The Year Of Wes - In Conclusion

2014 has almost passed us by, and I must come full circle, with thanksgiving and give a final report on the Year Of Wes.

As mentioned in an earlier post, at the start of the this year my friend and former trainer Jason had challenged me to take on 2014 as the Year of Wes.

What started with hope, turned into success, and then some.

As you can clearly see in the graphic, a lot happened for me this year and more is hoped for next year.

Before I jump into talking more about myself than I probably should, I would be remiss to not mention the passing of my mother two weeks before Christmas this year.  Mom had a rough year, and it took a nosedive in the summer when she was first hospitalized.

After a courageous battle and decision to face death head-on, Mom went to be with the Lord two weeks to the day before Christmas. 

As you can imagine this was very hard for me, and many tears were shed even though I believe that she is in a much better place.

I am grateful, among many things, that Mom got to see me drop so much weight this year.  Being a retired nurse, she was always concerned about my weight.

With the love, support and prayers of many, including my F3 brothers I am making it through these days of grief and reflection.

It would be easy to get down during the Christmas season with Mom's passing, and there have been rough days, but there is still Hope for me in this life and the next and that includes taking care of my health.

I won't rattle off the accomplishments of the year, you can read them above.  I will however say that this year has been one of the most transformative ones in my 42 years on this planet.

You're like sure Wes, you dropped 56 lbs., that's transformative.  Well, sure.  But like anything it starts deeper than skin-deep.

I had no idea what I was missing coming into 2014, and it was true male leadership in my life. 

The guys in F3 and SPEARHEAD have challenged me, and encouraged me all along the way to keep pushing and keep changing.

Many mornings at F3, not much is said, but I'm deeply inspired by these guys who are my brothers now, and amazed not only at their physical fitness levels, but the size of the hearts.

Our society has reduced male society to some macho, drinking, sexist community when true male society is so far removed from all that.

True men lead by example, and inspire by doing what many refuse to do.  Namely get up before the crack of dawn to work their bodies to the point of exhaustion.

I've met men more than thirty years my senior who can run laps around me, and can still kick serious butt in life and in a workout.

The gym lie (I don't hate gyms, just not a fan anymore) tells you that you can do it all -- alone.  Well I couldn't.  I had a gym membership and hated it.

I never laughed. I never talked to anyone there.  There was no community there as the sales rep had told me there would be.  Strangely enough that gym has since gone out of business. Coincidence?

But at F3 we're laughing and cutting up, and sweating and sucking wind, and pushing each other and then when it's all said and done we go eat!  Well, at least on Saturdays.

People have told me that F3 sounds too intense.  It sounds too hard.  It's just as hard as you want to make it.  Honestly the hardest thing about F3 is showing up the first time.  Many of the workouts you set your own pace.  If you're a slow runner, run slow.  You'll get faster in time.

Then after a few times, you find you don't hate it quite as bad.  Then suddenly you miss it when you are sick, or out of town or whatever.

Soon you find yourself doing races and doing things like GORUCK that you thought were physically impossible for you to do.  But there you are, doing them.

So don't believe the lies you've been told.  It's too hard, it's too long, you'll get bored, you'll get injured, you won't find any friends, on and on. 

Step out and try F3 or FIA (for ladies) and you may just have your own Year Of (Insert Name Here).

I'm amazed, humbled, shocked, inspired and challenged by all that 2014 has brought me and excited to see even more goals crushed with a little help from my friends next year.

Best wishes for a wonderful new year, and here's to the Year Of Wes 2.0!

2014 - A Different Kind of Year

The other day I was updating accomplishments and achievements on my Facebook page and realized that all of mine for 2014 were health related!  Nothing I've done for the year was really amusement park or roller coaster related this year, it was all about races, weight loss, rucks, etc.  Wow, what a shift for me.

Now first I'll say that, no, I'm not giving up roller coasters, this year was just a down year for me financially and I wasn't able to travel.  2015 though I plan to hit the road for more coasters!

But it's pretty crazy for a guy that couldn't run 1/4 mile the start of 2013, to have completed three 5k's, one 10k and a GORUCK event is pretty wild.

While it would be easy to pat myself on the back and tell myself I did all this, it's simply not true.  Friends, family, F3 brothers, GORUCK brothers and sisters and others have all been part of this journey.

Some didn't even really say anything to me, but their character, toughness, fitness, or whatever inspired me to keep plugging on.

Several went through major physical ailments and still kept their heads up and kept moving forward.

One I know inspired me by his failure.  We are all human, and we need each other to make it through this life. 

If you need help, ask for it.  Pride is useless, humble yourself and ask for help.  Most people are more than happy to help if you simply ask.

Until next time...

Amazing What A Few Inches Can Do

Greetings friends and followers of my little blog, back with an update that is about a month late.  Not a lot has happened on the scale, but a lot has happened in other areas of my weight loss journey.

Still sticking with the 5:2 Diet and working out at F3, and it continues to pay off.

On September 20, I attended ACE Southeast's SCarolina Coaster Classic, coaster event at Carowinds.

This was my first opportunity to visit Carowinds in a few months and wow did I see a big difference on the coasters.

The coaster shown is Afterburn (some may remember it as Top Gun: The Jet Coaster) and for the longest time it has been a battle for me to fit on the coaster.  But not on the 20th!

My favorite place to ride on Afterburn is in the back row, the forces are the strongest there and I really love it.  But the back row has been a struggle for a long, long time because the belts would many times be too short for me because I was so overweight.

There were times I would barely fit, with the ride attendants struggling to get the belt locked. There were times I was turned away or given the option of the big-boy-seats, which have longer seat belts but are in the middle of the train and don't offer the same G forces.

On the 20th I sat down in the seat and pulled my seat belt and locked it and low and behold it was loose!  I can't remember the last time I had an inch or two of slack on my seatbelt for any B&M inverted coaster.

As you may know my whole reason, besides my health, to lose weight began when I was denied riding El Toro in New Jersey.   Today I think I would fit!  Of course I'm not stopping, I'm going for the gold and while I'm already thinner than I've been in over a decade, I want to go about 30 or 40 more pounds down and then find a way to maintain that weight the rest of my life.

For years I've had roller coaster t-shirts hanging in my closet that no longer fit.  I obviously bought them when I was thinner, but I just held on to them hoping some day I could fit in them again.  Well they all fit now!  I'm actually wearing a Millennium Force shirt today that hasn't been loose on me since probably I bought it in 2003.

I'm running a 5k Sunday (my third since June 2013) and I'm hoping to best my last race time.  I'm also planning to do my first mud run in April!  I always seem to be scared before the next challenge, but I also know that I'll get through it.

If you're thinking about doing a mud run in the future, F3 has a new men's mud run workout!   The Brave (the name of the workout) meets at The Vine at 5:15 on Fridays.

2015 will also hold my second GORUCK Light, my first 24 Hours of Booty, and possibly a GORUCK Challenge. 

Lots of stuff to keep me excited and motivated as I continue the Year of Wes with v2.0.

El Toro I'm coming to conquer you!  Ole!

Thanks for reading along and until next time please sit on your sandals!

Now That's Better

Tonight I had the strangest feeling, I felt sort of like... Homer Simpson! Let me explain.

Back when I used to actually watch The Simpsons, there was an episode where Homer went on a diet.  What resulted was utter chaos.

The doughnut company was all in a panic because they weren't selling doughnuts anymore, Homer was their biggest customer.

The convenience store was hurting because Homer wasn't coming in to buy those doughnuts from them.  Those two facts may be blurred a bit by time but that was what I took from the episode.

That all leads me to the reason I've made Wendy frown on the classic version of Wendy's logo.

Tonight for only I believe the second time in about three or four months I went through the drive through at my local Wendy's.

The first time they said something to the affect of "Where have you been? We've missed you!".   The second time, tonight, they basically were like "Um, why aren't you coming by and eating here anymore?"  When I told them that it was due to my dietary changes, they basically blew me off and didn't even offer a "Great job, or good luck with that!".  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Most businesses are all about making money, and when their customers tell them they aren't going to be coming by much anymore I guess their reaction is to kick you to the curb and keep it moving.  Sad to say I thought the guy was actually pretty nice to me, but I guess he was just buttering me up all along to get some money out of me.  Maybe I'm being harsh, but that's the way it feels.

I don't hate Wendy's, obviously I still like the place or I wouldn't have patronized them tonight.  But it was kind of one of those lines in the sand.

Sure I enjoy a splurge every now and then on the diet, but I refuse to go back to the guy I used to be who went to Wendy's almost weekly and got cheese fries, oh yeah and another order of them too.  Yes, that's right I would get two orders of cheese fries each time.

We've all got our weaknesses, mine has never been alcohol or drugs, but mine has always been food.  Food isn't evil, food can't be demonized like alcohol or drugs and you need it to survive.

But finding a balance in what I consume is still a struggle some days.

It's easy to tell myself I can make up the difference on my two fasting days, but that's the exact thing that got me to three hundred pounds - compromise.  Compromise once in a while is fine, but when its every day, every week, month after month it all starts to add pounds and add up.

I know very few people read this blog and that is fine, but if anyone does actually read along I hope that you'll be encouraged by my struggles.

Yes I've had great success this year, but I'm still very human and can easily fall off the wagon.  I hope that doesn't happen, I'm very focused and determined that I will not go back where I've came from.

But as I was reminded watching the first season of House of Cards, it only takes one step in the wrong direction and your whole world can fall apart.

Thank the Lord for his grace and mercy, he keeps me from many blunders, but I also have a big part in this transformation.  I've got to reach out for help when I need it, I've got to kick my butt when I need to and I've also got to really celebrate and be content with how far I've come.

Wherever this post finds you, I hope it finds you well.  If it doesn't I hope you'll come along with me on this journey and we'll both be better for it.  Now that's better!

Until next time...

Shops At A Premium

I normally don't talk about much besides my weight loss journey but I thought it would a nice change of pace to talk about the new Charlotte Premium Outlets.  Yesterday I was afforded the time to go check out Charlotte's first new mall in 10 years.

CATS Route 55 Westinghouse actually goes straight from the LYNX light rail station at Sharon Road West to the mall.  To save gas by having to drive all the way from my house in east Charlotte, I just caught the bus after work.  The route takes about 30 minutes from the light rail station.

After arriving at the mall, I walked up the hill to the shops and immediately noticed that the place is one of the nicest outlet malls I've been to.  I've traveled a good bit over the years and usually end up checking out outlet malls in whatever town I'm in.  Most are usually just glorified strip malls, and not much glory to boot.
The Charlotte Premium Outlets, while small at this point, are certainly a cut above most that I've visited.

One of the amenities I noticed is the amount of cover you have for an outdoor mall.  While the Gaffney, SC outlet has covered walkways, it always just feels like a strip mall to me.

The Charlotte outlet feels much more like you're walking the streets of your favorite town and just popping into shops, and you do have places to run to if the bottom falls out and we get one of those Carolina heat-of-the-day thunderstorms.

The main reason I wanted to visit the new mall was for the Under Armour Outlet.  I'm a big fan of Under Armour's products, but not such a fan of their retail prices. The only other UA Outlet I've visited was in Pigeon Forge where I got a new workout shirt for a great price.

I thought the Charlotte UA store had a pretty good selection. The store was having a Labor Day sale which helped, but not quite sure if the prices were quite as good as Pigeon Forge.  With the distance this store is from me, I'll probably just buy from their online outlet in the future.  Still I wasn't disappointed to visit my second UA store.

As I made my way around the mall, I noticed lots of nice courtyards with fountains, places to sit both under cover and out in the open.

The mall only has two restaurants in their food court open so far, but there is a new Bojangles located across the street (you would have to drive) from the mall and a new McDonald's is coming soon across from the Bojangles.

The stores in the outlet didn't really strike me as true outlets.  Kind of in the middle as far as price.  I guess they are at a premium.  A good example is the Old Navy Outlet.

The Old Navy Outlet at Potomac Mills, near D.C. had truly great prices.  I remember buying a t-shirt for $4 there.  The outlet in Charlotte might have had only slightly better prices than a regular Old Navy store.

I had to chuckle a bit as I passed the Crocs store.  Is this store considered the tackiest store in the world?  I personally don't get the hatred for Crocs.  I've got a pair of their flip flops and they have lasted forever and are super comfortable.  I don't own a regular pair of Crocs, but I really don't find them that ugly.  Our society really cares too much about what's on the outside of the body and not what's on the inside of the soul.

In summary, the outlets are very nice, but nothing that I'd say make a special trip far out of your way for unless you just have to visit them.  Pretty much everything that I found at the Charlotte Premium Outlets I can find at Concord Mills and Concord Mills has big box stores like Bass Pro.

One issue, just like when Northlake Mall was built is that the area has nothing around it, but I'm sure that will change in the next decade.  It looked like a strip mall of some sort was being built behind the new Bojangles by the highway entrance to the mall.

Overall, very nice, but small and in need of more stuff to do.  Thanks for reading and until next time, please sit on your sandals!

Just Do It!

I love my time on the bicycle, I always seem to come up with my best ideas pedaling the country roads of Mecklenburg and Union counties.

This morning Nike ad Just Do It, popped into my brain while out on my Sunday morning ride.

First I'll say this is not an ad for Nike, I'm more of an Under Armour guy myself.  But the campaign that Nike launched all those years ago was brilliant in its simplicity.

How could three little words sum up so much. But another famous phrase I Love You is only three words and says so much.  Good things sometimes come in small packages, which should be encouraging to all my vertically-challenged friends out there.

Just Do It popped up in my brain this morning and it got me thinking, how many times should we just say to ourselves, not even out loud Just do it!  Just do it Wes! Just do it when it hurts, just do it when you want to be lazy, just do it when you'd rather sit in the recliner and veg out, just do it!

The strange thing I've found over the past 5 months of F3, is that at some point I don't have to tell myself to just do it.  I want to do it.

What in the world has happened to me of late?

In the past two days I've been called an Iron Man (the athletic version, not the metallic clad billionaire variety) and an athlete. An athlete? Me?  It boggles the mind.  But as I look at the definition above, I realize I am an athlete now and I'm loving every minute.  My friend Jason many times called us athletes at boot camp, but it's really sinking in.

As I sit here writing, my legs are in a state of serious repair.  They are very sore from a hard boot camp, I helped partly lead yesterday, and two days of cycling.  This is all being done by a guy that at the start of 2013 couldn't even run one-quarter of a mile. Which brings me back to my point, and I have one.

I'm frankly tired of hearing my fellow Americans tell me that they can't do this, or they can't do that.  Yes you can!  I'm not anything special, I wasn't born on Krypton.  I'm an American, born in the South: home to fried chicken, sweet tea and Krispy Kreme's!  Mmm...somewhere the hot donut sign just came on.

As I've advanced in my transformation this year, I've heard so many people say "I could never do that!".  Lies!  You can do this stuff!  You can get off the couch and take better care of yourself.

Am I saying that you all need to run out and do a ruck, certainly not.  But you can take better care of yourself, you can eat better, you can stop smoking or whatever your hangup is.  We all have them.
Sometimes they manifest in the strangest ways.

People tend to go to extremes.  They either workout too much, or not at all.  They either eat like a health nut, or they eat fast food until they are bloated, sickly creatures who hate life.  We need to find balance in our country and world.

There are people, by the thousands if not millions that struggle to provide one meal a day for themselves in our world.  Sometimes you may pass them on the street as you drive to Starbucks to buy your $5 mocha latte whatever-they-are-call-it.

I'm not here to guilt trip anyone, and I'm not here to say its wrong to be able to afford Starbucks every day. But I am here to say in my own small way, that you and I need to find balance in our lives.

This doesn't mean just health, but if your health is lacking then eventually you will have to stop life in general just to try and survive.  How many people do you hear of that don't take care of themselves and one day they have a heart attack or stroke?  Many of them could have prevented a lot of pain, suffering and financial woes if they'd only found balance in their lives.

I heard one of the best quotes recently, and sadly I can't recall the source:  When people are young, they spend all their health to make money.  When people are old, they spend all their money to make themselves healthy.  It's so true, and it's so sad.

Our society seems to be on the brink of a major shift.  The gap in the upper, middle and lower classes seems to be broadening in every respect.  It seems many in the middle class do think of others but many are struggling to achieve success in this world and make it to the upper class and therefore they lose focus on others. In many cases some of the most giving people in our country are the poor, the ones that can least afford to give.

I'm not here to bash the 1%, I'm saying we are all the 1%.  I heard in a sermon recently that if you own a refrigerator, you are in the top 5% wealthiest people in the world.  Read it again, in the world.

I am going to point (in a very nice way) a finger though at the rich.  What are you doing!?  I don't care if you have millions, but what are you doing with those millions?

Why do you need a new luxury car every 3 years, or 2, or 1?  That luxury car is a lie.  It tells you that you've succeeded, that you're better than your neighbor, or the guy at the office.

That car will one day rust and rot in some landfill, and your body will rot and decay in a grave.  What did you do with your money that helped anyone else?  I'm not trying to bash the rich.  If you have money and you help others with a portion of it, and give of your time to help others I applaud you.  You are certainly in the minority it seems.  Writing a check is all well and good, but what did you do that got you down in the trenches with the rest of us that are struggling to keep a roof over ourselves?

I come back in conclusion to this really long post to say this, Just Do It.  Whatever your battle is in life, whether its greed, obesity, depression, laziness, drugs, alcohol, apathy, whatever it is, just take today and just do something about it!

Battles are rarely won in an instant, they take planning and many times patience.  I challenge you to get in the battle for your life.  Make your life a better one, then you'll be able to improve someone else's life and when we all start to do that, what a wonderful world this place could be.

Until next time... please sit on your sandals!

Yes You Can!

Hey everyone, back for another post and some more progress reports.

This one is going to be a bit different though, I want to focus on you this time and not really about me.  I will use my own story of course, but if this blog is going to make any difference at all it has to become more about you than me.

Yesterday I did something that I literally thought was crazy just a year ago.  I did a GoRuck custom event!  Turns out it was the biggest custom GoRuck event in history!  How cool is that?  So you're already thinking, what is GoRuck?  Glad you asked!

GoRuck, or rucking is a civilian's best chance without enlisting to find out what a Special Operations' or Special Forces training regiment is like. The event I participated in was called a Light.  Light doesn't mean easy, no way.  Light refers to the fact that you're doing the event during the day.  Many of the other GoRuck events take place mostly at night.

GoRuck: Red Light & Blue took place in Charlotte and supported Charlotte Bridge Home, an amazing organization that supports our troops in the Charlotte area and assists them in so many ways like helping them with their job search after leaving the military.

OK so I have to give a bit of background on myself to give you a picture of where this is going.

December 2013 after many months of frustration in finding a diet (in the best sense of that word) that would help me to lose the weight I'd been carrying around for years I came across the 5:2 Diet, as I've mentioned several times.  To date I'm down 40 lbs.!

In March 2014 I joined F3 and took the fitness part of the puzzle to a new level.  I was working out before, but F3 certainly kicked my rear into another gear.  Hey, that rhymed.

One of my friends at the time joked that I would be doing a ruck event before I knew it.  I laughed because I never really dreamed he would be right.

Yesterday's ruck was an amazing way to celebrate 9 months of weight loss and life transformation, but again this isn't about me, it's about you.

You are facing a battle every day I have no idea what it is.  You may be battling financial hardship, I've been there.  I didn't know where money was going to come from at one point in 2013.  But I got through it by the grace of God, prayer of good friends and determination to not give up.  You can too.

You may be struggling with your weight, I was obviously there too.  At least twice in my life I weighed around 300 lbs., probably over 300.  I can tell you that you CAN do something about your health.

You could be immobile, but you can still do something about your health!  You can eat better, drink water, make food choices that boost your body, soul and mind and not tear them down.  I've seen so much lately that when the body is in balance, the mind, soul and spirit are all lifted.  This all has to start in your spirit and you have to dig down and find that fire in the belly, but once that desire finds its way out to the body, the body can then end up lifting the spirit as well.

You may have major drama in your family that rips apart your soul on a daily basis.  You may turn to food, drugs, alcohol or abuse of your body to deal with the pain.  You MUST understand that you are so precious, YOU are worthy of respect.  Every human being of this planet regardless of their outward appearance or attitude is still worthy of respect and that includes YOU.

For so many years I put myself down.  In my head I was my worst critic.  No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough.  No matter how I looked, it wasn't good enough.  If this is you, STOP.  Stop right there and learn to love yourself, right where you are no matter what mess your life is in.  If you can never love yourself, you will never have any love to share with another in this life.  And if you can't share love, then you are going to have a very lonely existence.

And this brings me back to the ruck.  The ruck events, even the Light (which again isn't easy), but is the easiest of the options to choose from will push you to a point where you have to choose what you are going to do.  Are you going to quit?  Or are you going to dig down inside yourself to the pit of your being and keep going.  This applies not just in doing a fitness challenge like I did, but in life.

Our society at one point celebrates winners, and at the same time tells us it's OK to quit.  No problem at all, everybody quits.  Well you aren't everybody, and I hope when times get tough in life that you won't quit but keep going.  Sometimes you just have to stand still in life when the hurricane rages around you, and just be still.

I hope this post reaches you and you will be encouraged by the humble story of a guy that has gone farther than he could ever imagine and hasn't arrived yet.  I'm still pushing, still have struggles and bad days.  But Lord willing I will continue to grow, get stronger and continue to push myself until I drop dead or the Lord calls His children home.  Wouldn't you rather live that way?  Why just settle?  So many people do and rarely look back on their lives with much joy.

Love to you all, and until next time "Please sit on your sandals!".

Aye!