7/16/2022 0 Comments The Battle of the BulgeDon and Katie have been married for almost 22 years and out of the two of them Katie has been the most consistent when it comes to her weight.
"What, I'm out of shape?" Katie has also been the most openly critical of herself over the years. An examination of them both over the years proves the opening statement. Yet there's truth to Katie's comment, too. We define ourselves by what we feel is our worst point and see that whenever we want to see the worst in ourselves. "I wasn't a small man when we got married, but it didn't take long into our marriage before I went from "not a small man" to about 350-370 lbs." When they first got together they both worked at a variety of places. Don worked at a Win-Dixie photo department, a Domino's Pizza, a Golden Corral, and they both struggled to operate a movie theatre business. Katie worked as a cashier at Win-Dixie, Golden Corral, and as a driver at Domino's. "I didn't get so fat at the Golden Corral, at least I don't think I did. I think I really came into my true "fat man" stage while at Domino's Pizza. That's not to say I was skinny before. If you look at the wedding pictures I was a bigger groom." Don loved running Domino's Pizza restaurants, or at least he loved aspects of running them, and he loved to eat Domino's Pizza almost more than anything else. "As a pizza manager you eat pizza. The pay was alright, I guess, but you can't starve by running a Domino's. What you can do is get fat." It wasn't just the pizza, it was everything else, too. "Don didn't just eat pizza he ate pasta and fast food, a lot. So did I, but I guess I was younger and I got pregnant pretty early on." After Katie had their first child she got into walking in order to get him to sleep. "He was a good sleeper during and after the walks." So her weight was kept in check. Don, on the other hand, just got bigger. From the eating of pizza, pasta, subs, and other fast food, he was a whale. "Once you're over 300 lbs. it's hard to see yourself as fit, even when you get kinda close. You try, and I did try. I went on the Atkins' Diet for the first time and had pretty good results, but it was all meats and almost no veggies. I never got back to my full size, but I was still fat." Don did his best to eat low carb on a budget and lost some weight, but too much of it came back. The second time he did it was a little better and a bit more permanent. "I'd told Don that if we moved closer to family that we might be able to have more kids. I needed the help. We decided it would be best to move closer to his family, so we left North Carolina and moved right near his family. Sometime after that he decided he wanted to be in better shape again." "It was because I wanted to keep up with my kid. I would take him to the park and it was hard to do anything!" So Don did the Atkins' Diet again and did it better. This time he did eat stuff like green peppers, iceberg lettuce salads, and a few other healthier things with the massive amounts of meat. "This was the time it managed to alter my life enough that permanent changes were made to my lifestyle, just not enough. I was still a fat man and I could see myself as nothing but a fat man, with glimpses of something else here and there." Right now Don and Katie have set out on another stage of their goal to live a healthy life... more to come!
0 Comments
It was over 15 years ago and we'd never really had a honeymoon the five some years prior. At the time we got married we were caught up in running our own movie theatre business and doing the Amway thing poorly, so we didn't go on a cruise we could've taken on the cheap. It's not to say that our choice to stay and not go didn't payoff some, because it did. A business partner of ours was so impressed that some debt was forgiven and we did get to go to our churches' cabin in the mountains for a weekend. Yet when the opportunity came for us to go the Jamaica before we tried for our second child, we took it! From condo to Grand Lido NegrilSo we left the kid with grandma and grandpa and flew to a half and half clothed/clothing optional resort where we'd be able to do pretty much anything we wanted for about a week. We stayed on the clothing side of the resort so that we felt comfortable being in clothes and ventured to the other side to hit the pool and the pool side bar. We met some great people, had some pretty good food, and got to do all sorts of activities! Wind for sailing...So one day we noticed that they had little catamarans that we could take out on the beach and they were part of the all inclusive aspect of the resort, so we did that. There's not much to tell, other than we had a good time till be got tired and then we brought it back in and did some clothing optional chilling in the pool and hot tub. It was a good and fun time. We went out again, for sailing...So the next day we wanted to reliver that experience on the close to the shore seas and asked to take the sailboat out again. Can you even guess what we were told? "Sorry, there's no wind for sailing." I can't honestly tell you if there was wind or not, but we went on with our day. Then when we asked the next day, what were we told? Sorry, there's no wind for sailing." It seemed as if we weren't going to be getting back on one of those catamarans and experience the sailing life. We moved on with our vacation and we don't think we asked to go out again. So ever since that trip to the Grand Lido Negril we've been using, "no wind for sailing," whenever we wanted to do something but for some reason, any reason, we couldn't. Why is our show called "No Wind for Sailing" then?Not long ago Don was watching his stories on YouTube, after viewing one of Katie's barefoot story videos, and he discovered the channel called "Barefoot Sailing Adventures" and something came to his mind.
"We should do a show together, act like we have a boat, and always come up with a reason why we can't go out, like, there's 'no wind for sailing,' or something like that." So here we are making videos about the everyday stuff in our lives. From going to the store, riding bikes, and doing beer reviews and such. The truth is that we can't afford to go sailing anyway, so we'll just watch "Barefoot Sailing Adventures" for fun and make little adventures out of our own lives! Who knows, maybe someday there will be, WIND FOR SAILING! ~Don and Katie |
|