4XLT

Today’s Weigh-In: 306.2 pounds

My apologies for those who tried to get to the blog the past few days. WillPhillips.org, along with all the other websites hosted on the same server, was down for several days when a hard drive on the server failed and the whole thing went tumbling down (much like the economy! Hey-oh!).

Things around 4xlt here are back up, albeit minus two posts from last week, in which I complained about myself and my lack of forward progress for the last five months or so (a common theme throughout 2009 if you’d like to skim through the blog some).

So, it seems rather fitting that I take a chance to reintroduce myself, share a bit of my story, and explain why in the world I’m sharing something so personal as weight loss, lifestyle transformation, and all the quirks and personal issues that go with it with the world through this blog.

Hi, I’m Will…

I’m an Okie transplant to the fantastic city of Portland, Oregon, where I originally moved to work for a nonprofit Christian ministry called Chi Alpha Campus Ministries. Last year, I transitioned out of nonprofit work and am now happily employed by a large corporation.

I’m a print & web designer by trade (seem my recent work on Flickr ), a Seattle Seahawks fan, and possess a geeky side a mile wide that I try to carefully keep hidden from the world. I’m a textbook ENFP personality type, love being around people, but enjoy the daylights out of living by myself.

…This Is My Story…

Cranking in at 6′4″ with a freakishly giant head (ask me about the hat), I’ve always been a big guy. Biggest and tallest from elementary throughout high school. And so, I came to accept my role as any group’s token fat guy and resigned myself to that fact.But by the end of 2007 I wore 4XLT shirts, barely squeezed into size 50 pants, and weighed a whopping 440 pounds.

I got sick and tired of it all. I got fed up with my life and the pervasive sense of surrender, apathy, & self-loathing my obesity represented and decided to radically reinvent my life. I’m closing in on 150 pounds lost and have found that it has set off all sorts of positive changes in my life: physically, mentally, spiritually (particularly unnerving and substantial for a guy who had expected to be a hyper-Charismatic and clergy for the rest of his days), and socially. You can read more of my story at the blog’s About page.

…& This Is Why I’m Blogging

Originally, I went public with my weight loss fight as a very blatant plea for help. I needed accountability and honesty in how I was trying to radically reinvent my life, and I think it worked. I look back over the last year and a half, and the times I’ve consistently been losing the most weight and steadily been eating right & working at the gym have been when I’ve been blogging regularly.

I’m not saying that it’s a direct corollary, but over the past five months, my weight loss has slowed to a crawl (around twenty pounds) and my blogging has become nonexistent. Time to change both of those things.

So here I am in the spring of 2009, feeling that same rumbling of discontent I felt a year and a half ago. Sure, I’ve lost over 130 pounds, but I’m still cranking in over the three hundred mark, still am fat, still have man boobs, still lack self confidence, still don’t want to take my shirt off in public, still doubt myself around the ladies, still am apathetic. And I don’t like that.

It’s been quite some time (months and months) since I set myself a serious weight loss goal, so it’s time to get back on track for one. I am resolving to be 285 pounds by the Fourth of July. And how am I going to get there? By getting back to eating right and sticking to my gym plan that includes smart cardio and whole body weight training.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to the gym before it gets any later and I give myself an excuse not to go.