Weight-Loss Story:
Andy Gibbon

Age 24, from Springfield, Illinoi

I honestly never thought it would happen to me. Actually I believed it
_couldn't_ happen to me. Growing up, I was always the smallest kid in the
class. I was never short, I was average height, but I was very thin.

My thin weight continued that way though, on into my teen years. When I was
in high school, I was still always the smallest guy around. I also always
looked younger than I really was, which didn't help either. At this point,
I was kind of supposed to be growing and beginning to look like an adult,
but I wasn't. Some people were kind of concerned with me, thinking that
maybe I was unhealthy or something. But I was in good health and
everything.

After high school, I continued working for a couple of years, and my weight
stayed down. I was working at a job where I was sitting down all day in
front of a computer, and it was beside a convenience store so I was always
buying candy and junk food, well those are the same thing I guess. I always
felt lucky, that my weight wasn't increasing. I would even joke about it
with friends. I wondered how I could be doing so little, being so lazy, and
eating so poorly, and not gaining any weight. I wasn't complaining though.
At a time when a lot of people I knew were beginning to get fat, I was still
tiny.

After a couple of years, when I was about 20, I noticed my stomach starting
to increase in size. Where it used to be completely flat, it was starting
to expand a little. I really noticed when I looked at myself sideways in
the mirror. I didn't make any changes, I just kind of continued to live the
way I'd always lived, and hoped that I wouldn't gain any more weight. I
thought the problem would work itself out on its own.

Then, I went away to college. People talk about the "freshman 15" -- I
always thought that was garbage. But, I think I may have actually hit that
mark after my first year. I don't know what it was really, probably a
culmination of a number of things. First off I wasn't getting any exercise.
Second, I was eating terrible foods, because for the first time I had to
buy my own stuff. I wasn't very careful. I was always getting junk food
and fast food and stuff like that. It was only a matter of time before my
metablolism slowed down, and it did, during my first year at college.

As I was going into second year, I devised a plan to get the weight back
off. I lived about a 40 minute walk from school, and I decided not to buy a
bus pass, just to force myself to do the walking. I also planned on eating
healthy. But those were just plans. As it began to get cold, I started
riding the bus. And the eating healthy... well that was just a pipe dream.
I needed more than just a plan, and I needed more than just me trying to
stick me to it.

As I got back home after that year, I had gained 25 more pounds. My parents
noticed right away, and they were concerned. They were of course happy to
see me, but they definitely saw that I was bigger. I tried to eat well over
that summer, and I did pretty well, but I still couldn't get myself out to
do exercise.

The next year of school, the same thing happened -- I tried to diet, and it
flopped. Boom, another 27 pounds. I was carrying more weight than my frame
was designed for, and I was really concerned. I no longer believed that any
conventional diet would work for me. So I decided to do something crazy.

I read on the internet about a guy who rode his bicycle all the way across
the USA. He went from New York City to Los Angeles, and it took him 2
months. I know it sounds crazy, and it is a crazy idea, but I decided to
make the trip, starting here in Springfield. I didn't know what I was
doing. I left pretty much right away when I got home from school that
summer. I didn't listen to anyone, obviously my parents didn't want me to
do it. I brought some essential supplies, like a tent, and some money. My
plan was to keep going as much as I could tolerate, and to eat only healthy
meals from grocery stores -- no fast food. I stuck with it -- I had to, I
had no other choice. I had no one to help me. I couldn't afford to eat at
restaurants, and I stayed away from the greasy stuff. I could write a book
on the details of the whole trip, but suffice it to say it took a very long
time, it was very gruelling, and I lost a lot of weight. No drugs, no fad
diets, I just took a hard left turn with my life. After the trip, I ended
up in Los Angeles, having lost 70 pounds. My body was also toned quite a
bit from all the activity. Well, that's how I did it, but I certainly
wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It was a drastic solution, but it
worked. The weight hasn't come back, because I developed a work ethic and a
new attitude towards food during that journey.




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(#1) Anonymous posted on Sep 29, 2003 (IP: 24.27.219.33)

I was truly thinking about having my husband drop me off about 100 miles away from here so that I could walk home. I know it's dangerous out there, but I know I can do it. Your story inspired me.