Bodfather: Ending the Year with a Bang

Subject #5 in the "Bodfather"

Witness Reduction Program: Billie

 

Height: 5’4”
Starting weight: 411 

Current weight: 393.8

Loss: 17.2 lbs.

 

 

As is so often the case, I didn’t know what I was doing when I started my “Bodfather” program.

I was a little frustrated that I was writing a weight-loss blog and it was missing a little something (weight loss).

I thought it would be interesting to work with an individual and try to help and encourage them to get a little farther toward their weight-loss goals. That individual became a quintet of individuals, but I can’t say that any of them have gotten me more energized about my own fitness goals than my friend Billie.

Billie’s a large lady. I can’t pretend to know all the obstacles she’s faced at 400+ pounds. The rude comments and the complications of living in a world build for “normal”-sized people.

But there’s something even bigger about Billie. She’s got a irresistible energy and an infectious drive that’s powering a big, positive change in her life.

One day, I was telling her about how I could barely go for 15 minutes on an elliptical when I was at 300 pounds. She’s spotting me 100 lbs and tearing it up with the exercise. She’s just about blown up the DirectLife activity monitor that I muscled my friends at Philips for all the “Bodfather” participants.

“I am an athlete. A machine,” Billie told me recently. “I'm doing this like it's my job. And it is.”

Like the other “Bodfather” participants, she’s having issues on the food front, but she’s figuring it out day by day. And she’s rocking that scale. She’s said goodbye to the 400’s forever and is saying hello to a brand new person.

Billie wants a better future.

And she makes me want a better future for myself.