CNN iReport

  Jason Pollock    October 15 at 12:34am

  Jason Pollock    October 15 at 12:34am
Growing up I was never an active child. Not obese but pudgy a times. In Canada we always had a fitness challenge that determines our relative physical fitness. One could achieve bronze silver and gold medals of course, but then there was also the dreaded "participation" badge. Oh how I remember you my long ago "won" symbol that forced humility upon me. Basically my childhood was an uninspired sedentary one. (Although for a point I did like jungle gyms.)

As I grew older in my early teens I grew and stretched out to a fairly handsome young man if I do say so myself. But that didn't last long as the atrocious eating habits I had and lack of physical care took it's toll on my body. Binge eating for sport was the norm throughout  my youth. Six fried chicken sandwhiches right before bed was nothing out of the usual.I remember just lying there like a beached whale, barely able to digest the bulk I'd eaten. Other times I would consume massive Dagwoodesque sandwhiches which included even the bacon fat from the pan pored into the bread layers. Yum...

Anyway, flash forward to a 20 year old man of just shy of 300 ilbs and little motivation to do much in his life at all. Someone whose esteem was very low and someone who very lonely indeed. Isolated from things I desired by what I thought was, primarily my weight.

It is hard to remember all the thoughts I had at that age that lead me to make a change. But I knew that I was sick and tired of my life one way or the other. There was true desperation for change. I had tried to get in shape a few times in the past but this time would be different. I was for some reason simply READY.  This the key to success in anything I think. Readyness. No more excuses and fired up with enough will and desire to accomplish my goal ten times over. I cant stress this enough to people. You have to be ready. Grinding your wheels paying lip service to your cause will not cut it and will only drain the life out of you.

I instinctively used many tricks, I will call them, to keep me focused on my goal. One of them was envisioning how it would be to not only lose weight but to be in great shape, with abs and all that good stuff. I had very vivid dreams of what I might look like when my task was complete. Experts in motivational psychology no doubt suggest this as tool to reach any goal. For me, it was just natural to keep fantasising what it would be like when I had changed my body. I would think about what clothes I would wear, what sports I would play , what people I would show off to etc... Just really positive ( admittedly somewhat shallow) and enticing stuff.

Another trick was not over committing to everything at once. If you start this super stark diet right from the get go chances are it will be too much to handle. I started off simply making small changes at first. Then progressively adding more and more to my arsenal of weight loss weapons. I joke that the first change was only eating one dinner entree at a restaurant instead of two. As for cardio I struggled to finish 10 minutes of stair master.But I knew that at first this would be enough. I get a chuckle remembering my gasps and heavy panting at would later be the easiest of tasks. I would scream half jokingly to myself "END IT!!!" after maybe 5 minutes on the infernal machine. Hehe.

The thing was I kept adding more and more as I felt able. As the months went by I was in the midst of a fairly strict self created regimen. Weights followed by 45 minutes of one or another cardio machine. I continued my motivation in other ways to. I kinda intentionally laid low for most of my journey. It was actually somewhat of a secret journey. I found that by not telling people what I was really up to it increased my desire even more to get there. I imagined how I would surprise my friends and those who did not see me frequently. Pretty much "talk is cheap" anyway and having secret is very empowering... trust me.

Well I could go on detailing my journey but really I guess the gist of my success was mostly motivatition and a willingness to learn. Another point is my faith that if others could do it then so could could I. Honestly diet and exercise fads come and go but the human will to change and improve one's life is always there. The specifics of any diet probably don't matter too much as long as you are prepared to sacrifice and adjust to a new outlook on food, exercise, and life.

The bulk of my journey took place over a span of 7 months. I had set a clear date to reveal my newlly transformed self. The one from my dreams and fantasies. I let my hair grow out, planned a new clothing style to suit my new body, and planned a full body groom to unveil the muscle detail I knew was there somewhere. On may first at age 21 I was pretty much done the physical phase of my transformation. Now it was time to show off the goods and what fun I did have.

I went from 290 to 160 pounds in a much less than a year and have more or less kept it off till now. I am 40 years old and still finding ways to motivate myself to stay in shape.I do chin ups till the cows come home and can run like the wind. I can say I am a far cry from that kid who got the dreaded participation award year after year. I wish there was an easy way to transfer all the knowledge of how I accomplished this massive task. The simplest thing I can say is I had a genuinely powerful desire to redefine my self. Some of this desire was for selfish vain reasons and some was simply to be healthier better person. I think you need both.