Month: March 2025

Internal vs. External Motivation: The Key to Lasting Weight Loss Success

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What Drives You?

When it comes to weight loss, fitness, and personal growth, motivation is the fuel that keeps us going. But not all motivation is created equal. Understanding the differences and finding a balance between the two can help you harness the right kind of drive to reach your goals and sustain long-term success. Finding ways to tap into both as you move through your journey is key, because sometimes YOU are all you need and sometimes you just aren’t feeling it and you need some help from those around you. In today’s post we’re going to discuss how balancing internal and external motivators can act a a safety net on your journey helping to move forward when things get rough.

OMG, so I used up my daily limit of ChatGPT images trying to get it to give me an image that portrayed the balance between internal and external motivation. Then I went to Microsoft Designer and here’s what it generated when asked to produce an image that captured external and internal motivation and weight loss. Usually I can find some way to tie this craziness in but today I’m at a loss. Do you feel like an alarm clock full of guts? That’s your internal motivation. Feel like an alarm clock full of vegetables and a cute little piggy that’s apparently about to get sliced up by a tape measure knife? Maybe you’re externally motivated.
Clearly the concept of motivation is difficult to express.

Internal Motivation: The Fire Within

Internal (or intrinsic) motivation comes from within—it’s driven by personal values, desires, and the satisfaction of achieving something for its own sake. This type of motivation is powerful because it’s deeply rooted in what truly matters to you.

Why Internal Motivation is Powerful

One of the biggest benefits of internal motivation is that it isn’t reliant on external circumstances. When you’re driven by internal factors, you don’t need constant validation, reminders, or rewards to stay on track. You simply want to do it because it makes you feel good and aligns with your goals.

Some Examples of Internal Motivation

  • You work out because it makes you feel good and energized.
  • You eat healthy because you genuinely enjoy how it improves your well-being.
  • You strive for weight loss because you want to be your best self, not for anyone else’s approval.
  • You wake up early to exercise because you enjoy the quiet time and self-improvement.
  • You track your progress not to show off but to measure personal growth.

Internal motivation leads to sustainable habits because it isn’t dependent on outside factors. It’s all about your own sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Sustaining Internal Motivation

Maintaining any sort of motivation over the long-haul can certainly be a challenge.  For me, internal motivation comes in two big forms.

  1. Long-term visioning — I mentioned in my last post how I create mental pictures of myself in an ideal future.  Just picturing finishing a race, or hitting a weight goal really helps me on those days when I’m not ‘feeling it.’
  2. At the other end of the spectrum I find internal motivation useful on a daily basis. Whether it’s working my diet plan each day or making the commitment to exercise, I try to keep my daily engagement high by thinking about how my small actions today can impact my results tomorrow.

External Motivation: The Outside Push

External (or extrinsic) motivation comes from outside influences—whether it’s praise, rewards, competition, or even fear of consequences. While external motivation can be a great jumpstart, it’s often less reliable for long-term change unless it eventually shifts to internal motivation.

When External Motivation Works

External motivation is often what gets people started. Maybe you saw a picture of yourself and didn’t like what you saw, or a friend challenged you to a weight loss competition. These triggers can be powerful catalysts for change, but they need to be paired with internal motivation to sustain long-term progress.

Examples of External Motivation:

  • You exercise because your doctor told you to.
  • You’re dieting to fit into a wedding dress or suit.
  • You post progress pictures online for validation and encouragement.
  • You set weight loss goals based on a social media challenge or trend.
  • You sign up for a fitness program because your friends are doing it.

External motivation isn’t necessarily bad; in fact, it can be a great tool to get started. However, if your progress depends solely on external factors, you might struggle when those motivators disappear.

In the early days of my weight loss I received a lot of external motivation because people began to notice the change, and hearing those kind words each day provided a little push to help me stick to my diet and exercise program.  However, after the weight loss slowed down I had to lean into internal motivation more and more.  As I’ve mentioned before, eventually people just forget how you ‘used to’ be. I had to learn to lean into internal motivators to help me keep my focus. 

The Power of Community

I’ve talked a lot about how I’ve used training for races with my son and signing up for different Conqueror Challenges has helped me fill in those motivation gaps.  

Over the past couple of months I’ve relearned the power of external motivation by writing this blog and creating my Keep Moving Forward Podcast.  The response and outreach has been beyond my expectations and the sense of community I’ve felt has really provided a level of focus and motivation I have not felt in quite some time. Last month I shared this picture on a couple of FB groups I belong to. Since posting these over 2000 people have liked the posts and I’ve had comments from hundreds of people. Over the weekend the admin of one group even reached out asking if they could use some of my content for their corporate materials. Count me in on the motivation right now!

Striking a Balance

The key to lasting success is blending both types of motivation. Use external motivation as a launchpad but aim to develop internal motivation along the way.

How to Transition from External to Internal Motivation:

  1. Find Your “Why” – Dig deep and identify what truly matters to you beyond surface-level reasons. Ask yourself why you want to lose weight or improve your health beyond just looking good.
  2. Set Meaningful Goals – Focus on goals that align with your values rather than just external rewards. Instead of setting a goal to lose weight for a reunion, aim to feel stronger and healthier for life.
  3. Celebrate Small Wins – Acknowledge your progress and find joy in the journey, not just the destination. Recognizing progress helps shift the focus from external validation to personal fulfillment.
  4. Shift Your Mindset – Instead of seeing healthy habits as chores, view them as self-care and empowerment. Reframe exercise from being a punishment to being a privilege.
  5. Surround Yourself with the Right Influences – While external motivation can fade, being in a supportive community can help keep you accountable while reinforcing your internal drive.
  6. Track Progress in a Meaningful Way – Instead of relying on the scale alone, measure progress through non-scale victories like increased energy, better sleep, and improved strength.

Common Pitfalls in Motivation

Many people struggle with motivation because they don’t recognize when they are overly dependent on external motivators. Here are some common pitfalls:

  • Relying too much on external validation – If social media likes or compliments are the only thing keeping you going, motivation may fade when recognition stops.
  • Setting unrealistic goals – If your goals are solely based on external pressures (like losing 30 pounds in a month), you may get discouraged and quit.
  • Neglecting enjoyment – If you hate your diet or exercise routine, motivation will dwindle. Find activities and foods that you genuinely enjoy.
  • Ignoring mental health – Sometimes, lack of motivation stems from deeper emotional issues. Addressing stress, anxiety, or self-doubt can be just as important as diet and exercise.

Final Thoughts

No matter where you are in your journey, recognize that motivation fluctuates. Some days, external motivation might push you through a tough workout, while on other days, internal motivation will remind you why you started in the first place. The key is to balance both and stay committed to your goals in a way that feels sustainable.

Whether you start with external validation or internal passion, the important thing is to find a healthy balance of both. By tapping into what truly drives you, you’ll set yourself up for lasting success—not just in weight loss, but in all areas of life.

What motivates you? Share your thoughts in the comments or on the UsedToGuy podcast! Until next time, Keep Moving Forward!

The Power of Anticipation: Finding Joy in What is To Come

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In our house Christmas is a big deal. We start decorating the house as soon as the leftover Thanksgiving turkey is packed into the fridge. The last couple of years we’ve even started a little sooner. It makes us happy. But my favorite part of the holiday isn’t Christmas Day, it’s the days leading up to Christmas. All of the Christmas movies, the carols, the smell of the pine tree in then house we wallow in all of it. We have our little yearly rituals like cutting down the Christmas tree visiting the town of Jim Thorpe for their Victorian Christmas days, driving to see the lights on the boulevard in Berwick PA.

What I really love is the build up of the whole thing. To be honest Christmas day is always just a little bit sad. When the last episode of A Christmas Story ends on Christmas night it marks the ceremonial close of the holiday for another year. And while the days fly by a lot can change in a year so I’m always left wondering what everything will look like the next time we drag all of the ornaments out of the basement and go to cut down the tree.

This little AI fellow has the Christmas Crazy in his eyes. Or maybe he’s just lost it and decided to burn the whole thing up. Not sure what he’s doing with those candles in the presents. Maybe he’s been possessed by his little one-eyed stuffed dog or is it a teddybear friend. Either way, Little Damian loves Christmas!

I’ve talked a bit about how I view my weight loss as a journey. Part of what has kept me focused and positive is envisioning a future version of myself doing things that I simply didn’t do at 300 lbs. From buying clothes to running, to being more comfortable while traveling. Each day I tried to create a mental picture of that future version of myself. Those intentional daydreams gave me something to look forward to.

When one of those dreams came to fruition I’d try to capture the moment. This is a weird picture I’ll grant you. It’s from Sept 2019. I was on a plane trip for the first time in a while and I sent my wife this picture of me sitting with my legs crossed on a plane. This would simply have been unheard a year earlier.

I hate this phrase but it seems appropriate. I was ‘manifesting’ that version of me every day. I couldn’t wait to meet him. That anticipation of a future better version of me kept me moving. Now, I’ve actually become that once imaginary future version I made up in my head. Am I as perfect as what I imagined, not even close. I still have all of the struggles and faults of that old version of me. But I have done many of the things that that earlier version of me envisioned, so in some ways those things did come to pass.

There are several little tricks you can use to help build anticipation and keep you on track and to break up your journey into smaller pieces.

  • Spend a few minutes each day quietly ‘daydreaming’ about a future version of you. Try to be specific; What are you doing? What are you wearing? Where are you? Paint that picture as clearly as you can. When you face moments of doubt or if you feel like you’re losing focus pull up this image in your mind. It can help remind you WHY you are doing this. Get excited about getting to meet that person one day. That anticipation can be powerful.
  • Lay out some little wins along the way and celebrate them. Prepare them ahead of time so you have something to look forward to. For example, commit that when you lose 10 lbs you’re going to buy a new shirt (buying ‘normal’ clothes was a big deal for me). It doesn’t always have to be about buying something but reward yourself–maybe not with food. Knowing that there’s something to look forward to that is not in the dim distance can help you out when you feel like you’re just not moving fast enough.
  • I’ll grant you the days can get monotonous. My wife and I have learned to build in little mini-vacations where we go away for the weekend once or twice a year. I book the trips way ahead of time (usually as Christmas presents) and we lock them down on the calendar. This gives us something to look forward to. We do the same thing with concerts and other events. Heck, some weeks just going to our favorite Mexican restaurant is an event to look forward to. Having something to look forward to on the calendar gives us something to think about when the days are long or difficult.

Pro Tip: When going to a Mexican restaurant limit yourself to 12 chips, Chicken Fajitas are your friend, share your rice with a friend and skip the refried beans. You’re on your own with the margaritas.

You can use anticipation as motivation. About a year ago I was on Facebook, doom scrolling, when an ad popped up for this thing called The Conqueror Challenges. They’re virtual ‘races’ that cover a specific distance and take place for set amount of time. You can set the number of days you want to take to complete a challenge so it can closely match how much exercise you do and what you want to track. When you complete a challenge you get a medal.

At first I thought this is kinda silly. Why would I pay to exercise every day? Who needs this kind of motivation? Well friends, my initial assessment was wrong. Janet (my wife) signed up for the London and Paris challenges and every night she’d show me where she was in each city when she logged in her daily miles. They use Google maps for a lot of the challenges so you can track where you are and even put the little Pegman on the street and walk around. Every once in a while she’d get little virtual postcards from different landmarks along the way so she was learning something about each location. And when she was done she got these really nice medals. Kinda Cool!

I was in the middle of training for my first 50K so I was putting in long hours outside just going around and around my neighborhood and I needed some short term wins. So, I signed up for one, and was hooked. Knowing I was going to sit down and log my miles at night got me out the door on days when I didn’t really feel it. Sometimes I’d go just a bit further to hit some mileage I was trying to log, and if I missed a day or two I could see the time % beginning to catch up and it would give me a little push to get out there. The anticipation of getting the next medal was also a motivator. Hey, I like bling.

Below are some screen caps from the App showing my current challenge, Vienna Austria. You can see the total distance of the challenge is 510.8 miles and I set my goal for 70 days. They have this thing called ‘headwind’ that translates your miles down to just a few so that shorter challenges take longer. I only added this for this challenge because I was logging bike miles and I didn’t want to finish the challenge in just a couple of weeks.

As for the bling, here are the medals I’ve done so far.

Please note, I’m not trying to ‘sell’ this to you and I’m not compensated by these folks in any way. These challenges have just become one of the key tools I use to build anticipation as a way to help me keep moving along my path. We’ll talk about the power of community in another post, but one of the offshoots of this is they have a very active and super supportive FaceBook group. Like everything else with me, it took a long time for me to engage with others but once I did the response, support and sense of being part of something bigger than me has been overwhelming.

Remember, anticipation can be your friend and keep you excited about your journey. Until next time, Keep Moving Forward.

It’s All So Frustrating! When Despite Your Best Efforts Things Just Don’t Go Your Way

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We’ve all been there. We work super hard at something, putting in time and effort whether it’s a hobby, a house project, something at work or exercise and weight loss, only to have the outcomes be far less than we envisioned. We’ve failed. It’s easy to throw in the towel and walk away dejected. One of the reasons so few people can stick to a weight loss plan is because it can be frustrating. I certainly have days and weeks where I feel frustrated. But I’ve tried to develop some perspectives that minimize the stress. Below are some of the key strategies I use to keep my cool when my hard work doesn’t pay off.

Another one of my lovely AI images. I asked for an image of someone who is frustrated with their weight loss efforts. I guess the tape measure is meant to somehow indicate measuring his body, but he’s in a suit and sweating or crying, or both. I have no idea what the loose change all over his desk is about or the calculator. Maybe he’s on a Zoom call at work and he’s finally lost it. Honestly, I have no idea what is going on in this picture, and it makes no sense, but I feel this dude’s frustration. So, job well done AI!

Be Patient

We live in a culture of ‘now.’ We want things quickly and easily. From ordering items from our phones to getting our groceries delivered to our door, we live in a world that values speed. One thing I had to learn along my journey is that weight loss does not operate on our timeline.

I am NOT a patient person by nature. I like to be early to events, I don’t like to wait for things (ask my wife how often the Amazon truck rolls up with some little trinket I couldn’t live without) and that lack of impulse control is certainly part of why I weighed what I did. It’s very easy to become frustrated when you put in the work and the pounds just don’t move. Nothing is more disheartening that really sticking to your plan all week and getting on the scale and have be right where it was 7 days ago, or worse having it go the wrong direction. It’s enough to make the most resilient person throw in the towel.

I see lots of folks who respond to these moments by trying to up the ante and adopt some unsustainable behaviors like, weighing in every day or trying to do stuff like skip meals or overdo exercise in the hopes that they can ‘sweat off’ that pound. Chasing this dragon is exhausting (I’ve done it) and it is unsustainable.

Play The Long Game

To avoid falling into the weekly weigh-in game keep your goals longer term. It’s great to have a goal weight, but realize that even on those weeks when the scale doesn’t move you have taken steps to take control of your life. You’ve made yourself healthier for the long haul and trust that over time the scale will cooperate–because it usually does, eventually. It took me a year to lose 100 lbs and almost another year to lose the next 25. It was slow and steady and I had some bumps along the way but I stuck to my core plan. Track what I ate and exercise. By focusing on each moment in each day I was able to stop worrying about what the scale said and I became attuned to how I felt and how my body and mind were changing. I need this plan to work for the rest of my life and this is the only way I know how to avoid the traps I’ve fallen into so many times before. As I tell folks the process for keeping the weight off is so simple and so hard…just keep doing what you’ve been doing. It’s that repetition that works and it’s that repetition that can be hard to sustain (more on that in another post).

It’s a Learning Moment…But Only If You’re Open To It

Everyone fails. Sometimes the failures are very personal and known only by us (January resolutions, exercise goals, weight loss) and sometimes they are spectacularly public (failing a class, a relationship or a job). No matter what the scope and scale of our setback each time we fall short of a goal we have a couple of ways we can respond.

  • We can fold up our tents and go home (quit).
  • We can get stubborn and dig in hoping that by doing the same things more something will change (escalation of commitment).
  • We can step back and assess our approach and see if there are any changes we can make that might make a difference (reflect and respond)

By training ourselves to reflect on moments when we feel like we have failed, we can put ourselves back in control of things. Our response is then more measured and deliberate because we’ve taken some of the emotion out of it. This can help lessen our feeling of frustration and let us quickly pivot to another approach. This is hard, I get it. But the next time you feel that frustration building call yourself out in the moment. Sometimes that alone is enough to stop the negative thoughts from taking over.

Redefine Success

If you’ve been reading along I can’t stress enough that success on your weight loss journey (and probably most things) has many dimensions. Yes, losing weight is a key metric. But so are being kind to yourself, being able to be a healthier version of you, removing guilt from your mind when you make time to take care of yourself, etc. In effect, ‘success’ is about way more than just a number on the scale. By broadening how you define success you’re not putting all of your eggs in one basket.

  • Gained a pound, but had your best workout (success)
  • Didn’t lose weight but for some reason your belt is down a notch (success)
  • Scale didn’t budge but someone mentioned that you look good (success)
  • Haven’t lost anything in a week but your Dr told you your blood pressure was better (success)

You get the idea.

Lead with Forgiveness & Honesty

I say this a lot but it’s really important to be forgiving. That doesn’t mean to make excuses for yourself, that’s where the honesty comes in. You WILL have bad days, you WILL have bad weeks…The key is to be honest and aware when you’re not keeping your promise to yourself. In that moment don’t beat yourself up. Instead, you can tell yourself it is ok, but from that moment forward recommit.

I really hope your week is going well and until we chat again…Keep Moving Forward

Two Roads Diverged: Staying Agile On Your Weight Loss Journey

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As I neared the one year mark in my weight loss journey I had dropped around 100 lbs. I was really in a zone with my eating program but I was starting to get an itch to do more. I could feel that long lost version of me waking up and wanting to start adding in some exercise. I would see a winding road and wonder what it would feel like to run down it. I live near a lake and I began to see myself running along the roads along it’s shores with the autumn leaves falling around me. I was reaching a crossroads and I wasn’t sure if I should mix things up or stay the course.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could”

~Robert Frost

For most of my readers it probably seems like it should be a no-brainer to add in exercise. After all isn’t that usually part of the whole package DIET & EXERCISE? I certainly understood that adding in exercise would be good for my joints, muscles and cardiovascular health. I had also likely lost some muscle along with fat as I dropped pounds. But, I was really scared to change anything. I was worried I’d sabotage my efforts. I feared falling prey to my usual pitfalls:

  • Would adding in exercise throw my diet off? Either because I was more hungry or because I started to tell myself I could eat what I wanted because I’d worked out.
  • Could I handle having two points of focus (diet and exercise)
  • Would I overdo it like I always did and end up injured or sick?

I was coming to the first of many crossroads in my journey. Would I stay on the well-worn path or ‘scratch the itch’ and pick a new path and choose to add in exercise? I decided to trust how I was feeling and made the decision to add running to my program right with the promise that I’d only start once I hit one year mark and not before.

It gave me a few weeks to put together a plan and lay down some self-imposed ‘rules’ that would guide the next phase of my journey. When the day came to head out for my first ‘run’ I took those first steps with these promises in place:

  • I would not track how far or fast I ran.
  • I would not ‘compete’ with myself by trying to run faster every day or farther every week.
  • I would make sure I was getting joy out of running.
  • I would start out slow and make sure I was taking walking breaks.
  • I would not put pressure on myself to run a certain number of days each week. If I went every day, great, if not no sweat.
  • I would ensure that my diet program would remain the focus with running just being a supplement.

With these ‘rules’ set I started to head out day at lunch time. When I traveled I packed my running gear and would either go to the hotel gym or run outside if I was staying somewhere with a good place to run. At the time I would head to Ipswich MA, where the headquarters for the company I was working for were located. I had a great time running through the local cemeteries with headstones dating back to the 1600’s. I’d even stop and take pictures because running was all about exploration and fun.

  • Nothing makes you more aware of your mortality than exercising in a cemetary.


I kept on like this through the winter and into the Spring. I was really loving adding running I had even lost a little more weight while adding some muscle to my legs. I was feeling good and cruising along. Here’s a picture I took on March 11, 2020 (the day that COVID was declared a global pandemic). The guy in the picture below had no idea what was about to happen in the world or in his life.


We’ll talk more about setbacks and challenges on Wednesday but sometimes just when we think we have it all together life can hand us a change of plans. Some key takeaways for today.

  • Keeping things simple is key.
  • An agile mindset goes a long way towards ensuring you can stick with things for the long haul.
  • Having a singular focus can limit distractions and complications from ruining our goals, but you can’t be so rigid that you avoid change out of fear.
  • Setting guidelines as you make modifications can help mitigate fears and provide some rules to keep you on track.
  • Make sure your journey has some joy. It takes work to stay the course on your weight loss journey but that doesn’t mean it should be without an element of happiness. From choosing how you modify your eating to what exercise you do your program has to work for YOU.

Until next time Keep Moving Forward!

Like Sands Through the Hourglass…

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It’s Monday, June 19th 2017 and I’m on vacation with my family in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. My son and I are playing a round of golf (I suck) and my cell phone rings. On the other end of the phone is my mom and she’s calling to let me know that my dad is not doing well. The doctor has told her they might need to remove his leg. I can hear him in the background complaining and being loud but I can’t hear exactly what he’s saying.

By the time I receive this phone call my dad has been in a nursing home for almost a year. His decline has been slow and inevitable but his arrival at the nursing home was sudden and unceremonious. One day he and my mom went out to lunch, they came home and he simply couldn’t get out of the car. An ambulance was called and rolled up a short time later. The ambulance took him to the hospital where he stayed for a few days before being transferred to a rehab center where he stayed for a few weeks. After that he went to the nursing home. He simply went out for lunch one day and never went back home again.

He’s suffering from dementia and he’s been diabetic for over 20 years. The man sitting in a wheelchair in the small room in the little town nursing home is a shriveled husk of who he once was. The man in the nursing home is a cruel joke version of my dad.

In my memory my dad is a big and powerful person who wears suits, smells like pipe smoke, has a booming voice (he was a professional opera singer when he was young) and whose mere presence commands respect. While he navigates the world by keeping people on their heels, that gruff exterior hides a much softer side that very few get to see. He loves books and pens and his family, maybe in that order (just kidding).

This is my dad.


The version of my dad in the nursing home is scared, says over and over that he wants to go home and calls for my mom all day and night. There have been several times he’s become so agitated they’ve had to medicate him.

The last time I see him I give him a green shirt for Father’s Day that he will never wear. I give it to him a few days before the actual holiday because we’re leaving for vacation. I do remember that on this particular day my dad has a short moment of clarity (these happen every once in a while). While I’m sitting next to him he leans over and asks me in his real voice, “How are you doing?” I tell him how work is going and how the kids are doing. We talk for a few minutes, he thanks me for the shirt. I tell him happy Father’s Day, then the fog rolls back into his eyes. I give him a hug and head home to pack.

I have no idea that this is the last time I’ll see my Dad.

The next call I receive after the golf course call is also from my mom. It comes about 12 hours later, in the middle of the night. It’s Tuesday June 20th 2017. I remember my mom crying and simply saying, “Eric, he’s gone.” I recall hanging up the call and leaving the bedroom I was sleeping in to tell my wife what happened. She’s sleeping on the couch in the condo we’ve rented because my snoring is so loud it wakes her up. In a matter of minutes the whole family is mobilizing to pack things up for the 12 hour ride back to PA where funeral plans will get into full swing.

Why am I telling you this sad story?


The very first entries in this blog are from back in July of 2017, less than a month after my dad’s passing.

At the time my dad died I was close to hitting my top weight. I was 45 years old, on blood pressure and cholesterol pills, and I remember I could actually feel one of my tonsils when I swallowed, because there was so much fat around my neck that it was compressing my throat. I went to an ENT surgeon but he refused to do surgery to remove my tonsils because he said I was too big a bleeding risk. I slept poorly, and snored loudly. I probably had sleep apnea but when I went for sleep testing the little plugs wouldn’t stay stuck to me because I was sweating so much while sleeping.

But, the seeds of change were sewn at this time, even though they took over a year to germinate and grow. In re-reading those short 2017 posts I can see a version of me that knew he needed to change. I set up this blog and wrote those first 2 entries with the best intentions. I had grand plans to bring you all along on the journey. But that didn’t happen, at least not right away.

My dad’s death forced me to think about my life and I wanted it to have meaning. I was searching for some way to make a difference but I didn’t really know where to start. That version of me didn’t fully believe in himself and he could talk himself out of things; he believed he was too old to lose weight, his habits were too ingrained to be changed. Even seeing his future self sitting in that nursing home wasn’t enough to jar him to immediate and sustained action.

Looking Back…

1. I was certainly mourning my dad’s loss and looking for purpose.

2. I think I kind of believed the outcome was inevitable. Part of me just accepted that nothing I did was going to change things.

3. I was equally in denial that the way things turned out for my dad would be the way things turned out for me.

4. It all felt so big and I had so far to go. I had no idea what to do.

5. I felt that everything was temporary. I was already well into middle age, anything I did was only going to last so long before I was too old.

6. I had convinced myself that that best version of me only existed in the past. And thus the UsedToGuy was born.


Here’s the truth. Real change comes from within us and IT IS NEVER TOO LATE. No matter how many times you’ve tried and failed, no matter how much you weigh or how old you are, you can take small steps right now to make your life better. Don’t wait for some magical moment, sign from above, or the stars to align, do it now. It’s not lost on me that my first steps on this journey were just as unceremonious as the day my dad went out for lunch and never went home again.

I think about that last question my dad asked me a lot, “How are you doing?” The answer is; I’m doing the best I can. Some days are really good, some days are work, but I’ve come so far and I’m excited about what tomorrow brings. I’ve given myself a fair shot at avoiding becoming a guy sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Even if that’s how it all ends up at least I went down fighting. I’m also excited to finally share this journey with you and I know my dad would be proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish. That’s good enough for me.

Until next time, Keep Moving Forward!

Am I Being Selfish?

/ UsedToGuy / 1 Comment

This may sound strange to some but there are moments when sticking to my plan makes me feel selfish. Sometimes it comes up in a choice of where we go out to eat, sometimes it rears its head when I head out for a workout while other things are going on. I have some rules that I abide by no matter what, and sometimes they run smack into all that a busy life throws at you. From tracking everything I eat and working to stay within my daily WeightWatchers points budget, to never missing more than two days in a row working out. These simple but unbreakable rules are my way of ensuring I never drift too far from my daily practice.

Feeling like I’m being selfish has come up more frequently as time has passed and people around me begin to take my weight loss for granted. Just this past weekend I was with my mom and I showed her one of the THEN and NOW pictures I’ve posted here. She looked at the picture and said, “I had no idea you used to be that big.” That really brought it home for me. People forget, I sometimes start to forget and that’s the one thing that I simply cannot allow.

A lot of this perspective is tightly coupled to an issue I covered in this week’s podcast where I discuss how there is no real end to this journey–even though others may think at some point you’ll be ‘done.’

Maintaining any major lifestyle change requires daily practice, focus and vigilance. There are days when I feel like this dragon, guarding my plan like a hoard of treasure. I certainly don’t like this feeling because it comes with a wave of guilt and sometimes makes me wonder if I’m just being selfish.

If you’re on a weight loss journey, maybe you’ve had moments where you’ve wondered, Am I being selfish? Maybe you’ve turned down an invitation to eat out, asked a loved one not to bring tempting foods into the house, or prioritized your workouts over social plans. The truth is, prioritizing your health isn’t selfish—it’s actually quite the opposite. Let me explain a bit. When I look at pictures of me before all of this I actually see the way I was living was selfish.

I was literally eating myself to death, my blood pressure was off the charts, my cholesterol as well, and being morbidly obese was wreaking havoc with my joints. I can’t imagine what it was doing to my heart etc. To carry on living this way was only going to result in one outcome–me not being part of the picture at all. There are certainly no guarantees in life, but I wanted to at least give myself a fighting chance of being able to see my kids grow up and begin families of their own.

From being able to do things I simply couldn’t before, to getting to a place where I no longer needed drugs to maintain my blood pressure and cholesterol, I’m focusing on my health so I can be there for them. If you’re feeling that selfish feeling remind yourself, and those around you, that your efforts, while focused on you, are all about being able to be present in your life, and trying to be around for as long as possible.

Some Hard Truths

Don’t Make Your Success Dependent on Others

It can be easy to point the blame at those around us when we struggle. Maybe your partner keeps bringing home fast food, or your coworkers stock the break-room with sweets. But ultimately, your weight loss is your responsibility. No one else can do the work for you, and no one else is obligated to change their habits to accommodate yours. Expecting others to be responsible for your success only leads to frustration and resentment.

This Is YOUR Journey

Your journey is yours alone, and while support is great, the people around you have their own lives to live. They shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for enjoying foods that don’t align with your plan or for not adjusting their schedule to match yours. That doesn’t mean they don’t care—it just means they have their own priorities. Your success should not depend on them. It is also important to remember not to judge others if they don’t adopt your approach. Each of us has to make our own choices. Think how you feel when someone tries to TELL you that you should do something. If you find yourself passing judgement on others be careful you may be suffering from the overconfident “I got this” syndrome.

It’s Not Selfish to Stick to Your Plan

If you had a medical condition that required you to take a medication each day, you wouldn’t feel guilty about it. Your health and well-being matter, and committing to your goals doesn’t make you selfish. Sticking to your plan shows discipline, self-respect, and a commitment to your future. Remind others around you that while your path may not be convenient all the time you are working to be your best version of yourself so you can be there for them.

If others don’t understand, that’s okay—it’s not their journey to take.

It Is OK To Have Clear Non-Negotiables

One of the best ways to stay committed is to establish non-negotiables. These are the things you won’t compromise on, no matter the situation. Maybe it’s exercising a certain number of times per week, meal prepping on Sundays, or skipping alcohol at social events. Having clear, firm boundaries makes it easier to stay on track and removes the need for constant decision-making.

You Cannot Control How Others Respond To Your Efforts

Not everyone will support your choices. Some may feel uncomfortable, annoyed, or even offended by your commitment to change. Remember, they are accustomed to your old patterns and just like it takes time for you to change, it will take time for them to accept that you have made permanent changes in your life. You cannot control how others respond to your journey, but you can control how you react. Stay focused, remind yourself why you started, and keep pushing forward.

The Bottom Line

Prioritizing yourself and your health is not selfish—it’s selfless. You don’t need permission to take care of yourself, and you don’t owe anyone an explanation for your choices. Your weight loss journey is about you, and the sooner you let go of guilt and external expectations, the more successful you’ll be.

What Took You So Long?

/ UsedToGuy / Leave a comment

I began this journey on September 25, 2018. I spent one year just focused on my diet and losing 100 lbs. I eventually hit a low of about 125 lbs lost. I’ve spent the last 5 years sticking to my eating plan and getting back into running which has included two 50K trail runs with my son. Along the way I rediscovered my love of biking and am planning some big rides for this summer to change things up. Even with all of these accomplishments I kept things mostly to myself. Why the super-sudden change you might ask? The short answer is; it was time. But the real answer is more complex than that and goes back much farther than my recent journey. You don’t get to be 300 lbs in your mid forties and not have a lot of baggage, beyond the weight, that you’re carrying around.

Backstory: I have battled my weight my whole life and for most of that time it’s something I didn’t want to talk about. Quite the opposite, I did all I could to ‘hide’ my weight. I know that may sound ridiculous, but I can remember wearing a t-shirt with a dress shirt over it unbuttoned in high school every day because I thought it hid my weight better. I never, I mean never, took my shirt off when swimming. I avoided pictures and mirrors. In restaurants I sat at tables with chairs so I didn’t have to worry about squeezing into a booth. I stole an extender belt on a flight and kept it in my backpack so I didn’t have to ask for one when I got on planes.

As a kid I heard all of the taunts and ridicule, from the harmful like having the word ‘Porkchop’ written on my locker in high school, to people who ‘meant well’ but still found a way to provide a dig. I can remember most all of the moments of shame, like my mom matter of factly asking me why someone who was so successful in other areas of their life couldn’t get their weight under control. I even remember my grandmother singing the ‘Too Fat Polka,’ at me which went something like; ‘I don’t want him you can have him he’s too fat for me…” I’m assuming she had heard the Andrews sisters sing it back in 1947…thanks to the internet here you go.

There are a million other insults and little digs along the way that made it very hard to be open about my journey, even when I had lost a lot of weight. When putting yourself out there for others to ‘see’ is something you’ve spent your life avoiding, making the switch to being totally vulnerable is a big leap. After all, in today’s world it’s really easy to make someone feel small.

So, a few weeks ago when I sat down to type the first blog post in years I knew I had to jump in with both feet, shirt off, right up to my neck. It needed to be all or nothing.

I also think that the last thing anyone trying to lose a significant amount of weight needs is someone who is judging them, the world does that well enough. I couldn’t help anyone else until I was at peace with myself, all versions of me. It may sound strange, but it took me a long time to not hate, or feel sorry for, the guy I saw in those ‘before’ pictures. If you were to ask me why I’ve maintained my weight loss for this long it has a lot to do with sticking to the plan as I’ve said over and over, but it also has a lot to do with coming to realize that who I am now and who I was then are the same person. Yes, I’ve learned a lot and changed a lot but that guy wasn’t bad or lazy he simply wasn’t ready to manage his weight. I knew what to do, had tried lots of different strategies, but I wasn’t truly ready to change for good until I was, and that’s ok.

I keep my WeightWatchers charms on my desk. I used to carry them around on my key chain but they started to tarnish and break (I even lost a few along the way).

Looking at them every day started to remind me that it has been quite a while since I hit these goals and, if you’ve been tracking along, I really believe that success on this journey is all about being open to the next phase. It was time for my next phase, and that is helping others find their path or take that next step on their journey when it all seems so hard.

The bottom line is, I can’t tell you what to do, I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to and I don’t have some magical answer. What I do have is years of experience traveling this path and I hope that some of what I’ve learned can provide some guidance for you along your own journey.

If you’ve read this far please know I’m very happy to share this part of the journey with you.

Keep Moving Forward!

No Finish Line: Healthy Habits For The Long Haul

/ UsedToGuy / Leave a comment

As I crossed the 100 lb weight loss mark, which happened to coincide pretty closely with the one year mark, folks started to ask me when I would be done? I assume they meant done losing weight. I think they also meant when would I be done ‘dieting’ and go back to eating the way I used to. Something I had accepted and ingrained along the way was that there was no end. The habits I had adopted over 12 months would simply carry on. I began to trust that my body would settle into a weight that made sense, after all I wasn’t starving myself I was simply tracking my WeightWatchers points each day. Getting hung up on the number on the scale even began to take a bit of a backseat to feeling comfortable with myself and the side benefit of my now much smaller clothes.

Man walking a road towards the mountains.

I was determined to make things stick for good. My biggest fear became undoing all of the progress I had made by changing anything, at the same time I was realizing that in order for my plan to work long term I was going to have to find new goals and to learn to be agile. These two aspects of things may feel at odds, and in some ways they are, but it was a clear learning for me. Your plan has to be flexible and be able to change with you so it keeps you progressing. Being open to that progression is an important step and it doesn’t have to mean abandoning your core process.

After all, it’s easy to become complacent about repetitive tasks like losing weight or exercising. Even if you don’t give up you can fall into a pattern where you get comfortable, you can get over-confident and lose focus. This sense of confidence, what I call the ‘I got this syndrome’ is a red flag. I remind myself every day that the day’s decisions I make are what makes the difference. Even after all this time, maybe especially after all this time, being mindful that I am still the guy who weighted 300 lbs is critical to my continued journey. That guy isn’t gone, or lost to the past. He’s me, and if I decide to change my choices and fall back into old patterns he’s right here with me waiting to make his return.

For much of my first year losing weight we were in the process of renovating our kitchen, which turned into renovating most of our house. Evenings were full of Janet and I painting and doing work we didn’t want to pay the contractors to do. I was moving around constantly after work and sticking to my eating plan even as we made all of our meals on a small hot plate set up in our basement because our kitchen was gutted. This was a great test to show me that I could work my eating plan even when things were not ideal, but even as I was hitting strides on my plan I felt the itch to do more. I decided that once we were done with the kitchen renovations I was going to go back to running which was one of the main activities I had given up which made me feel like the UsedToGuy in the first place. But as I added running to the mix I wanted to be thoughtful about how I approached things so I didn’t fall into my all or nothing pattern. In my next post I’ll talk about how I mixed in exercise and learned to be agile.

Here are some of my key takeaways as I crossed the 12 month and 100 lbs gone mark in my journey:

  • There is no ‘before’ and ‘after.’ There is then and there is now. Anything can change at any time for the better, or the worse. I have to remind myself daily that I’m only as good as today.
  • Even as you progress you shouldn’t abandon your core plan. I stuck to my daily points on WeightWatchers and kept things in weight loss mode. I didn’t move into any kind of maintenance mode and still haven’t to this day.
  • Embrace change but tread carefully. I had to trust that I could keep things fresh by adding exercise. I was really worried about adding this in because I trusted how simple and focused I was and adding in more dimensions felt risky at first. I had such success being singular-minded I worried that any change would be a distraction.
  • Beware of the ‘I got this syndrome.’ I still remind myself to stay vigilant and aware. Becoming over-confident or comfortable is a warning sign.