Beep, Beep, Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee the heart monitor screamed. “Hold on… it will come back!” the EMT said as he flipped a switch and reached for the paddles. Was this the way my life was going to end? Losing it all in the back of a speeding ambulance? I feared that the last feeling I was going to experience was a horrifying electrical shock to my body. Slow-motion terror overtook me in that second, I was enveloped in a floating surreal dream-like state.
This is how my weight loss journey began.
My heartbeat did come back on it’s own. I made it to the emergency room. After a battery of tests and 11 hours in ICU, it turned out not to be a heart attack at all, but something I’d eaten! Chinese hot wings and several glasses of strong southern iced tea had caused me to have a heart arrhythmia.
There I lay, wired up and beeping, a 282 pound 45-year old man. The cardiologist categorized me as not just obese, but “morbidly obese.” I learned that I had a 47 percent body-fat content. Almost half of me was pure FAT! My cholesterol and triglycerides were both over 500! On an overall health scale 1 being perfectly healthy and 10 being dead, my score came back a 9.88. I was a walking dead man. He told me to change or write a will, because I would be dead in two years. I believed him.
In that moment I decided I’d been given a second chance at my life, hence the “2” in my name. And if I was given this truly amazing gift I absolutely wasn’t going to waste it.
I created a motivational campaign for myself. I called it yearofthetim.
I planned to commit one whole year to focus all of my energy on saving my life. Because if I was dead, I wouldn’t be able love or care or grow or help anyone. I had to help myself first.
I completed a six-week nutrition class and lost 14 pounds. Then I joined a Weight Watchers and started losing about a pound per week. Later I joined a gym and started losing 2 pounds a week. In just 50 weeks I achieved my goal of losing over 70 pounds! For the first time in over 20 years I weighed less than 200 pounds.
I learned one vitally important truth during that yearlong weight-loss journey. That what you believe about yourself…it all comes true. I began believing the best about myself. Believing I could do anything I set my mind to. I knew inside I was meant for so much more, so I pushed on and lost 29 more pounds for a total of 99 pounds.
On a whim, I decided to submit my weight-loss story to the USA TODAY Weight-loss Competition. I didn’t think I had a chance of winning but I figured what did I have to lose?
Then came the call that I’d been selected to be the 2007 Weight-Loss Champion! Needless to say I was blown away! The day the paper hit the stands my life expanded like a super nova. Request for interviews poured in, TV, Radio, talk shows, other newspapers and magazines it was really incredible. I relished my 15 minutes of fame.
I promptly wrote a book and I was almost ready to publish it. Then I got cold feet and pulled the plug on the whole thing. I didn’t want to be one of those flash in the pan weight-loss guys and a year later having gained all the weight back slink off into embarrassed oblivion. So I shelved the book and started a new journey, one about learning how to be healthy for the rest of my life.
Over the next 4 years I experimented, trying new and various ways to stay motivated and get healthy. I trained with dozens of professionals in many different disciplines, from yoga to boxing and long distance running to world-class bodybuilding. I studied in the fields of neuroscience, genetics, epigenetics, human biology and nutrition.
All of this learning inspired me to help others while helping myself. This is where my passion for helping people grew into life goal. I began to see that helping others was the most rewarding feeling I’d ever known. Seeing the 68-year-old grandmother become able to ride a bike for 3 miles with her grand children for the first time in 40 years. Or helping a man lose over 60 pounds and having his wife tell me I gave her husband back to her. These stories and many others lit a soul fire inside of me that I never want to go out.
So I after keeping myself healthy for over five years, I felt it was time to rewrite my book. I wrote my book Fat As My Dad. Written specifically for men, but women can get the same benefits from reading it also. The book is the essence of what really worked for me. A real world “how to” lose weight; get fit and stay healthy… 2B4L – To Be For Life™ strategy.
I’m totally committed to living like this for the rest of my life. That what you believe about yourself, it all comes true. And if you can truly begin believing the best about yourself everyday, you can and will become anything your heart desires. I know you can achieve your goals, dreams and be healthy and wise while you achieve it.
Let me encourage you beginning today to start learning and growing mentally, physically and spiritually. Find ways to be kind and help others. Discover true meaning in your life. Love, forgive and live more. Be strong and courageous, don’t allow old lies or your past hurts to ever deter you.
I want you 2 BE the possibility!
I hope that one day I get the privilege to meet you, share your dreams and hopes then encourage you to believe the best about yourself and make them reality!
God Bless You, Tim 2 Taylor