Meet Michael B.

My name is Michael Bishop.  I have been overweight for most of my life.  I struggled in my teen years to lose weight, and never found much success.  When my family was living in Michigan in 2005 I started Weight Watchers.  My mother-in-law paid for me to for the first 4 month pass, and I stuck with it.  For the first time in my life I was seeing results.  I lost my first 60 lbs just by changing my eating habits and following the points system.  Then I added exercise, and worked up to running 1 hour a day!  Finally in spring 2006 I got to my goal weight range and weighed in at 188 lbs!  The picture I posted is one of me shortly after obtaining my goal weight when I went to China with my family for a couple of weeks.  I had a new suit and a tuxedo with vests and matching bowties all tailor made for me and my new body.  I had so much more energy and people couldn't believe the change.  I even kept it a secret from my parents, and surprised them when I visited Utah that year.
 
Sometimes life happens, and priorities shift.  I let my weight slip down in my list of priorities, and I am not where I want to be.  My tailor made suit and tuxedo don't fit me anymore. I had to buy a bigger suit, bigger pants, and put several newer shirts to the back of my closet that were too tight.  I want to get back to that goal weight.  My goals for the BRBL are to be able to be back in my China suit by the end of the competition and to go back to Weight Watchers as a life-time member before next summer.  As an extra motivator I have a picture of a laptop computer on my fridge.  Our laptop computer just died beyond my expertise to repair.  If I win the competition I will have the money to replace the laptop with a newer one.  Until then, I'll burn some extra calories walking downstairs to use the desktop computer. I'm glad we all have this support for the next few months! We can all see great changes in our lives.  I did it once, and I want to get there again!