometimes I had some success, but it never lasted.

In 2005, I was changing jobs—from being a full-time fund-raiser to being a realtor—and I'd gone to the doctor for a physical because of the change in health insurance. The doctor told me I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and the onset of adult diabetes. She asked whether I remembered when my parents had developed high blood pressure, and I did because I had to learn how to take my mom's blood pressure. My mom was 56; she's now almost 80. When I told the doctor, she said, "Carlos, you're 36. I don't think you'll make it to 80 because your mom had 20 years more before she had to start taking medication." That shocked me. She said that before she put me on medication, she wanted me to lose some weight.

On my own, I started to eat lighter foods and cut down on portions, and I lost 25 pounds. Then, in October 2005, right before my birthday, the doctor said I definitely had to go on medication. I went to lunch with a friend and I told him that I was really depressed about having to take pills. He said that he was having similar issues and that his mom, who was a member of Weight Watchers, was encouraging him to go. That night, we went together. By then, I was carrying 227 pounds on my 5 foot 7½-inch frame.

My meeting Leader told me not to think about how far I had to go but to think about losing 1 pound each week. So I put that in my PDA and made that my goal. I started to really focus on making better choices about the foods I put in my mouth. I love to snack so now I always have a bowl of fruit out, and there are always bags of carrots, broccoli and cauliflower in the fridge. I keep a box of low-fat crackers in the back of my car and a drawer of healthy snacks in my office.

I used to come home every night and sit and watch TV. I don't do that anymore because I realized that one of the things I used to do while I sat and watched TV was eat. Now my partner and I will go out for a walk after dinner. Gradually, I changed the not-so-healthy habits into healthy habits, and I realized: Oh my God, I can do this! I can really do this!

Six months into it, I really started to see a difference. I had lost 45 pounds,* and I was concerned about having sagging skin. A friend of mine who is a personal trainer told me the best way to deal with that was to do calisthenics. Because I had been an overweight kid, I hated sports and I was always bad at them. My friend asked whether I'd tried since I lost weight, and I hadn't, so I thought I'd give exercise a try. I started doing a combination of power walking, lifting light weights and doing Pilates and other muscle-toning exercises. I got a pedometer and counted my steps, aiming for 10,000 steps a day. Then I began running and walking for 15 minutes a day on the treadmill, and, gradually, I did it for longer and longer. I never thought I could do this, but last January I did the Miami marathon—and I ran all 26.2 miles!

I've lost almost 70 pounds, and I feel great. I've transformed my life—I have become a kid again. I feel like I'm 20 years old. Not long ago, I had a physical and my doctor said to me, "Carlos, if I didn't know you were almost 40, I'd think you were in your early twenties." There was no evidence of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, adult-onset diabetes—nothing!

I now feel like I can accomplish anything. What sealed the deal for me was being able to run that marathon. I never saw myself as an athlete before—and now I do. But the best thing about being thinner is the person I see in the mirror every day. In the past, I felt cute but never sexy—and now I do. I still pinch myself every day to see if this is really me.