Reinventing Yourself: Meet a Brand New You

Originally posted on Linkedin on Apr 8, 2015

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now. – Eminem

Can we change who we are today?

When I started my health and weight loss journey last year, I didn’t realize it would eventually lead to reinventing myself.

The concept of reinventing one’s self is not new. You can find articles written by Entrepreneur magazine to Psychology Today on the subject.

Being in my forties and 403 pounds, I was atime bomb with regard to my health. I was pre-diabetic, developed high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and a host of other obesity-related conditions.

Compound this with other complications like not being able to fit in a restaurant booth and needing a special “big man’s” chair at work. I was often stressed out, embarrassed, and felt hopeless.

So I took action to change all of that.

In retrospect it all makes sense. I had to reinvent myself in order to make these changes permanent. The old me had many bad habits, poor self-esteem, and was not confident in my abilities. All of these things were holding me back and my health was in jeopardy.

I asked myself:

What kind of quality of life do I want for my remaining years?

I won’t get into the specifics of what motivated me and what changes I had made in this post. In short, I realized that I needed to slowly undo all of the years bad habits by monitoring and gradually reducing my food intake and maintain regular, sustainable physical activity (primarily walking and weight training).

What I have discovered is that my journey was more than just a reinvention of myself with a finite end, I am constantly evolving… ever improving.

Don’t reinvent the wheel, just realign it. –Anthony J. D’Angelo

This journey has been one of learning and self-awareness. Much like the Agile methodologies I have learned from Software Development projects, I am regularly taking checkpoints on my progress, assessing what works well, and taking action on things on which I can improve.

To date I have lost around 182 pounds and my outlook on life is positive. I have become more motivated in other areas of my life, taking on new challenges both at home and work, and become a mentor and inspiration to others. I no longer feel hopeless, handle stress much better (walking instead of stress eating), andreally enjoy my new life.

I am healthier, confident, and ready to take on the world!