April of '09

Picture this.

You are sitting in a doctor's office awaiting test results and fearing for the worst.

I get a call at work a few days after visiting my primary care doctor for the first time in god-knows-how long. The person over the phone said with urgency, "You need to come see the doctor right away!" When I asked "What's wrong?" All the person said was "It's confidential the doctor needs to tell you in person." When I pressed on with additional questions; she gave me a confusing and vague description of my test results. Seeing this was fruitless I made an appointment for the next day and hung up the phone.

WTF.

I immediately started to Google whatever phrases the person said to me over the phone to see what I think I will be diagnosed with. So I read up as much as I can and prepared myself for whatever the doctor was going to tell me the next day. My day was officially ruined.

As I sat there in the doctor's office awaiting for the news with my wife; I was a complete nervous wreck. I started to think to myself what will happen to me? what now?

The door opens and the moment of truth, the doctor steps in and sits down to break the news. "David, you have high blood pressure and your cholesterol is bad." Then I said, "Thanks for scaring the sh*t out me over the phone." The doctor laughed. I was relieved it wasn't anything more serious but was still unhappy about the prognosis. The doctor prescribes me various types of medications to help keep my blood pressure in check and to help control my cholesterol levels. So I asked "How long do I need to take these?" He replied, "For the rest of your life."

I was silent. As the doctor left the office; I was staring at myself in the mirror processing what just transpired. I was getting upset with myself. I didn't want to live the rest of my life depending on medication especially in my early-30's. How the hell did I let myself get to this point?

That's when I SNAPPED.

At that point, I decided to make a lifestyle change and to get in shape. I never felt I was heavy because I've always been this way my entire life. I was always fairly active in sports my whole life growing up. But as I get older and having a full-time job it made me less and less active. Playing sports was replaced with playing video games constantly (look at my xbox gamerscore). I was eating whatever I wanted and didn't think of the consequences. I was buying XXXL sized clothing to mask my appearance. As a result of all this my weight ballooned up to 285 lbs as of early 2009.

So, it's been over a year since I started my journey and I've finally reached a point where I'm comfortable blogging about it. I feel enough time has passed since I started and I'd like to share with everyone my stories and hopefully it inspires you to make a change.