I had to go to Tampa, FL for work and while I was here I meet up with my cousin Roz. She told me Dr. Oz is looking for people who have successful weight loss, I think I fit in that so I have written him an email off his website. Lets see what he says...
Hello Dr. Oz,
To start this story off, we need to go back to June 22nd 2009 on Amy’s (My wife's) and mine anniversary. We both love eating, and when we ate we always over did it. So, on our anniversary we decided to go out to Outback for dinner. At this time I weighed in at 500 pounds on the dot and my wife weighed in at 330 pounds. I am about 6”3” and Amy is only 5”1’. When started to order, (we were sitting at a table because I would not fit in the booth) we ordered drinks, got an appetizer of there yummy Cheese and bacon fries to start off. Between the two of us we would have no problem eating all of it. Then it came time to order our meal I ordered the 16oz Prime rib with a Fully loaded Backed potato and a side salad with 1000 island on it. Amy ordered the Chicken fingers. As Amy and I were sitting at the table we just started talking about our weight and how unhappy we were about the whole situation. Right then and there we made a life changing choice, WE WILL LOSE WEIGHT! We decided that this will be our last big hurrah and that tomorrow I would start a 1600 calorie diet, and Amy would look into getting the Gastro Bypass. Since this was our last hurrah we also got a dessert of some sort of apple ice cream (don’t really remember what it was).
So from this point lets look at the amount of calories I ate in just ONE meal.
Aussie Cheese Fries - 2135.8 (I ate about 2/3 of it so 1412, not including the side of ranch I had)
Prime Rib 16 oz - 1061.6 cal
Fully loaded Baked Potato 532
House Salad with 1000 Island 338
Chocolate Thunder From Down Under 1911.3 (Had about 2/3 of it also, so about 1261)
Total I ate about 4,605 Calories in one meal.
Now that I am looking back at this I can’t believe I used to eat like that.
The first thing I needed to do was to find some way that I would be able to keep track of my calories. I then found this AWESOME free app for my iphone called LoseIt!. It is just an easy why to track the calories I eat.
Once I had the program I had to figure out a way I would still be able to eat large quantities but stay under my 1600 calorie limit. I don’t remember what I ate the first day but I can look back in my phone to find out. But since I was trying to ate more healthy (like more veggies, proper amount of meat) I was having a problem even hitting 1400 the first couple days. So I decided since I never went over 1400 calories I would stick to a 1400 calorie diet.
So now I had a plan on eating but I needed a way to see how much I weighed because most home scales do not go past 330 let alone 500 pounds. On 7/7/09 I went with Amy to see Dr. Billy (The Dr. that did Amy’s Gastro Bypass) and while there they had a REALLY cool machine that can weigh BIG time weight. So I went on the scale and to my Surprise I weighed in at 490 pounds!!! I thought I would Maybe weigh in at 400, not 490! Another nice thing this scale does it also tells you your body fat % and your BMR. the BMR number became a magical number to me. If you don't know what BMR is look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate . After reading up on BMR being the geek that I am I thought I would write a spread sheet that can guess how much I should weigh and when. So I wrote this complicated spread sheet (Here is a copy of it http://www.zumodrive.com/share/39luN2M5Nz ) that does that based off several numbers that I need to guess your BMR. I even put some variables in there to help match what the scale says you BMR is. Since I was able to figure out the math with Calories in vs Calories out I would able to work the math backwards to say I must of weighed in almost exactly at 500 pounds when I started.
Since the day I started I never went over the 1400 calorie mark. I last weighed in on 5/21/2010 and I weigh 279.5 pounds a total loss of 220.5 pounds in less than a year by just calorie counting.
My wife is also doing REALLY good after the Gastro, her last weigh in she was at 180 pounds. Another thing to note is that right now we have 2 boys. We have been trying to have a baby (hopefully a girl) for the last 2~3 years. It got to the point to where her OB said she is infertile and we can’t have any more babies. Well..... once Amy lost all that weight, guess what... She is now Pregnant with a GIRL!! We are very excited about this also! Amy has a story and if you want to hear it let me know.
There is a lot more to my story and if you want to hear it please let me know and I can tell you more. Here are some pictures of me at different stages (I have higher quality ones if you want them).
06-26-09 496 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7cYzc5YT
08-17-09 453 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7dZDI3Mj
09-12-09 428 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7eMGQ5NW
12-15-09 366 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7gOTU1MG
02-10-10 333 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7iNGE1NW
03-01-10 322 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7kMmIwNG
04-06-10 301 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7lMTkxOD
05-16-10 282 pounds http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7oOTllYj
Before and after Pic http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7pNzg1OT
Me with my old pants taken on March 1st 2010 http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7qZTBhOG
Me and a picture of Richard Simmons before I started the diet (I just happen to meet him in the Miami Airport) http://www.zumodrive.com/share/5z7PNjk1YW
I also have more data on me with when I weighed what so if you want that info let me know and I can send it on your way.
Matthew Shack
