June 24, 2013: my second birthday. My real birthday is in a few weeks, but that day became my second birthday.
It sits there in my calendar. June 24, 2013.
That was the day. It was the day I saw a new doctor who was pleasant … but viciously blunt. “You likely won’t see 60. I don’t promise you 50. You need to make radical changes.”
It was as matter of fact as it was brutal. Morbidly obese. Nearly diabetic. Couldn’t walk up two flights of stairs without being out of breath.
Then she asked for a picture of my family. I later learned it was because she wanted to know if we were all morbidly obese. We weren’t. My wife is a size 0. My kids are thin. It was just me. “So is this the picture you want at your funeral?” the doctor said. My eyes welled up. It was not.
It was like A Christmas Carol. The ghost of life future right before me. I had to make radical changes. And I did.
I decided that day to change. Fear was my motivator. Habit became my friend. The South Beach Diet was my road map. Walking a mile became walking 3 miles. Became a 5k. Became a marathon. Became 60 marathons. Became Ironman. But the habit is not the distance it is the demanding regularity of not going backwards. It is having that picture still be at my funeral but as a chapter not the story. 130 lbs fell off that year.
A year later, by June 24, 2014 I was a new person. I had “turned one.” And today … I’m a teenager. I turned 13 today. 13 years from my second birth. The weight is still off. I have the slight clarity of someone who has lived life healthy now for 13 years even as I head quickly to 54 in real years in a few weeks.
Today, 13 years later I was back to the doctors office. Different doctor. The one who helped me fix myself moved to Florida. This current doctor knows the story but hasn’t seen me live it. But I do my best to go see some physician each year every June 24.
Today is June 24: My second birthday. The one I chose.
Morbidly Obese to MARATHON Runner 