It has officially been 2 years since my decision to get fit.

Just two short years ago I was allowing my health and fitness to operate on autopilot and that got me to 325 pounds. That’s when I decided I decided that enough was enough and that it was time for a change.

I decided that I was going to lose over 100 pounds in under a year and I wasn’t going to give up anything I liked. I wasn’t going to follow some fad diet. I was simply going to focus on the basics and trust the process. Essentially I was going to use project management and data to conquer my long-time obesity.

Two years later and you already know how it turned out. I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

Now I am entering my third year of focusing on being healthy and happy. My focus has shifted a little bit to maintaining my own progress while helping others achieve their own goals. While it was a lot of hard work it still stuns me how easy it was to tackle one of my biggest problem areas and sources of embarrassment. I am sad that I waited so long to try and just as easily could have never tried. That would have been tragic! I don’t want anybody else to fail to try and I want everybody to be successful with their biggest goals.

I want to build a world where no goal dies of loneliness.

I am doing my part to make this happen. I am committed to helping provide the inspiration, motivation and tools needed to help people use project management to live their healthiest and happiest lives. This started with my blog, continued with my book (Operation Melt: How I Used Life-Changing Project Management to Lose Over 100 Pounds in Under a Year) and I have lots of other things in the works. Plus my new day job will be focused on using project management to help people live healthier.

Project management can change lives why can’t it change yours?

Maintaining… Mostly

I am entering my third year and I am still going strong. While I have moved into “maintenance mode” I haven’t stopped tracking my daily food intake, exercise and other key metrics and I don’t know if I will ever stop that. The easiest way to make sure not to slip back into autopilot is to be aware of my numbers every day.

My numbers haven’t been amazing over the past six months but that is just how it goes sometimes. My brain isn’t wired to be ok with numbers going the wrong way but it is important for me to keep reminding myself that this is a journey and that I have to look at all of the numbers together in context.

My average weight has ticked up a few pounds. I am currently averaging 200-202 pounds per day versus 198-200 pounds about three months ago.

A portion of my weight uptick can be attributed to my increasing muscle mass. I know my muscles are getting bigger and I am getting more definition. One way I know this is that, big surprise, I am tracking my numbers. My biceps are growing at a rate of about half an inch every three months. So I know that some of my weight increase is “good” weight”

Unfortunately not all of my average weight increase is connected to muscle growth. I know that a portion of my uptick is related to trying to maintain the appropriate balance between calories in and calories out. That is a daily effort now that I am not actively creating a big calorie deficit in my diet. I know this is the case based on my latest body fat percentage measurement. Over the past three months I have increased about one percent body fat to 13.8%. This one percent isn’t completely apples-to-apples because it was measured after a workout instead of before but I have increased at lease half a percent.

Maintenance is definitely not easy but it is a heck of a lot easier than losing 130 pounds in 18 months. It just requires continued tracking of my numbers, adjustment when needed and for me to be patient with myself.

Second Annual 5k

As a celebration of my first anniversary of my decision to get fit I hosted and ran in my very first 5k race. A group of friends and supporters joined me to run an informal 5k that was also a fundraiser for a local nonprofit, Central Community House. This was a great way to celebrate such a big achievement and to “officially” kick off my running career.

Fast forward one year and I celebrated my second anniversary with another Operation Melt 5k race.

About 10 friends and supporters joined me for a repeat running of the same 5k course.

We all had a great time and raised $280 for Central Community House. That is just under $1000 that we have donated in 2 years!

My personal results were very good too! I cut my average pace time from 10:35 per mile to 9:32 per mile, over one minute in a year. Unfortunately I ran a little faster than my body wanted me to run (the downside of being competition driven, right?) and ended up with some pain afterwards. So I just need to rest my body for a few days.

After the race some of us headed out for a big brunch at one of my favorite restaurants.

My thoughts have already started turning to next year’s Operation Melt 5k. Save the date for 6/13/2020!

Year 3

Now I am moving into year three of my Operation Melt journey and trying to figure out what comes next. I am working updating my goals for the second half of this year and my third year of my journey.

I know that I want to continue to maintain my weight but I am already doing ok with that. I also want to keep growing both in muscles but also in my skills, my confidence and my impact to others. I need to find my ideal running pace and force myself to stay there – which means that my personal records need to become a thing of the past.

I am not sure what the future holds but I know I am going to be setting and crushing goals for the rest of my life!

Thanks for reading… check back next week for more.