Update #2 Back in the Sadle...

Well I have so much I've wanted to post about the last few weeks however I let myself get spread to thin along with my emotions(which is ok, eh).  This is kind of going to jump around a little and cover not just my health but my emotional well being as well.  Some of this are things I wanted to write on his blog and probaly will do that but I can't help it and am sharing it here as well.  It's late and I took some Nyquil so please overlook spelling and grammar errors.

I started back a month ago well but with my dad's declining health and starting school again I was overwhelmed and decided to follow my feelings and focus on family. (Not very good at multi tasking yet.) I was able to be with my mom and dad as he passed and the following 4-5 days through the funeral.  And anyone who was able to come to the viewing or the funeral knows how much support there was so translate that to food being given to our family. It was amazing and darn right delicious!  Thank you again to all who come to support us and continue to do so with prayer and general help.   I cannot express how blessed we are as a family and how many people were influenced by my dad,  love him and love my mom.  I don't know how much of it was warranted because of us 5 rambunctious brewer boys but surely our little sis Heidi.  His legacy can most clearly be seen in us, his 5 boys and beautiful daughter. It is seen in the way we live, the way think, and the way we love our mother, wives and children and all those we meet.

I have more to post about my dad and this experience but that will have to wait, I have to much to say and share now.   The long short of it is I gained back the 16 lbs I lost back in August so I'm disappointed with that but not broken by it.  I have had good intentions and made bets the last week and until tonight I had not committed again. 

A couple co-workers, which is a poor label,  good friends at work have been encouraging me daily to get with the program by their example and follow up.  Chantee has been texting me her food prep every night and asking me to do the same. So I finally did it. It feels good to have done it.   We got a little protein meal replacement shake for breakfast with a nana, bar and apple for 2nd breakfast,  chicken noodle soup and my neighbors concoction of Greek yogurt/hydrated Chia seeds/steel cut oats and berries (they do it for breakfast), peanut butter celery and carrots for 2nd lunch,  dinner is a little more chicken noodle soup.   I feel good about this.   This is how my buddy Quilter taught Jaimi and I to eat.  5-6 small meals a day arranges by macro nutrient amounts he gives you.  One crucial thing is I've wanted Jaimi to prepare things for me as she does hers but she wouldn't,  she knew it would be important for me to do it and have it be a success. 

My plantar fascitis is getting better with some exercises my aunt Nancy gave me to do.   I've tried doing exercise videos but it hurts very bad so for now swimming and biking it will be. 

Thank you all for your support.  I have many people from work, friends from  other hospitals that truly care about my success and their/your calls/texts kind words matter a great deal.  I had a lady at church ask me Sunday how I was doing and that I was inspiring her to which, surprised, I told her I'm failing if anything.  But I want to be an inspiration to other people, so that helped me more than she could have known.  Infact this leads me into something I wanted to share about my dad.  One of his greatest traits was that he was a builder of men.   He had the ability to see the potential in others and then help them achieve that potential.  This is the topic I shared at his funeral (the talk will soon be shared on the blog he and I made Josebrewer.blogspot.com)  

For anyone who knew him or had the opportunity to come to his funeral knows how far reaching his influence was by the show of support.  Words cannot express the love and support we have recieved and felt throughout this journey.  On many occasions I was brought to tears and humilty at the generous, selfless love and support from family, friends and sometimes unknown strangers.  It has all been a great  testament to the legacy my Dad left, in all those he inspried.  As his friends, family and co-workers called me, shared their love for him with me at the services, I heard a similiar theme throughout.  "Of all our buddies your dad was the one who never had a bad attitude and kept us going", "When I asked your dad if he had any regrets he said no, he would live it all again the same way.  Thats my goal now...to live a life of no regrets like your dad." "Your dad saved me." " Jose took the time to teach me to ski" "Your dad took me fishing for the first time" "your dad helped me to know God"   As this went on and I saw people waiting in line for an hour and a half just to hug my mom and tell her they loved my dad.

Right before the family prayer and funeral services I met a tireman who, when hearing about his passing on Sunday, hopped in his truck and drove 13 hours straight through from Arizona arriving minutes before the services started just to be there for him.  He said simply "Jose would'a done it for me".  He told me of how they met near Tooele UT off I-80.  He, a competing tireman, had lost his load of tires in the nasty off ramp ponds we have here.  My dad, a stranger, happen to be driving by and stopped, waded out with him to recover the tires and get him loaded up and on his way.  The relationship built on service and giving grew to the point where this man would drive 13+hours at a moments notice to just be there.

I think that this trait of my dad can best be summed up by thi s quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” 

In this process I remebered a time when my dad taught me one of the most important lessons of my life.  He was telling me just how the key to influencing people and success is not focussing on what we can get out of life, job, religion, a friendship ect. but rather what we can give.  All to often I find my self focusing on just that, "what can I get" or "whats in it for me".    My goal and purpose is to be a builder of men and see and treat others as they should be, giving in all that I do to be like my dad, and become like my Father.

Update #1

Ok, well just about 2 months has gone by and I havn't shared anything about my experiance, efforts, goals, successes and failures.  There have been a few people that have asked me about these things and when I was going to share and I thank you for the support.

I will keep it short as I need only to get moving more and do it.  I did well through 2 weeks in August following a exercise video, the 21 day fix.  The girls even did it with me the first week and it was pretty fun...extremly hard and even a bit sad but fun.  I had Hazly tell me "Dad, don't try to keep up with the girls in the video just do the easy one." And after Emma told me to stop making funny noises as I did crunches, Raegan, over and grabbed my hair and tried to help pull me up saying "up, up".

 The videos are nice because they are only 30 min but I developed plantar fascitis that has been so painful I couldn't finish it.  I continued to eat better but to no specific diet plan.  Over those 3 weeks I lost 16 lbs and have kept it off thus far.

In September I have not done any formal exercising besides working on my plantar fascitis.  I lost another 4 lbs but gained it back by the end of the month.

I have learned that I need the support of others to help me through the hard times so I will be posting about what I do on this blog hopefuly daily or a few times a week.

I am also going to start swimming and biking as I have heard those don't make the fascitis worse.  I am going to plan out my weekly exercises and meals.  I will keep track of those on the Lose it! app.

So there we go.  I got up, I fell down, and I am getting up again.

And it begins...

Hello friends and family and followers,

I created this blog along with other tools to help me document my change, measure my progress and obtain the support I now realize I will need to change my life and have it last for the rest of my life.

For those that don't know me, I was a skinny toe-head boy as active as you could be.  I put some weight on in jr high and then thinned out in high school with 5 years of swimming, playing tennis and running track.  I continued to be active through college backpacking, mnt biking, and running.  My best half marathon time was 1h 52min.   I met the love of my life Jaimi, we married and all was well until I started working.  We moved to Chicago where sold medical devices and I burned the preverbal which way doing it.   I like to be successful and I think I must have started measuring my success with work alone.  I found myself working longer and longer hours, eating out on the road more and slowly packed the weight on.   Family then became my focus in providing for them the basics and opportunities for growth.  I think I have worked a part time or an additional full time job for the last 9 years. Over that time I went from 210 lbs to 390 lbs, which is crazy and my heaviest.  I have had temporary success with personal trainers and gyms and monitoring programs like Weight Watchers, but that success ran out when the $$$ ran out.  I most recently had some profound success training for my first sprint triathlon and working with a trainer buddy Ryan Quilter, but I was spending more in driving than training.  Soon enough the $$$ ran out, I crazily started my MBA and I started packing on the weight again staying up late working on school.

I do not want to hit 400, I do not want to be at 390.  I am angry with myself for abusing my body, this wonderful gift from God.  Many people talk about being disgusted with themselves being this overweight, but I am not.  Regardless of how I look, I realize who I am, who I have been, and most importantly I know who I can become. What I am is scared.  I recently found myself in the doctors office for the first time in 5 years thinking I had broken my foot trying to keep up with my 4 younger brothers.  I'm a nurse and have known I was a ticking time bomb, but finally hearing that I was as close to being diabetic as one could be without being diagnosed it scared me.  I have 4 beautiful daughters at home that need a fun, confident, loving, and living father to be there for them. With this my father of 59 has been fighting stage 4 pancreatic cancer with liver mets the last year and it has brought a new sense of mortality and the value of life to me and my family.  This also has scared me to action.

 I wish I would never have let myself become so complacent and casual with this wonderful life and this amazing body.  As I diligently work to rid myself of this self induced prison of over 180 lbs, I hope to become that much stronger, more confident, and able to inspire and help others.

I believe I know what to do and roughly how to do it.  It's the doing it day in and day out for a long time that is the hard part and for that I ask you for help.  Please encourage me.   I am going to do my best to take what I have learned and any suggestions from you to make this happen.  So in advance I thank you for all you love and support because I will need it as I work to become Fit4Life!

                                                      J. West Brewer IV