Thank you for reading this Operation Melt blog update.
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Amuse Bouche
My amuse bouche for you today is a light “dad joke” to entertain your mind before we get down to business. Like any other amuse bouche, you may hate it, but it is worth every penny that you paid for it, right?
The guy in the Ferrari was the first one across the finish line… that was the most brazen cheating I have ever witnessed at a marathon.
Celebrating The Most Exciting Moments in My Journey (Part 2)
The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
Oprah Winfrey
Building on last week’s post, Celebrating The Most Exciting Moments in My Journey (Part 1), this week, I am sharing the second half of my top ten most exciting moments from my five-year journey.
As a reminder, I am celebrating these top ten moments now because I am about to reach a milestone moment. This week will be the fifth anniversary of my decision to change my life by reversing forty years of unchecked obesity.
The events I celebrated in last week’s post were impressive, but they were just scratching the surface of my proud moments. This week includes some doozies!
#5 – Milestone: I Fit! New fall wardrobe.
Beyond the many negative health consequences of being obese, there is another, more superficial issue, clothes. When I started my journey, I was a 3XL with a fifty-two-inch waist. That meant that I could only buy clothes in big and tall stores. So, my options were very limited and the prices very high. This had been the situation for most of my adult life.
As my weight loss progressed, clothing became a definite issue, and I waited a long time to start replacing my wardrobe. About four months after starting my weight loss, I achieved a significant milestone, having lost fifty pounds. Replacing my embarrassingly oversized clothing had become a must.
I decided it was time to go shopping for some new clothes. In Week 15: To the Victor Go the Spoils, I talked about this first shopping trip. It was a little disappointing. While I was able to buy some clothes outside of a big & tall store, I was still pretty limited.
I continued buying a few new things here and there, but my size was changing fast, so I held back from making a big commitment. Fast-forward to the following fall, I was approaching the end of my weight loss journey, and everything was different. Big & tall stores were a thing of my past, and I fit into “normal” clothes. This meant a new world of shopping options opened to me.
I purchased an entire new fall wardrobe in “normal” sizes, including discount designer jeans. I was thrilled that day and wrote about it in Milestone: I Fit! New fall wardrobe.
#4 – Week 5: Milestone Moment Achieved
Throughout the first few weeks of my weight loss project, I kept my plan private. A few people, mostly my wife, knew I was trying to lose weight, but I didn’t want to tell the world because I wasn’t sure I would succeed. So, I just worked on myself in silence, waiting to see progress.
Progress came very quickly!
After just five weeks of tracking my food, eating healthy and ramping up the exercise, my weight started dropping. I had lost twenty-five pounds in just five weeks. My weight loss was starting to show, so it was time to stop being secretive.
One morning in July, after stepping on the scale and seeing that I was twenty-five pounds down, I decided to go public. I announced my progress on Facebook and received lots of support.
(FB post July 2017)
I shared the whole story of this experience in Week 5: Milestone Moment Achieved. Despite my major achievement, I was far from done… but I was worlds away from where I started!
#3 – Let’s do this my way (with some help from Lord Kelvin)
When I decided to change my life, I had no idea how I would do it. I just knew that I wanted things to be different and was committed to doing my best to succeed. Here is how I described “my moment” in my book.
I walked out of the first appointment with my doctor very disappointed with myself. I was failing at my health! I was on a path towards the early death that I kept joking about. I had let myself get up to 325 pounds! I needed to make a change immediately and never look back. Plus, I didn’t have all the information yet because there was still bloodwork to get back.
And this was my moment! This is when I made the decision to take action and do something. I just needed to figure out what that something was. I had my charter. Lose weight, lose it now and get better.
Operation Melt: How I Used Life-Changing Project Management to Lose Over 100 Pounds in Under a Year
After some soul-searching and lots of research over a weekend, I had sketched out a strategy for my journey.
If I can measure it, I can manage it!
Inspired by this quote from Lord Kelvin (and popularized by Peter Drucker), I decided that I was going to do this the Tony way. I would use things that I knew motivated me and worked with how I was wired. I was going to leverage data and project management, embrace my constraints and support myself with technology.
I shared my original strategy in my post, Let’s do this my way (with some help from Lord Kelvin). This was a pivotal milestone in my journey and was the foundation for success for years to come.
Do I have a tie?
Here we go… my top two moments in my journey. But, I have a confession for you; I am struggling with my top two. It is hard to choose which is my #1 because both milestones were transformative and defining events in my journey. One involved accomplishing my original goal, and the second was a new goal that I developed along the way. The second event was also an actual and symbolic finish line.
While I am choosing a #1 and a #2 event, I think it is really a tie, and both were equally rewarding.
Helpful tip: if you have never sat down and thought through your “highlight reel” in some aspect of your life, you are missing out. This exercise is an excellent reminder of just how far you’ve come. It is also a good way to help you focus on your “gain” instead of the “gap,” as I explained in Don’t Panic Over Disappointments… See Their Hidden Opportunities Instead.
#2 – Week 71: 325 Pounds to Half Marathon
Mid-morning on October 21, 2018, I was standing in a place called “Celebration Village” and had tears streaming down my face. I had just completed my first half marathon, just sixteen months after having weighed 325 pounds.
As I crossed the finish line in the race, I also reached a symbolic finish line in my journey. My weight loss transformation was done, and my life was different. I had accomplished so many things I never believed possible in less than a year-and-a-half.
Here is how I described this event in my book:
Finishing a half marathon was a big and emotional accomplishment for me. It was validation that I didn’t just get lucky and happen into weight loss. I am not just an occasional runner without skill and talent. I am an athlete and will only get better from here!
Operation Melt: How I Used Life-Changing Project Management to Lose Over 100 Pounds in Under a Year
This journey wasn’t easy, and the race was particularly challenging. But, I finished and wrote a complete recap of this surreal and emotional day in Week 71: 325 Pounds to Half Marathon.
#1 – I Did It! 100 Pounds Crushed!
It’s finally here… my number one greatest moment from my journey to change my life. And, how could I choose anything but the morning I saw this?
My goal was to lose over 100 pounds in under a year, but I had accomplished it in just nine months. The weight I had lost from my body was just part of the story. As I said in my book:
This journey turned out not to just be about what I lost, it is also about what I gained.
I gained more knowledge about who I am and what is important to me. I love using my knowledge, skills and talents to help people achieve their goals. I have a passion for turning wishes into goals, goals into plans, and plans into reality — either my own or other people’s goals.
I gained more self-confidence than I have had in years. I am not only passionate about helping to make goals come true for others, I also know that I can do it. No matter the goal, my project management based approach can help make it come to life.
I am completely unstoppable, and you can be too!
Operation Melt: How I Used Life-Changing Project Management to Lose Over 100 Pounds in Under a Year
Read what I wrote on that big morning in March in I Did It! 100 Pounds Crushed!
So What?
It wasn’t easy, but I managed to choose my ten biggest, proudest moments from my weight loss journey that kicked off five years ago. I have had so many positive and negative experiences, and I have grown so much over this half-decade. I am still in a bit of disbelief. And, my journey isn’t done. I have the second half of my life ahead of me.
So, stay tuned… there is more where this came from!
Are you thinking about kicking off your own transformational journey? Do you need a little help with setting and crushing your goals? I am ready and have lots of tools to help you.
Click Here to learn more about my Operation Melt coaching services.
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