My Background
My name is Jon Blackburn, I live in Zionsville, IN and work at Hendrickson
Trailer Suspensions in Lebanon, IN. I am 45 years old and have been fat (more or less) for
most of my life, the majority of the last ten years I have been morbidly obese. The methods I have used to change my body have not been easy,
but have absolutely been worth the effort. I have worked diligently with
planning and persistence for the results. I don't believe there is any magic,
quick, easy way to lose lots of fat. If someone tells you there is, watch your
wallet. I went into this Journey expecting years of torture and really have had
one of the best years of my life.
I had given up hope - resigned to being fat for life, I had tried many diets
and had lost weight and then gained it back with interest. I also realized that
if I didn't do something I would not live to see my grandchildren and the
remainder of my life would hardly be worth living. In December 2002 I began to
make lifestyle changes in what I did for exercise and nutrition and recorded my
progress. This announcement is a celebration for me, but not an end. I will
continue to drive my body to meet new fitness goals.
It is my hope that this site will help you to make healthy changes in your
life, I am proud of what I have accomplished in my physical transformation but I
am not writing this to draw attention to myself but to help others understand the
process I went through and how a similar process might work for them in improving
their level of fitness.
I have never in my life until now considered myself at a desirable
level of physical fitness. I have varied from somewhat over fat as a boy and a
young man to way too fat as I matured. I have always had a very aggressive
appetite and enjoyed eating lots of food. I believe I ate a pretty typical
"modern American diet" and lots of it.
Although I have had a few athletic spikes in my life including wrestling in
Junior High School and jogging for a few months in the Navy I would not consider
myself an athlete by any definition of the word. I was pretty sedentary as a
child watching way too much Television and continued the "sitting in front of the
tube" practice as an adult.
I recall as a boy I was considered "big" and was one of the heaviest but also
one of the tallest boys in my class. I knew I was to fat and had a round
soft belly. My earliest memory of dieting was when I was 12 my mom asked me to
go to weight watchers with her and I did, I really liked it, the speaker was
pretty cool and the eating plan was not bad. I lost a fair amount of weight and
liked having the old ladies clap for me when they announced how much I had lost
the previous week. I don't believe I ever made it to my goal weight in weight
watchers and my weight would rise and fall over the years. I could lose weight
pretty easily, I had a high metabolism and when I was careful about what I ate I
would drop pounds quickly. I could also eat voraciously and would eat huge
quantities of food, I was one of those boys that you have nightmares about
buying groceries for.
I was teased at times by other guys, and called fat, but I didn't look real
fat in clothes. We had to take showers together after gym class and I definitely
looked fat naked; I was pretty embarrassed of my fatness when it came time to
take showers. After High school I went into the US Navy, I remembered that I was
concerned about boot camp and the rigors of PT, I weighed about 220 pounds when
I graduated from
high school, I worked out and ran some to get ready for boot camp. I was over
the recommended weight for my height when I enlisted in the Navy, but was not
fat enough to have to go to the "fat boys" unit. I made it through boot camp
pretty well, the running was tough, I finished the required distance run in just
under the maximum time. I
have been right at 6 feet tall my adult life including
boot camp, I entered the Navy at about 210 pounds, and dropped to about 195
after boot camp. I lost weight in boot camp more due to marching everywhere than
the Physical Training, I also remember eating was not an entirely pleasurable
experience and there were no snacks. My weight stayed in the 200 to 220 range
for several years after that, one period when I was down around 200 I met my
wife and looked pretty good for the wedding pictures.
My weight increased some after being married a few years, I got out of the
Navy after 6 years and went to Ohio State to study engineering. My mom had been
coming to Columbus and was on a liquid diet program and suggested I do that too,
I lost about 40 pounds on a diet of 5 or 6 "shakes" a day, it was pretty
miserable and expensive. I hear the same program advertised on the radio today
and they claim they will "teach you how to eat", I almost have to pull over when
I hear those commercials because I get so mad. How are you going to learn how to
eat when you are drinking shakes all day every day? This is like someone telling
you they will teach you how to swim by having you hang by your ankles and watch
instructional programs about swimming. After suffering through this ordeal,
meeting my goal, and quitting smoking for the last time, I really packed on the
pounds. By the time I was 30 I weighed around 260 and generally kept adding to
that every year approaching 300 pounds, I had a brief period of good eating and
exercise when I was about 35 and got my weight down to around 250 and was doing
pretty well, I had developed many good habits. Around this time I changed jobs
and we moved, my habits changed and I was back on the feed bag, doing nothing
for exercise, just getting bigger and bigger.
The Blackburn's Summer of 2002
Medically speaking
When I was 27 years old I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, I kept an
eye on the blood pressure and it continued to climb. I went on daily medication
at the age of 36, as my weight increased so did my blood pressure and my
medication. In 2002 I was taking 5 medications for blood pressure and it was
still too high. When I was 35 my wife told me that in addition to snoring very
badly I would frequently quit breathing. I was incredibly tired and sleepy all
the time and finally had a sleep study done and was diagnosed with sleep apnea
at the age of 39, I began using a CPAP breathing aid to sleep at night and my
sleep situation got much better. Another medical issue I struggled with was
chronic lower back pain. I would frequently have spasms and was very limited in
my movement and activity because my back wouldn't allow it. In addition to the
medical issues that are mentioned above that I believe were directly weight
related, I had an episode of melanoma skin cancer when I was 40 that was removed
and did not require treatment for spreading.
So in addition to not getting good sleep, having high blood pressure and
digesting huge quantities of food to support my size and habits, I had to carry
around 160 extra pounds. This picture shows me with my kitchen table and chairs,
the weight I lost is the equivalent of the table and all six chairs together.
Imagine carrying that table and chairs with you all day long every day. It is no
wonder that I was physically tired and felt rotten.
How I felt emotionally
I had so much going well for me in life I should have been jumping for joy. I
have a great wife who I love and who loves me, our marriage is excellent. I had
4 children whom I was proud of. I was an Engineering Manager and had a great job
I really liked. My family and I were plugged into an excellent church. The
majority of circumstances in my life were great, and I didn't care whether I
lived another minute or died right on the spot. There are worse things in life
than being fat, but I have a lot of compassion for the obese and morbidly obese.
I felt terrible about myself, how I felt physically, how I looked, I felt like a
walking freak show. One of the experiences I'll never forget was going to an
amusement park with my family during the summer of 2002. My wife and kids had
ridden several coasters and I watched, at the family's encouragement I rode one
coaster and although it was a very painful fit into the seat I survived the
ride. Then it was on to the next ride, there was a sample seat at the entrance to
the ride which I checked out and felt would be OK. We waited about an hour in
line, finally got to get in the ride and with 300 people behind me waiting and
watching I got into the seat. Try as I might I couldn't get the seat to
latch, the attendant came over and helped push on the locking bar to get it to
latch, no good. He calls to another attendant "Hey, I can't get this guy in, come
help" so two attendants tried and we couldn't get the seat to latch. In
engineering terms I exceeded the design parameters of the ride, In the mind of
300 people the fat guy couldn't get in the seat. The attendant apologized and
told me I needed to get off the ride, so I stepped off the ride, waved to my
family and told them to have a good time. I wanted to disappear, I just wanted
to be gone.
Resigned
One of the questions I ask myself is why didn't I start my journey sooner,
why did I get so fat. The best answer I can give to myself today is that I was
absolutely convinced in the lie that that was just the way I was, I was fat and
nothing I was going to do would change that. I bought into the genetic theory
that my family is fat, I'm fat, and I just need to get past it and try to enjoy
life the best I can. I had accepted my weight as a genetic given, like my
height. I had no hope and didn't want to hear anything from anyone that
suggested I could change, I had tried and tried hard, I was just the "way that I
am". I believe that many fat people are in the same condition today, they feel
that they have tried hard and feel they just can't lose weight.
340 pound couch potato
In summary by December of 2002 I found myself in a very miserable condition.
I felt bad physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was doing nothing for
physical activity, I would get out of breath climbing one flight of stairs to my
office. I was eating whatever I thought would taste good and continuing to dig
my grave with my mouth. I went to a Christmas party with the guys I work with, I
recall the waitress asked for my order and I told her I wanted the BBQ ribs, she
asked if I wanted the half slab or the full slab, One of my friends across the
table said laughing, "Does he look like a half slab of ribs guy?" I confirmed I
wanted the full slab. I slept about 10 hours a night, and was still physically
tired often through the day.
HOME
TOP OF PAGE
Next page: Pictures
