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 Passion, Success, Appreciation
By Todd Gilliland
My story really begins on November 4, 2005. This is the day that I was forced into dealing with my problems. Up until this day, my life was like many others; lived hard and played hard without much regard for taking care of myself. After getting married, Brenda and I stayed really active with many different activities such as jet skiing, snowmobiling, tractor pulling, and drag racing. During the years leading up to 2005, I generally went to see my doctor annually. Each year, I would be another 7-10 pounds heavier and have additional medical problems. Not being smart enough to listen or take instruction, everything just kept stacking up. Finally, I was convinced by my doctor and my wife to be checked for sleep apnea; and boy I had it bad! About halfway through the study, the technician came in and said they were going to stop because they had never seen a case as bad as me.
Following the diagnosis, I started using a sleep machine and the results were awesome. I felt like a new person! This jump started me and I started to think about getting healthy. I tried diets of every nature; Atkins, cabbage soup, weight watchers, and many others, constantly going up and down without strong results. Then, I decided to buy an endless pool (treadmill for swimmers) to aid in my quest to get in shape and I managed to start shaping up. I improved my physical fitness, but without changing my diet, the weight was not coming off and my medical problems persisted. I was placed on Glucofage, Toporol, and Lipitor, just to keep me within the acceptable ranges of where I should be. So to make a long story short, this is how I got to that day.
November 4, 2005 started out like most days. I went to work at our trucking company. I don’t remember much, but I do know that I asked one of my co-workers if their heart ever fluttered or beat like it was? I can remember being out in the yard with my son while he was playing basketball and I was dealing with the leaves. I remember him calling me over to him to shoot a few, and that’s when the lights went out. When I came to my senses three days later, I was really confused and not quite sure what was up. I was sent home in another four days with a Guidant Defibrillator planted in my chest to monitor my heart and to keep it from ever stopping again. It took me over a year to get over the physical and mental effects of what had happened to me. Over the next couple of years, life rolled on as others, but I was a lot more aware of what I ate and what I did to exercise. Unfortunately, the weight just kept coming.
Then, the next big day in my life came on Christmas 2007. My mother gave me the BEST Christmas gift I have ever been given, a one year membership to Tamarac! It took me a couple of weeks to work up the courage to walk through the doors, but on January 7, 2008, I started my new journey. It all started with my personal health analysis and my fitness guide, Amanda Irwin. Needless to say, I was TERRIFIED, but after we started my terror was replaced with encouragement and reassurance that I could do this and get in shape. I hope that Amanda knows what that thirty minutes can mean to someone when they are not sure if they should, or can, start on their journey to a healthy lifestyle. I was a whopping 344 pounds on that day and felt like I could climb any mountain, so Amanda sent me out to get started.
I worked out six days a week, the first month or two for about thirty minutes each day. The first few months were very hard and very painful, but that started to wear off and I began to feel GREAT! My workouts were now getting up to ninety minutes and all of my pains were beginning to subside. My doctor was very encouraged by my efforts to workout, but my blood levels and weight were not changing much. Then, Dr. Hudson mentioned that he wanted me to sign up for the New You program at Tamarac. There, I could be reunited with my now retired doctor, Dr.Clouse. I was excited because I knew that he would be proud of me for working out and improving my health after all these years, so I began my next journey on April, 1, 2008.
At the New You kick off, I weighed in at 355.8 pounds. My god…after all that work, I gained another 11.8 pounds! I told them to take me and teach me…and I have finally seen the light! I went into the twenty week course with Cathy Gragg and after the first week, I lost 12 pounds! At my current weight, the course called for me to be on five meal replacements each day. I have enjoyed the meal replacements and all of the different recipes that you can make with them. Throughout the course, I was taught about the many things that are good and bad for you. Also, I learned about accountability and discovered bad habits that I didn’t even know I had. I was taught how to plan meals, how to eat, and when to eat. I learned many other things, but the most important to me were the meetings and the time spent in class with Cathy and the others who were in the same boat as me. Through New You, I was able to lose close to 80 pounds. As a bonus, around the ten week mark, the Health One meal replacements and my new lifestyle helped me to get OFF ALL of my medications!
I am now enrolled in the New You maintenance program and my instructor, Heidi, is as amazing as Cathy. In this class, Heidi reinforces what we were taught during our first twenty weeks and takes us to new places such as the physical side. Also, she started a game with our group that works like the television show Biggest Loser, so she is doing well keeping it very interesting. Thus far, I have lost 91 pounds, my blood pressure is great, I am still off all medications, and I cannot even put into words how good I feel! At first, I was a little worried about succeeding, but now that I’ve come this far, I am certain of only more successes. My weight loss has slowed and I am about 45 pounds away from my goal weight of 220 pounds. I am not frustrated because every week my team is there to help me. We are trying to determine how many calories to consume and what types of workouts to do to keep this moving forward.
At Tamarac, I have the perfect circle for continued success starting with my guide, Amanda Irwin, who keeps me going on the physical side and Cathy and Heidi on the diet side. I can’t go wrong!
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