Weekly Letter #2 · August 24, 2026
You Can Lose More Than Weight
I thought this journey was about what I could do. Boy… was that a mistake.
For a long time, I thought this journey was about what I could do.
How disciplined could I be?
How much weight could I lose?
Could I finally get control of my eating?
Could I find enough willpower to change my life?
Boy… was that a mistake.
I’ve come to understand that this journey isn’t really about what I can do.
It’s about what God can do with me, if I let Him.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have work to do. I still have choices to make. I still need discipline. I still have to get back up when I fall.
But I don’t have to do any of it alone.
There have been rough days when my own willpower wasn’t enough. Days when I prayed for help because I wasn’t sure I had it in me to keep going.
And He gave me enough strength for the next step.
Not the next year.
Not even necessarily the next week.
The next step.
And over time, those steps added up.
For a long time, I also thought losing weight was about one thing:
The number on the scale.
I was wrong about that too.
Yes, I’ve lost a lot of weight. And I’m incredibly grateful for that.
But when I look back at who I was and compare it to my life today, some of the most important things I’ve lost never showed up on a scale.
I lost a lot of the insecurity I used to carry.
I lost the fear of going out to dinner with my family and wondering whether the restaurant would only have booths.
Because there was a time when I couldn’t fit in them.
Something as simple as going to dinner with my family could create anxiety before I ever walked through the door.
I lost the need to find somewhere to sit down every ten minutes because carrying my own body had become exhausting.
I lost the fear of walking out to meet a customer and wondering whether I’d be sweating and out of breath by the time I reached them.
Those may sound like little things.
When you live with them every day, they aren’t little.
And I could keep going.
This Is What Progress Really Looks Like
Look at that line.
It isn’t straight.
Not even close.
There are good days and bad days. There are drops. There are plateaus. There are stretches when the line turns around and starts heading in exactly the direction I don’t want it to go.
That’s real life.
The important part isn’t that I did everything perfectly.
I didn’t.
The important part is that I kept going.
I made another good decision.
Then another.
Sometimes I stumbled again.
Then I got back up again.
Over enough time, those decisions changed the direction of that line.
But more importantly…
They changed me.
I’ve learned something else along the way.
You Have to Have Faith
Mine is in God.
There were rough days during this journey when my own strength didn’t feel like enough.
I prayed for help.
And I received the will to keep going.
That didn’t mean every temptation suddenly disappeared or that everything became easy.
Sometimes it was simply enough strength to take the next step.
And then another.
God has been incredibly patient with me.
I’ve learned that He isn’t demanding perfection from us before He will accept us.
Thank God for that, because none of us could meet that standard.
The Gospel isn’t about finally getting ourselves cleaned up enough to earn our way to God.
We confess our sins. We turn to Him. We give our lives to Jesus Christ.
And that isn’t the end of the journey.
It’s the beginning of a great adventure.
I spent years thinking change would happen when I finally became disciplined enough, motivated enough, or strong enough.
Now I understand it differently.
I have a responsibility to make good choices.
I have to exercise discipline.
I have to get back up when I fall.
But I don’t have to walk alone.
I’ve learned a tremendous amount about food during this journey too.
One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t understand when I was younger what I understand today about sugar, refined carbohydrates, and how deeply they have become embedded in the foods we consider normal.
If I had known then what I know now, I believe I could have made better choices.
I can’t change that.
I can’t go back and make different decisions at 20, 30, or 40.
But I can make a better decision today.
My approach today is remarkably simple.
I keep carbohydrates very low.
I have three shake days each week.
I weigh myself every morning.
I watch the trend.
And when I have a bad day, I try very hard not to turn it into a bad week.
I’m taking what I’ve learned through this journey and putting it into a simple Better Today plan for people who want to try the approach that has worked for me.
I’ll tell you more about that soon.
No miracle promises.
No pretending my results guarantee yours.
Just what I’ve actually done, what I’ve learned, what I wish I had known sooner, and the system I use today.
But here’s the part I don’t want you to miss.
The scale is only measuring pounds.
It can’t measure the fear I’ve lost.
It can’t measure the insecurity I’ve lost.
It can’t measure the freedom I’ve gained.
It can’t measure being able to walk into a restaurant with my family without first wondering whether I’ll fit in the seat.
It can’t measure walking out to meet someone without worrying that I’ll arrive exhausted and out of breath.
And it certainly can’t measure what God has done in me along the way.
I’m still a work in progress.
I still have bad days.
I still make mistakes.
I still need His help.
And maybe that’s part of the point.
God isn’t waiting at the finish line for some perfect version of me to finally arrive.
He’s been with me through the whole journey.
So yes, I still want to lose weight.
But I want to lose more than that.
I want to lose the fear.
The insecurity.
The excuses.
The things that keep me from being the man God is calling me to be.
And I want to gain something much greater in their place.
Faith. Freedom. Discipline. Gratitude. Purpose.
Tomorrow, Lord willing, I’ll wake up with another opportunity.
Not to be perfect.
Not to prove what I can do.
But to surrender a little more, trust Him a little more, and see what God can do with me when I let Him.