The holiday season is approaching us soon and I thought this might be a good time to share this journey and story. All my life I have been referred to as the “Big Guy” and something I have had to work at pretty much all my life. I am certain I was born as a baby weighing in at 55 pounds ; )
The struggle for me and my health during my 27 year real estate career and my go to for stress, anger, sadness and any emotional challenge in my life is food and beverage. It literally fires off these feel good charges in my brain for that period of time while I enjoy some good food and drink and then I have to feel the shame and guilt from going to that dark side to medicate my feelings and thoughts.
I was selling real estate and making a lot of money in 2004 and thought things were better than ever personally and professionally for me. Then in the middle of the night I woke with a terrible pain in my chest and had to go to the hospital and in triage they thought I may be having a heart attack. At that same time my wife was sick and tired of my working all the time and was wanting out of our relationship.
Remembering thinking the night before I was a balanced, healthy and happy money making real estate agent, I realized this was the furthest thing from the truth. I decided to hire a personal trainer that would kick me in the butt to train 3 days a week and challenge me on my eating. That was my start to lose the weight I needed and get myself healthy and my marriage and family healthy again.
Why it took the heart attack and divorce scare to wake me up I will never know but I stand here today still battling my food and beverage medicating demons but healthier and happier than ever. Here are a few tips I want to share with you and how I turned this “Big Guy” around in real estate and life.
- Reach out to people for help and support
- Find someone to hold you accountable to get exercise
- Find someone to talk to about the stresses and problems in your life regularly
- Prepare your food and meals in advance or have someone make good food for you
- Isagenix meal replacement has been a huge help for me. Two shakes a day and one regular meal a day
- Intermittent fasting… let me explain
Intermittent fasting, or limiting your food intake to specific times, has taken North America by storm in recent years. Research has shown intermittent fasting can help you lose weight, lower your risk of cancer and improve both your blood pressure and blood sugar. Here are three common methods of intermittent fasting to get you started and it has worked for me!
- The 12-Hour Fast - With this method of intermittent fasting, you fast for 12 hours each day. Before you worry about skipping meals, remember: The fast can be done overnight. For example, you can fast from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
- The 16:8 Method - A 12-hour fast isn’t enough for some people to get a metabolism boost. That’s where the 16:8 method for intermittent fasting comes in. It involves fasting for 16 hours (14 hours for women).
- The 5:2 Diet - This strategy involves eating as you normally would five days a week, then fasting for two days. On those two fast days, experts recommend men consume 600 calories or less and women consume 500 calories or less.
I hope my personal story and some of my solutions to help me with my own struggles will help some of you with your journey as well. Please comment below and share some of your own stories and solutions with the rest of our readers, we would love to hear from you. Healthy life is a happy life and without our health we can’t really do much of anything we really want to do in life.
Strength and courage,
Wade
