Meet Leslie Tipton And Follow Her On Her Journey To Fitness

The Challenge To "Win"
March 23, 2010
I've done it all.....Adkins, WW, Low/no carb, cabbage....you name it, I've done it. Ever since high school, I've used food as a comfort. Even before those mid to late teen years, I used food to calm my aching soul. Had a hard day in Junior High? Find the ding dongs and eat three or four. Made fun of in gym? A full bag of chips will calm that hurting phyche. Sister been on my nerves? A couple of cokes and some chips ahoy will handle the worst of bad moods.

The thing was, while I was in my teens, I could eat ANYTHING and it would burn off, due to my high energy life (lots of playing outside and basketball). But once the late twenties and thirties set in, the metabolism took some time off (like for the rest of my life), and said "That's it.....you eat it, it's staying on this body!"

Even after ten plus years in the Marine Corps, I didn't get it. After I left the USMC in 1997, I gained the most weight ever (I thought) and got up to 238. I remember those pics...."I look fat in those pics." Ya, that's because I was treacherously overweight.

My friend and fellow church member at Church of the Holy SpiritSong invited me to join this contest last year. Pete knew that I had been struggling for some time with being so out of shape and so very overweight. He wrote me a simple email with a link to the site and said something like "Would you like to do this with me?" I prayed, asked my partner for her perspective, and then said yes. On January 12, 2010, I weighed in with Stace at MaxMuscle Fort Lauderdale, FL. 242.5 pounds was my initial weigh in data. The chart said I was obese, but I didn't need a chart to tell me that. I've known it for some time.

I knew it was time to make a radical change, first in my thinking. I had to change the way I "thought about" food. Food is not a comfort, food is fuel, a necessity to live by, not to be lulled by, or to have hold your head in it's arms as you go into a carb high. Food is just food....that's all. I needed to go into Scripture, which told me that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I stood before my congregation (I'm an associate pastor at a local church) and repented before them, and told them that I had been setting a poor example. I asked for their forgiveness and apologized. It was TIME!

I don't think I will win the $25,000 in this contest. However, my reward doesn't come from the money....it comes from having been able, by the grace and mercy of God, to change my mindset about eating, food, exercise, and taking good care of this body that I only have for about 60 or so more years.

I am so thankful for Pete's invitation, for MM's vision, for Stace and his time, for a healthy body, and for a new outlook on life.

Keep on keepin' on, people....we can do this, and we can do it together. That's the beauty of this forum. Encouragement, listening ears, and like-minded folks working on taking better care of themselves.

Things I "Couldn't Do"
April 14, 2010
As I sit on the backside of three months in MM, I find myself pondering the things that have changed in my life. There have been some very significant "edits" in this life of mine. So I thought I would journal them with you, my MM family.

I'll start with the things I really couldn't do; things that were physically impossible.
1. I couldn't tie my shoes while bending over without running out of breath. My stomach was so big that I literally ran out of breath as the air was pushed out by bending over.
2. I couldn't see the fronts of my legs. My stomach size blocked my view down below.
3. I couldn't run on the treadmill for five minutes.
4. I couldn't fit in size 18 pants
5. I couldn't get through the afternoon without yawning and struggling to stay awake
6. And I couldn't or just wouldn't resist fast food.

Now I can do all of those things, and more. Last Saturday I rode my bike with my partner for four hours, with a 30 minute break for a healthy lunch. I can see my legs... I can jog, ride the bike, do the eliptical to my heart's content.

I started at size 20 or over, and this morning I put on a pair of size 16 women's dress pants! In three months!!

And here's the funny part of this story. I completed MM 2010 on Monday, so I decided to celebrate with a fast food burger. They used to be so good, so I thought I would just go for it. To be honest with you, it was terrible! As I was eating it, I had an commentary going in my head..."There's no fresh tomato, lettuce, onion on this. The meat is overcooked. The fries are virtually tasteless." And then that night I realized. I've changed my thinking about food. That burger that I used to long for wasn't good. It wasn't good for me and it didn't taste good.

Because of the strength from God, and the encouragement from Stace, MM, my loving partner, my friends, and my church family, I made it, and I'm gonna keep going.

If there is to be any encouragement in this, we've got to change our thinking. We think, we feel, we act. If we change how we think about food, it will change our feelings and then our actions.