I saw my doctor this past Friday and had an echocardogram. It was just a precaution since I’ve had high blood pressure the past couple of months. If you don’t know what an echocardogram is, it is essentially a sonogram but instead of watching a fetus, you get to watch the most important organ in your body at work. It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had. I had two things running simultaneously through my mind. First and foremost, there is something about watching your heart do its work that is completely awe-inspiring. What made it even more incredible was when he turned on the audio and the room was filled with the sounds of life.

But at the same time, it was a sobering experience to sit there watching this amazing machine that God has given all of us and to know that I would die if it stopped beating. I thought of my friend in Michigan who received a heart transplant 7 years ago to correct a congenital heart defect that claimed the lives of his four brothers. I know that he has watched his heart several times. And I know that when he has an echocardogram for his annual visits (the latest one was this same weekend) to the Mayo clinic, he sees something that most of us don’t see. In that blurry black and white screen, he sees a history of tragedy that goes back to May of 1974. And while I know that he will always wonder why this happened to him, I know that he also sees God’s sovereignty in that screen. He is aware that in the spring of 1999, a young woman was hit by a car and he is alive because of her heart. It was her heart that has allowed him to live a normal life with his wife and two sons. It was her heart that has given him joy and hope for the future.

The heart truly is a wonderful and fragile organ.

Amazing results of a scientifc review by Harvard School of Public Health has been published today, and what they say about drinking soda is disturbing. If you don’t read the whole thing, here are the most alarming facts:

• An extra can of soda a day can pile on 15 pounds in a single year
• A single 12-ounce can of soda provides the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of table sugar

Obviously, soda isn’t to blame for all of the problems of obesity but it is certainly a serious contributor. If you get the largest drink possible from a convenience store or fast food restaurant, you’re looking at 40+ teaspoons of sugar. Scary.

CNN has a good interview with Steve Vaught, the self-proclaimed “Fat Man Walking”. He just completed a 13 month long, 1300-mile walk to lose weight. He lost 100 pounds during that time. The whole thing is worth reading, but I wanted to highlight this excerpt:

O’BRIEN: You wanted to quit a couple of times, I read.

VAUGHT: Yesterday I wanted to quit a couple of times.

O’BRIEN: Yesterday? You’re like this close.

VAUGHT: Every day. No, every day you wake up, and even if you’re, you know, that close, you still say, oh, 10, 15 more miles? But that’s where the lesson is. The lesson is in overcoming the hardship, overcoming the adversity.

So, the point is, every day you want to quit, but you don’t. You understand that you still have to go. So you feel sorry for yourself for a little bit, and then you say, OK, now I have to go.

For those of you who are looking at undertaking the journey (weight loss, not the 3100 mile walk) or are just interested in the dynamics of it…I can totally relate. This journey is not just one big high. There are lows. I have had times where – in my enthusiasm at being able to tolerate more food – I have put on a couple of pounds and then lost them again. The painful memories of where I’ve been are too strong to ever consider going back. The journey does get harder the further you go. There are those times when I take an inventory of things and wish the journey wasn’t so difficult. But the joy of OVERCOMING ADVERSITY is what emerges out of the continual struggle and keeps me going. The low times occur, but they are brief. Ultimately, I’m just so damn proud of what I’ve done already and nothing can change that. I also believe that this is where happiness comes in. The happiness is not simply in losing weight. The happiness comes from realizing that for the first time in your life, you dragged that beast shrieking and kicking out into the back alley and finally…mercilessly…beat it to death.

If you’re looking at having surgery and are concerned your ability to succeed and cope with it, listen to me. I’m a guy who could eat an entire pizza for dinner and then wonder what was for dessert. I used to climb a flight of stairs and then get to the top wheezing like a rhino that just gave birth. Those days are gone. Believe me…you can overcome also.

For several years now, I haven’t worn a watch. Watches were just too tight on my wrist even when taken to the maximum size that the band allowed. After doing that for so long, I just got used to referring to my cell phone for the time. This weekend, on an impulse, I bought a new, inexpensive dress watch. I primarly bought it for a wedding I attended. I really like wearing one again and am wearing it daily. But the first thing I noticed was how loose it fits! I think I may actually need to tighten it up a little.

It’s the little things that continue to amaze and remind me daily of my journey.

Three months since my last post? Well personal post anyway. I had no idea it was that long. I’ve had a couple of people ask me lately if I was still updating my website. I just thought they were impatient. Time has really been moving fast for me lately.

Today is my birthday. At least it will be in an hour, 12 minutes and by the time you read this. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where I was just two years ago. I was 445 pounds, couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without gasping for air like a punctured tractor tire, was eating my way into an early grave, and was in major depression. My how things change.

I’ve been in a major plateau period. Part of that is just a normal part of the journey. And part of it – okay maybe a lot – is just a laziness on my part. While I went through a major life changing experience, I have become a little too comfortable to post-op life. I have even gone through yo-yo periods of adding a couple of pounds and dropping them again. It’s still pretty easy to lose weight when I put my mind to it. But I am tired of hovering this close to 300 pounds. I have decided that I’m going to quit screwing around (okay, I’ll enjoy my birthday weekend) and just punch on through that wall and break that 300 pound barrier.

But in all of this, I’ve noticed something…my mindset is different. As cliched as it sounds and as much as Mike Myers lampooned it in the Austin Powers movies, obesity is a serious problem. Those who have not struggled with it, can’t really understand it but it really is a viscious cycle of eating because you’re unhappy and being unhappy because you eat. At my worst times, I seriously gorged depending on how unhappy I was. And I don’t think it was even so much to punish myself (as some obesity sufferers would say) but it was just out of sheer hopelessness. I had so much trouble losing weight…and even when I did lose say 10 pounds, I wasn’t happy. Because I thought to myself I’ve lost 10 pounds and look no different. I have a looong ways to go. Then, I’d slip into depression immediately followed by a trip to the pantry, grocery store, or corner burger joint.

But I don’t get discouraged anymore even when my weight yo-yos a little or I reach a plateau. I still have a ways to go. I’m still technically obese. But you know what? I’m happy. Sure, I get frustrated at some of the little annoyances of life but in an overall sense, I haven’t felt this good in so long. It still blows my mind when I walk fast or even jog up the stairs at work from our basement to the cafeteria and am not wheezing. Tuesday night, I went to a baseball game with my brother and walked all over that stadium. When we got back to the car, I chuckled at the fact that I wasn’t anywhere near tired.

I’m also very aware of God’s hand on my life. My parents lost a baby in 1970. His name was going to be Paul. They grieved and then asked God to give them back a son. On April 7, 1972, I was born. I was aware of His presence when I went under the knife in November of 2004. Again, I felt Him when I almost died in August of last year. There’s nothing more sobering and re-orienting than having a near death experience. I highly recommend it.

Just two years ago, I was sliding into an early grave. I’m so grateful for this new lifestyle, mindset, and His never-ending mercy. I’m sticking around.

You don’t need to go far (really just to your local Wal-Mart or Golden Corral) to see that obesity is out of control. Here is a wacky but true article about how Britain is trying a new method of attacking obesity in the classroom. Something tells me this method will never fly in this country.

Until now, I’ve never posted my actual starting weight. But I’ve been thinking about it and realizing that total honesty warrants full disclosure. If I want this website to help others, then I have to post numbers.

I didn’t know I was 445 until I had my psychological evaluation back in August of ‘04. Most regular scales only go to 300 or 350 if you’re lucky. I was shocked that I was as high as I was but when I saw that number, my resolve was hardened. For a long time, I didn’t tell many people my actual weight. Embarrassment was probably a big part of it. But afterall…it’s just a number. And that number is getting lower.

I’ve finally updated my photos section also so you can see my journey visually. I will get some new full body shots (with clothes on) on here as soon as I can. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in the middle of another plateau. I’m assured by fellow post-op comrades (who have reached their goal weight) that this is completely normal. Realistically, it should take me about two years to reach my goal.

First of all, I continue to be lazy about getting pictures on my website that chronicle my weight loss. It’s a long story, but I recently found several digital pictures that I’d been wanting to include in the mix, so I will get on that soon. I also had my portrait done for Xmas and will include that brand new photo as well. So I will finally have pictures on here soon. Enough business…

I had my surgery towards the end of 2004, so this has been the first full year of post-surgery life. I know I’ve been absent here for a while, but I was thinking just recently of the past year and my incredible success. But what do I take away from the year? I tried to think of some big, lofty life lesson I’ve learned or a juicy piece of advice that I could give that would change lives. I hadn’t thought of it yet and was watching TV this week. Some program I was watching was in the middle of a commercial break, and my mind was on auto-pilot. Suddenly, everything came into focus during some medical commercial for a breakthrough drug…i forget what it was. But the commercial began to rattle off statistics in men’s health. 8 million men in this country suffer from diabetes. 29 million suffer from high blood pressure. 50 million have high cholestrol. And it hit me like a brick that I don’t suffer from any of these things. A little over a year ago, I was on the fast track to having all of them. I’d struggled with high blood pressure over the years, and my daily sugar and cholesterol intake was surely high enough to put a small third world country at risk. Somehow, I’d avoided them. But I knew my luck would run out sometime. And now I’ve put miles between myself and these problems. I continue to feel like a boxer who was on the ropes just trying to survive the blows and has now somehow managed to fight his way out of the corner and obliterate my opponent. Not bad for a year.

So what are my New Years Resolutions? None. I personally believe making New Years Resolutions is fundamentally flawed. If there are things you want to change in your life then just do it! Don’t give in to this stupid cultural idea that new beginnings coincide with January 1st. Why can’t they start on October 5th? Or June 18th? Or December 1st? Many New Years Resolutions fail…then people get lazy and think they can just slack until the next January 1st. That’s crap. Don’t fall victim to it.

Things are going just fine with me. My weight has continued to plateau for the most part. My scale is not trustworthy, so I’ll have a more accurate update when I go to the doctor next. Have I become lazy with diet and exercise over the holidays? Sure. My health has undergone a radical change in the past year…but I’m still human. Will I change that? Of course. I’ll become more vigilant…maybe starting January 3rd.

I sincerely hope that you are all having a great Christmas/Hannakuh/Kwanza/Festivus. The Feats of Strength were particularly memorable at the Chinn household this year. May the New Year bring great change in your life.

Yesterday, was my one year surgery anniversary. It was also the same day that my family buried my grandfather, Jack Chinn.

When I joined the obesityhelp.com chat room, the most current picture I could find of myself was one that had been taken recently with my grandfather in his nursing home. This is it. I haven’t updated the profile because I switched to this website. But when I joined the chat room, I frequently got several comments from women on the picture and how sweet my grandfather looked.

In the grips of Alzheimers, he never saw my journey. But I know he would have been so proud to see what I’d done. He was one of the hardest working men I’d ever known. When electricity came to central Kansas, he brought the wires to the family farm. He was a veteran of WW2 and survived the sinking of his aircraft carrier. After the war, he was a conductor on the Rock Island Railroad until he retired. So I know he would have been proud to see a member of this Internet couch-potato generation take action and do something so extreme to better his life. He was one of those men in my life that to get his approval would have meant the world to me. I really wish he would have known of my victory.

A study today from CNN shows that weight loss surgeries are more risky than believed before. I don’t understand the point of studies like this. Is it to frighten people? It certainly can’t be to inform. So what if they are riskier than expected? If you suffer from morbid obesity, this won’t change your mind about getting surgery. What you must do is check the track record of the center or surgeon that you use. CORI Centers in Michigan – at the time I had the surgery – had a mortality rate of 1 or 1.5%. That is a tremendous record. You must feel comfortable with who you choose. Don’t base your decision for surgery on some silly “study” that only targets Medicare patients.

While I am a huge proponent of weight loss surgery…you obviously have to think seriously about this. I, for instance, would normally not recommend the surgery for someone who only has 100 pounds or less to lose. This would, of course, depend on how serious your co-morbidities are. But the bottom line is that you need to understand the risks if you don’t have the surgery and consult with dieticians and doctors to see what your chances are of realistically losing the weight on your own.