Back in February 2006

These are pictures of me in February 2006 at about the end of my first weight-loss/running program...I was 218, down from around 250 when I started in November of 2005. I would burn 1000 calories in the gym 6 days a week and I changed my eating habits too. I would run on the tread mill or use the elliptical machine at the YMCA in the Spokane Valley, every morning around 6am.
I was working through a lot of personal, family and ministry issues at this time. I used the gym as a battering ram to hammer out my inner life, my health and the future path for me in ministry. It was a brutal time but God met me in the gym. Unfortunately, the work out means I was using and the pace I pushed myself at, was unsustainable.

I ended up pissing blood after one of my workouts in I think March. That freaked me out, so I backed off but the damage was done. I had burned myself out in my focused obsession with reaching 200 lbs and in the end my body and inner mental gears burned out. I almost reached my physical goal but the whole experience propelled me out of the funk I was in; and helped me to regain my perspective, my inner equilibrium and refocused and rechart my course ahead in ministry. It wasn't a perfect plant but it was a start...unfortunately because I didnt work out in a smart and sustainable way, after I stopped running...I gain the weight all back in about as fast as I lost it. Talk about major bummer, all that hard work for nothing...except, I learned what not to do the next time.