RWS Features: Greg’s Inspirational Story

 

Today’s guest post stems  from an e-mail I received from Greg. It touched my heart so much I asked if I could share his story here on RWS. It is so inspiring, I hope you are just as motivated as I was after reading it!

It all started back in high school at the age of 16 when I joined my local volunteer fire department and met all my friends whom, like me, spent almost every free hour at the station, hanging around, going on calls and such. What this also brought me was to eat out almost 6 days a week multiple meals a day, and lets just say it wasn’t healthy establishments we chose to dine at. With this, my awful eating habits began and spiraled way out of control. By the time I began reaching my mid 20s, I was well over 200 lbs and my weight was climbing steadily.

My weight kept me from realizing some personal dreams like military service amongst others. As my weight began to climb, I began to hate myself and fell into a deep depression, and I continued to turn to food to in a way ease the pain. I had tried all the fad diets, and they had worked but once I stopped the weight came back and seemed like it did with a vengeance. At my heaviest I was 331 lbs and around that time I started noticing (don’t ask what took so long) little things were becoming a lot harder for me.

I had health issues like cholesterol, high blood pressure and an elevated heart rate. Finally one day I bent over to tie my boots up and I came back up and was completely out of breath. I remember that day like it was yesterday, and after that I crawled in my truck and drove around for 2 straight hours thinking about my life and all things I wanted to do and still want and how my weight and unhealthy lifestyle weren’t going to allow it. The very next day I began a diet which consisted of a few different things I had learned from previous diets. The diet began to work and I started feeling better day by day week by week.

Around this time, I discovered Heathers blog I believe through the disboards. Her blog became an almost daily read for me because her words reached out to me about her running and her outlook on life and all its challenges. She truly inspired me in a way to set my own goals and to treat this diet and life change as a challenge. I began running and working out twice sometimes three times a day and eating around 1200 calories a day. In roughly 7 months I went from 331 pounds and not being able to run from telephone pole to telephone pole, to now weighing 221 pounds and running 2 miles in under 16 minutes, my cholesterol and BP are perfect and my resting heart rate is 54!

I proudly serve in the US Army National Guard as a combat medic, and have recently followed another dream and moved to Florida to begin working at Disney world as a monorail pilot. I have set my next goals in life and that is to run for distance and complete a 1/2 and full marathon by my 30th birthday and become a police officer.

I reached out to Heather a few days ago to thank her for the small but not insignificant role she played in turning my life around. She asked me to share my story and at work last night I decided if my story helps one persons life the way Heathers blog helped mine it was worth doing.

This is what it’s all about friends. Motivating each other to be the BEST version of ourselves that we can be. This is why I blog. In hopes that my stories, tips, and life lessons will help to motivate and inspire, even if it’s just that one person, then it is so worth it to me. I hope you find as much encouragement and hope in Greg’s story as I did! Be sure to show him some love! Thanks SO MUCH Greg for sharing your story! I appreciate you!

QOTD: Have you ever had a dream or goal that you felt you were held back from due to health reasons? 

*Don’t forget about my raffle for cancer research! Please donate, every little bit helps!