Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

Because there don’t seem to be any other bloggers stupid crazy enough to try following Dr. Huizenga’s inanely-named Wow!Rx plan, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to blog about the experience and blaze a trail for other idiots brave souls to follow.

photo credit: Ozyman

But, I didn’t want to publicize it much until I was pretty sure I could sustain the pace. Frankly, as I read the book and contemplated the life changes I’d have to make in order to exercise for 2-2.5 hours per day, I became increasingly convinced of one thing: I’d never be able to pull it off.

Through November and December 2009, I carried around an intense fear of failure. And, I mean, failure is one thing. With your run-of-the-mill failure, you can at least say, “Well, I tried.” More than that — I was reasonably convinced that I would never make it out of the starting gate of this plan. I worried about telling anyone about my new experiment, because I was pretty sure that my mind and body were incapable of pushing that hard.

photo credit: wine me up

In fact, for long stretches of time, the only thing that kept me going on this idea was the inspiration of The Biggest Loser. Thanks to the miracle of television, I have burned the images into my mind: people my size sweating it out, week after week, on national television. If they could do it, why can’t I?

Worse — if all of those people sent home from “the ranch” could manufacture their tremendous successes by following the at-home plan, then why couldn’t I?

photo credit: tiarescott

After all, like millions of annual applicants, I was willing to consider giving up 12-15 weeks of my life — losing my job, subleasing my apartment, boarding my dogs, and giving up contact with friends and family — to lose weight. What was keeping me from dedicating tremendous time and energy to this pursuit in a somewhat-less-dramatic (and certainly less-incentivized) fashion?

Here it is. As of tonight, I will have officially been following Dr. Huizenga’s nut-busting regimen for exactly one month. I can at least say this: I am capable of it.

photo credit: Maʝicdölphin

And I have a lot of tips and suggestions if you’re considering doing it, too.

I’ve been keeping notes all this time and writing about my experience. Now that my fear and trepidation is mostly past, that I have proven to myself that I am capable, I’m ready to start sharing more about how this journey has gone.

photo credit: c@rljones

I’ll start by talking about the “stages of change model“ and how I moved from Precontemplation to Contemplation, Preparation, and Action. And, if any of you decide to embark on this project, will you please let me know?

I like to think I’m not the only insane one.

This entry was posted Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 6:03 pm and is filed under The 2010 Experiment. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.