The "Scottybear Re-engineering Project"

The "Scottybear Re-engineering Project" is a project designed to improve the health of your "host" here - namely me. About 4 years ago, I was diagnosed as having high blood pressure and it was luckily caught by a very capable chiropractic intern. After their insistence that I see my physician about it, it was eventually decided that I be put on some medication to ensure it would remain at an appropriate level.

About a year ago, at about 400lbs, I started to get increasing scared about my health. While I was not seeing any really big problems, I was slowly getting bigger and smaller problems were beginning to appear. These problems manifested with laboured breathing while sleeping, laboured breathing on exertion, lower energy and a problem with having sore feet all the time when I woke up (fluid retention, etc?). I began to have panic attacks and woke up sweating with the thought in my head that one morning Iain would wake up and I would not because I had had either a heart-attack or a stroke in the middle of the night. That vision was a wake up call - a call to action to finally do something about my health.

At the time of the wake up call, I did not yet have a "key" into how I was going to do what I needed to do. I had a reasonably good handle on what I needed to do about my eating habits and such, but where I was stuck was on how to related to my health and goals around my health in a productive way. At this point, I was just about to do the Landmark Forum and this transformational course gave me the "tool kit" to give me a "place to stand" with regard to my health. I created a powerful relationship to my health by standing in the place of simply "BEING HEALTHY". In order to stand in this place, I also had to really be able to say without a shadow of doubt that I accepted myself fully and completely as a "fat man" and that as such I was already whole, perfect and complete as I was and that there was nothing to "fix" about being that way.

So... having gotten all of that mental stuff out of the way, I then went to work on the practicality of it all. First was to get a really good assessment of my eating/nutritional needs. For this, I consulted a Naturopathic Physician. I actually went to the Robert Schad Naturopathic Clinic which is a teaching clinic of the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. I was able to get the information I needed but also counselled very carefully on what I was eating and what I might want to consider changing. The intern I went to did an extremely thorough physical assessment as well as quite long questionnaire. After the first visit, I was to keep a diary of all of the food and drink I consumed for the following week (I continued for about 3 weeks). After this point, the Naturopathic and the Intern suggested an initial "cleanse" to help me clean up my body. This initial work involved taking fried foods, red meat, dairy products and "white" food (white bread, potatoes, rice) out of my diet. I cheated with the rice, but apart from that I was very strict with myself. I also began having fruit smoothies every morning (banana, rice milk, frozen fruit, protein powder). After this initial assessment period, I have maintained the "no dairy" policy as I have found that I have a mild milk allergy (protein allergy). This was hard for me as I am a huge dairy nut (I LOVE cheese). So... basically the "diet" I am on is the fruit smoothies in the morning, higher on the proteins and veg throughout the day, cut back on breads/rice/noodles, little to NO fried foods (make me ill now), and no dairy.

Results:

1) As of Feb 15, I have officially lost 5 inches around my waist and belly and 50lbs.

The pics below will give you an idea of how much weight I have in fact lost. Taken 4 months into my weight loss program. The suit, shirt and pants are exactly the same.

Taken May 2003	Taken November 2003
Taken May 20, 2004	Taken May 20, 2004

Overall Goals:

1) Make "working out" a part of my life as well as many other physical activities.

2) Lose a total of 120lbs (bring me to about 280). Being under 300lbs by Christmas time. As of May 20, I am at around 340 which means about 7 lbs per month until Christmas. A very reasonable and achievable goal.

3) Inspire others to take care of their bodies.