2008 Transformation Contest

Who:
I am Dave AKA Jumbo Rider, a 43 your old, 6′4", and 364 pound man. Diabetes and depression are being treated with medications at this time. My family is filled with fat people that die in their 40’s from cancer or diabetic complications. My genes and my mind must be overcome.

Why:
I was a chunky kid until my Junior year in high school when I thinned out and got into lifting. Then my weight crept up in college where I decided to enlist in the Army. In the Army I was in the best shape of my life. After the Army, without Uncle Sam cracking the whip, I ballooned quickly to the 270’s and then slowly added another 100 or so pounds to that number.

I just accepted that I was going to be fat.  Accepted is the wrong word.  I gave up on myself.  Suffering from depression and diabetes, and having a family history of early death by cancer gave me an eat, drink, and be merry attitude.  The only issue was that I failed to be merry.  As I became less healthy I became more miserable.  The more miserable I got the more I hoped the reaper would come.  I ceased to live.  When you are too big to fit in an airplane seat, ride a carnival ride, or when you go to specific movie theaters because you know they have armrests that lift up to give more room, you know you are too fat.  But it did not matter to me.  Frankly, I had given up on life and just decided to go through the motions of living until I died in a few years.

Then a number of things happened in my life that changed my way of thinking.  My mother died last Christmas. Before she died she fell in our basement and had to be taken up a narrow flight of stairs to the ambulance. I will never forget how helpless and sad she felt at that time. In the hospital on her death bed she made me promise to walk a 1/4 mile every day. I promised and she died.

A week earlier I had watched a show on the Discovery channel about two women who lost a combined 400 pounds. They went the route of surgery to lose their weight and, in my opinion; they were as unhealthy after they lost the weight. One woman on the show had a glandular problem in her leg and she had a leg the weighed 200 pounds by itself. For some reason the doctor’s could only remove some of the tissue mass at a time. It was disgusting but it helped me view me as separate from my fat. I was no longer a fat guy but a guy enshrouded by fat. This was the spark that lit the fire to removing the fat from me.

My daughter was married last January and told us that she was pregnant this past July. I am going to have a grandson that will be named after me. It is imperative that I break the fat cycle in my family and it is imperative that I live long enough to help little Dave battle his genetic makeup.

What:
I need to lose at least 150 pounds and that will take me about 2 years if I do things right.  I plan to drop between 30-36 pounds during this contest.  

When:
I seriously started to change my life June of 2007. August of 2007 I stumbled and gained back 20 pounds lost. In September and October I refocused, made a new plan, and renewed my journey. Through the month of November I have lost 12 pounds.

Where:
I workout in my office at work, home, and at the St. Peter’s Rec Plex

How:
I am following the Precision Nutrition program and focusing hard on my food intake. I further restrict my food choices by following a Blood Type Diet. No grain has touched my lips in 5 weeks.

My exercise routine pales in comparison to many on this board. I swim 3 times a week for 30 minutes to an hour and work around the house. After Christmas I will begin Powerlifting band work and several other exercises that you will need to stay tuned to find out about.  I also ride a bicycle but winter weather has that parked. (Riding my bike is what gave me my Jumbo Rider moniker) When the weather allows I commute 14 miles to and from work.

I have enlisted the help of a trainer because I honestly don’t know my body enough to exercise it properly.   Weighing nearly 400 pounds will do that to you. Being a guy I am typically gung-ho but my trainer has slowed me down. It is with his advice that I swim 3 times a week to insure that I don’t damage my joints in the beginning of my weight loss journey. Coach has also provided me with my supplement protocol which you will find in my bodyspace.

My trainer is a noted Top Gun from Toronto, Canada, Mike Demeter. Mike’s a moderator for Dr. Berardi’s Precision Nutrition ( "Coach Mike") and draws strongly on its principles along with tweaks from the Blood Type Diet, Poliquin’s Biosignature and much of Justin Harris’ Carb cycling and other methods popularized by Troponin Nutrition. It sometimes seems well off the beaten path but I can’t argue with the results.

Goal:
Next summer I will be riding in the RAGBAI, a 500 mile bicycle ride across Iowa in a week with several thousand of my closest friends.

At the end of the 12 weeks of this competition I will lose 30 - 36 pounds. These pounds will be butter not meat.

I am living life every moment for all that it is worth!

I have been to several other sites that are health centric and none of them compare to bodybuilder.com. This site is filled with great folks from the super athlete to the super obese and everyone helps others. The information found in the articles and the weekly transformations have helped me tremendously.   Thank you bodybuilder.com and all of the sponsors of this contest for this great opportunity.