Merry Christmas, and Healthy New Year!

Merry Christmas, and Healthy New Year!

I have something additional to celebrate , as seen in the photo below.



No, not the Estes ornament. And I've had the beard for a year now.

I've lost over 50 pounds since last July. Those "baggy" size 44 jeans had been tight a few months ago, I have held off buying new clothes till I've hit my goal ( a few pounds away). At one time (1995 or so) I wore size 56 and 3XL shirts (I do think I had a few 4X). Now my shirt size is 1X or just "Large", depending on the maker and clothing type or line of clothing.

As some may know, last July my left big toe got infected. I had to have a minor operation on it, things turned out fine. But that situation finally got me on the road to better health, thanks to practical access to health care, under the Affordable Care Act.

I've definitely been overweight since I graduated high school. This picture was from 1979, when I was 21. I am at the far right end, of a group of notable rocketeers, at NARAM-21 at JSC (having no idea I'd build winning models of a Little Joe-II years later, including that pad)



Closer view, Chris Pearson at left.


These two were from 1992 and 1995. With my Southern Neutron teammates Wayne Hendricks, Ed LaCroix, myself, and Jay Marsh, at NARAM-34 at a dry lakebed near Las Vegas



And with Jay Marsh, NARAM-37.



I guesstimate I weighed 350-360 pounds (maybe more) around 1995 or so. Could not even find a scale that went over 280 or 300, so I never knew...and didn't want to know that much.

Since 1998 or so, I lost some of the weight. Down to around 280 or so. After my mother died in 2008 (lung cancer, due to smoking), I lost more, got as low as 220, then went back up to 270 or so. I have eaten somewhat healthier the last 2-3 years, and was about 240 last July when I had the toe operation.

After that, I went on a diet. It's not bad, mostly not over-eating meals, no more binge-eating of things like half bags of potato chips and other "snacks" that were often mini-meals (or would be meals for some). Also watching carbohydrates as well as calories. No more Cokes. I'm mostly drinking Iced Tea (sweetened by Sucralose which tastes just like sugar) and drinking water flavored by Mio (which uses sucralose). Snacks, mostly berries, sometimes an orange, and the occasional "100 calorie" sized bag of popcorn (no butter, no salt).

Also doing some exercise. Never had done any real exercise, other than walking to recover rockets. Walking works well for me (considered a bike). I found a nice treadmill on Craigslist for $100. I walk at least a mile a day on it.... which is not a lot for many people but is a lot for me. The treadmill is an easy safe way to do it, anytime, regardless of outdoor weather, plus I can watch TV while I walk. Got a nice Omron pedometer ($15 off eBay),with 3-axis gyros that sense your walking no matter the orientation, put it in your pocket and it's fine. So that helps me keep track of my "other" walking, good and bad. It was surprising during a contest where I only walked back and forth from the prep area to the pad, mostly, and a few walks of a few hundred feet to get a few models, that I racked up 4.7 miles that day.

My morning wake-up weight was 182 today, lowest yet. Of course, weight varies thru the day, always the least after waking up and taking care of business. But that is the most consistent way I can keep track, for comparison with "average day" weight I figure add 4 pounds. So, I am very close to my personal goal of under 175, which would be half of what I used to weigh at my most, around 1995. As it is, my weight is right in the middle of healthy weight for a person that is 6 foot 4, with a "large frame".

So, I feel better now. In many ways I'm healthier now than I have been in my entire adult life!

My New Years resolution is easy (I hope). To stay on track, the hard part's mostly done.

- George Gassaway

Man that's fantastic. I'm 6' 6" and would love to get down close to 200 and here you are close to 175. Keep it up.

Congratulations, George! And to all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! God Bless!

Way to go George!
A Happy and Healthy New Year to you too!

Absolutely steller. Congrats and good on ya.

This bit stuck out pretty big for me - "got me on the road to better health, thanks to practical access to health care, under the Affordable Care Act". VERY interesting.

Merry merry, and happy happy to you,
s6

That's impressive, buddy! We've never met but via here, your website and Sport Rocketry mags, I've seen several shots of you and none look like that! Night and day. Congrats! That's a big deal for sure!

You look fantastic!

50 pounds in six months is astonishing. It took me two years to drop 40. For me, the biggest thing was to change how much of a big deal food was in my life. For years the thing I looked forward to when I got home from work was a big dinner. I had to change all of that. What worked for me was many small changes over a longer period of time, including a great many false starts (yes, I tried rice cakes...yeeech!)

And you're absolutely right about portion control. I lost the most when I found food that did not encourage over-eating. For example, my local grocery store packages single serving salmon filets (complete with their own tray for the oven) and I combine Minute Rice's single-serving multi-grain rice packs and one of Green Giant's Single Serving Vegetable packs. There's no seconds to go back for.

I'm sure you've noticed with glee how much easier it is to go up stairs now. I buy my cat litter in 40 lbs bags and every time I pick one up I remind myself that I used to be carrying around that weight constantly. (And you were carrying around 10 lbs more!)

Absolutely awesome! :clap::clap: (Now, grow the hair back out...)

It take a lot of will power and determination to loose weight. I've tried. Loose a little, fail, gain back what I lost plus that over again.
Food isn't so much my problem, it's the ability to be mobile with my back. And Arthiritis in the hips setting in due to lack of moving about.
It takes a special person, you obviously are one those special people.
Congratulations on being healther, and live longer.

Way to go George!

- Now you have me thinking... If George can do it, maybe I can too!

That's pretty inspiring George!

I hope I'll be seeing less of me by this time next year too.

Merry Christmas!
Jim

Wow,,, way to go George...
That's absolutely fantastic....
I'm trying like the dickens with you...
I've had great success as well so I know and understand deeply what it takes...
Really great for you...
Use your success as your own inspiration to continue the healthy lifestyle...

Teddy

Great job George! I decided to take my diabetes seriously finally....after being put on medicine. Watching portion sizes and carbs.

Congrats an keep it up! Merry Christmas to all!

Mike

Weird. No pictures showing in the post for me. Well, anyway, congrats, and keep it up!

Wow, hard to believe *that's* really you up there, George!!

Used to seeing pics of you throughout NAR mags over the years, so I'd gotten used to seeing the 'old you' in them. Glad to see you've gotten to where you are, if anyone can succeed at what you've gone through, it's gotta be a diehard BTC!!

Was thinking you were going to show off an improved whiz-bang RC full stack shuttle or such.

The really amazing thing was how George managed to shed all those pounds yet not lose one once of humility. Congratulations and Merry Christmas! :hohoho:

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I had not had a doctor for…decades. Until last summer, the last time I needed some health care was when I broke my little toe, and the only practical "medical care" for me then was to look up on the internet what to do to splint it (and I now realize that toe is "fused' about 30 degrees down at the knuckle joint. It's not a problem for me, but not good).

I'm leaving out some details but just suffice to say that I had good reason to make the changes. Please nobody try to speculate, I'll just say its nothing to be alarmed about, but I had to make some changes or else there could have been something to be alarmed about later. In any case, when I saw my doctor last month he was very pleased with my progress.

So, in any event in my case it's not like I just decided to do it. It was more like "scared straight", needed to make some changes. One of those things where you know yeah, you should eat better, lose weight, exercise more (or even at all), but not getting around to it, until there was a good reason to. Ending up reactive rather than being proactive earlier.

But once having finally gotten onboard to make changes, one thing that has helped me stick to it (so far) is my competitive streak such as seen in the results of rocket contests.

Fortunately it's not been too hard. Although Thanksgiving dinner and the leftover turkey helped awaken the "munchies monster", so I gained a few pounds back, then finally turned it around.

I took some classes on nutrition, that helped a lot. Not that I've gone all health-nut eating-wise. Mostly eating HEALTHIER than before. Avoiding some things, not necessarily because I couldn't have any, but that I'd rather have more of something else than a little of another thing . Trade-offs, rather than "everything". With the biggest thing being "portion control", just not eating as much. No more second helpings, and usually a lot less of the first (and only) helping. Such as two simple sandwiches rather than three big ones (or 4, or 5….).

I used to have LOTs of bread. I stopped for awhile, using soft taco shells instead, torn in half. . But then I finally realized that "Lite" bread was an even better deal. Though when I have a sandwiches (such as sliced Turkey with a few goodies), they are single pieces, "open face". Sometimes I have a sandwich with a slice of cheese, I started getting "thin sliced" cheese (if it's half the thickness, it's half the calories and carbs. But I think that thin sliced may be more like about 2/3 the thickness, not half)

When I'm not having a couple of sandwiches for lunch, I'll often have a Chicken Pot Pie, or a can of Campbell's Chunky soup (to help to savor eating the soup, I use a very small spoon so it takes longer). In the past I would have 2-3 Pot pies, or two cans of soup and most of a sleeve of crackers (no more crackers). And yeah, a lot of checking of labels. The Chunky soups are 18 oz cans, nearly double the size of smaller cans, and "two servings". But the label data for calories, carbs, fat, and so forth are "per serving", not per-container, so if i'm gong to have the whole can…. that's nearly 2 servings.

I did not mention breakfast. Oddly enough, I often have not had breakfast (my old bad habits of midnight "snack-meals" were in a way, "pre-breakfast"). I still do not have a real breakfast most of the time. But now I'll have an orange or eat a little something for breakfast, to tide me over till lunchtime. I usually get up late so it is often not long before I have lunch anyway.

Dinner, well, biggest thing is just not having as much, and staying away from the more tempting things I'd want to binge on. Someone had said oh, go ahead and have 10-12 potato chips. That's too tempting, too easy for those 10-12 to become 110-112. That's why even for the popcorn, I use the 100 calorie sized bags. And I do not have popcorn that often, either as a treat when I'm hungry enough and things have GONE WELL with the diet, or if I simply had not had much for dinner and/or an unusual amount of exercise that day. Though sometimes if I did not have much for dinner...... I'll make up a quick small salad....which I would not have beleived if anyone told me I'd ever do that.

Sometimes when I go out to dinner I may order a hamburger. Well, I don't get fries as sides any more. Most places let me swap the fries for a side salad. Though sometimes if someone at the table is having fries and does not mind, I might have 2 or 3 of their fries, and savor those by breaking them into smaller pieces first. Places that do not let me substitute a side salad and do not have anything else I want.... I get the fries and give them to someone else... all but 2 or 3.

Something else that helps with some foods that I might not otherwise care to eat, or to enhance the experience with other foods, is there is a kind of vinegar-based local Alabama barbecue sauce I love, that has pretty much zero carbs. So I'm using that a lot more often as a flavor-enhancer for some foods, where in the past I only had it with BBQ sandwiches (and yes, I still DO eat those on occasion, just using one-sided Lite bread rather than hamburger buns).

And I cannot overemphasize how much I loveddrinking Coke. I would usually have 2 liters a day, often more. Diet coke is not the same. I had some hope when I heard of Diet Coke with Splenda in it, available at Wal-Mart. But…… it's still not the same. I will have it on occasion if I just want to get some kind of Cola to drink with something. Though I think it's been 2 months. I can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi, and I HATE Pepsi, So a Diet Coke is like a really bad Pepsi to me. I did find that if I take some Carbonated water, and put Orange Mio in it, it tastes a lot like a "Fanta" soft drink, pretty good.

One food I really miss is my own homemade Spaghetti. I loved it so much that I would cook up two 32 ounce packs off pasta, using 3 pounds of meat for the sauce, and eat that for 5 nights or so. But it's too fattening, and too many carbs. Well, I can still eat spaghetti, and I do, made by others. But I do not eat nearly as much of it as I would have before. I know that if I made my own, I would be too tempted to eat too much of it, so the same way that I'm not eating any potato chips, I'm avoiding making my own spaghetti.

Oh, I've never been much into salads, And when I did have them, they were drowned in Thousand Island dressing. Now I have salads a few times a week. The dressing now is Balsamic Vinagriette, the Lite version.

I'm having some vitamins too. For awhile, I was taking a nice "chewable" multivitamin. Then it occurred to me….why does it taste so good? I look it up and…. they recommended having four a day and they had 3 carbs EACH!. Good grief, UNHEALTHY vitamins! So I gave those away and went with simple tablet multivitamins.

I sometimes carry 40 pound bags of salt used for water softener. Indeed it has been strange to realize that months ago I was carrying that 40 pounds and more than 10 extra on my body. But then that is not nearly as bad as when I weighed 350-360, more than 4 of those bags. I used to have occasional back pain flare-ups that was at its worst in the mid to late 1990's. In 1997 I sat in the wrong kind of chair and the back pain was the worst ever, for a few weeks before it went away. I realized after I lost a good bit of weight, down to 270-280, that the back pain did not happen as much, and not as badly. So the chances of having those back flareups like that are less and less now since I'm not stressing my back like I did.

For those who cannot see any pics… you must have some software that is blocking imgr.com that is hosting the pics.

So, I'll attach the Christmas photo below. You can see some of the other images on my website, on a page showing my Little Joe-II models.

https://georgesrockets.com/GRP/Scale/DATA/George.htm

Here is a thumbnail of one from the 1994 WSMC, you can see a larger version on that page.



- George Gassaway

George, PM replied to, but it wouldn't send.

Mike

George, in your original post you credit the Affordable Heath Care Act for giving you "practical access to health care" and "on the road to better health." Could you elaborate?

Looks like the answer is "no".

tmacklin said:

George, in your original post you credit the Affordable Heath Care Act for giving you "practical access to health care" and "on the road to better health." Could you elaborate?

Click to expand...

Creating a new thread about that. Here is the link. Post replies there.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?123378-So-I-have-Diabetes-and-about-10-of-you-do-too

- George Gassaway

I somehow missed this thread originally. I congratulate you on this. I also thank you for this post, as it has now motivated me to make some much needed changes to my own lifestyle.

You're welcome. I'm glad it's been useful to you. Make the changes now that I wish I had a few years ago.

- George Gassaway