I’m writing a series of articles on how I lost 53 kg (117 lb) in 18 months and managed to keep the weight off.

I’m trying very hard not to preach or assume to have all the answers, I’m just telling my story, what happened to me and how I dealt with it.

This is the second installment, dealing with motivation and how it all started.

Please make sure you read the first part of the series, including the disclaimer.

Part 2, Motivation

I was very lucky; I had my true motivation handed to me on a silver platter. It was so blindingly obvious I couldn’t help but see it.

My family has a history of heart problems. My dad died when he was only 48 years old, of a massive heart attack. His father died of the same reason at the age of 66 and as if that wasn’t enough, one of my best friends died of a heart attack when he was only 37.

When I was 41, one morning as I was climbing the stairs to my office, I felt very weak, I broke into a cold sweat and my heart was pounding. I had to sit down, put my feet up, and rest for a while until I got my strength back and my heartbeat under control.

The next day the exact same thing happened again, only much worse this time. One of my colleagues used to be a paramedic, so I told him what happened and asked him for his advice. He told me what I already knew, to go see a doctor right this minute!

Back then I was like a machine, burying myself in work, not taking care of myself, making all the wrong things the important things in my life. Of course I was overweight, and on top of everything I was under-sunned and looking back, not at all very happy. I had loved, lost, and lost again, by giving up on myself, without even knowing it.

We all go through life taking it for granted, and we all know that we do. That’s why we read books on personal growth and attend seminars, so someone can tell us, warn us, put us on notice. We breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve been made aware of the error of our ways and determine that we’re going to change it all. At least that’s what we tell ourselves.

For years I’d been thinking that I should go see a cardiologist, just to get a checkup and make sure I wasn’t heading for the same fate as my father. But I’d always put it off for later. Every time I felt the slightest pain in my chest I would get afraid, worried that my lifestyle was catching up with me.

Only this time, I really went. The doctor was a mild mannered man, he listened to my family history, drew blood, put me on a treadmill and probed my heart in all sorts of doctorly ways. At one point he was looking at it with ultrasound, using much the same type of machine that’s used to look at babies inside their mothers’ bellies.

Before

He turned the monitor over so I could see. I was lying there, looking at the screen, feeling like I was face to face with my longtime nemesis. I could see my heart beating, even hear it, and the only emotion I felt was fear.

A few minutes later the doctor gave me the all clear. He told me that I was in good health, that I should consider losing some weight, but that my heart was just fine.

That day I tipped the scales at 137.4 kg (302 lb). I’m 186 cm (6’1”) tall.

When I stepped out onto the sidewalk from his office, I felt an enormous sense of relief, like my life was being handed back to me, along with a warning to use it better. In an instant I saw how I’d given up on myself, on my life, fully expecting to die at any time. I’d been afraid to love, to have a family, because I didn’t think I’d be around to take care of them.

After

After that everything happened really fast. I had long hair in a ponytail back then, another thing I had long wanted to do something about, but not really dared. Change was scary to me. That day I went straight from the doctor’s office to a barbershop, didn’t even pause to think about it.

Well, that’s one way to lose weight, I guess. As I left the barbershop half an hour later I had a firm resolve in my gut: I would lose 40 kg (88 lb), and I would do it in no more than two years. And I would never, ever, allow myself to go back to that place of fear.

The only thing was that I knew how difficult it is to lose weight, not to mention how difficult it is to keep it off once lost. I realized I needed a plan, and in order to come up with one I would have to do some serious soul searching.

More on that, and how all this can apply to you, in the next installment.