Who I am and why I am blogging

For starters, my full name is Deryl Garrard Duer Williams and I am 40 years young. I live in Memphis, TN with my beautiful wife Tracy and our three boys. So what? Big deal you say. The big deal began in the Fall of 2006 when I had a wake-up call. At that point in my life, I weighed over 270 lbs. and was diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and pre-diabetes - all by choice. I say by choice, because as Zig Ziglar says, “I have never in my life accidentally eaten anything.” I chose what I ate, when I ate, and how much I ate. I chose not to exercise. I chose to be unhealthy. At the time I was in seminary and growing spiritually and intellectually but my body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, was a wreck. I could no longer afford to be apathetic when it came to my health! In the past my motivation to lose weight had been that I wanted to look good, but looking good isn’t good enough. I was now faced with the simple fact that I was killing myself through my eating habits and inactive lifestyle. God gives us one body and one life to live and I was abusing His gifts. I made the decision that I was going do something about my health. I wasn’t going to “try,” I wasn’t going to “see if it worked for me” I decided I was going to DO IT! The Bible tells me that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” I was just dumb enough to believe it. The transformation I went through is nothing short of amazing! At forty years of age I am in the absolute best shape of my life! I am leaner and stronger than I have ever been. My blood-pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol are all in not just healthy ranges, but are considered excellent. I am happier, I have more energy, better health, more confidence, and better relationships. All because I made the decision to take care of this body that God has given me. To take care of His temple. I believe that God gives us the trials and blessings of life so that we can in turn minister to others. So that’s why I am blogging, in the hopes that my story will inspire others that they too can change their life.

So how did I do it? Well, first I started eating better. My dad recommended the South Beach Diet, so I bought the book and started there. But my doctor had advised me that I needed to eat better AND exercise. Here I ran into a problem. I was a seminary student and only working part-time, we didn’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t afford a gym. That meant I had to find a way to work out at home, something that had never worked for me in the past. I had some old Tae Bo videos but they were VHS and our VHS player was dead. The only workout we had on DVD was Slim-in-6. My wife had ordered it off of a TV infomercial two years earlier after our first son was born. I have to confess that I didn’t exactly support her in that decision. I think I said something along the lines of “You can’t get in really good shape from a DVD,” and “That’s a girlie workout.” Tracy started seeing results pretty quickly but went back to work a couple of weeks later and between the busyness of life and my lack of support, Slim-in-6 soon found itself collecting dust on the shelf. So here I am, two years later, dusting off these DVD’s I had made fun of. I put them in, pushed play, and had my tail handed to me for the next 30 minutes. Determined not to let this girlie workout get the best of me I started pushing play every day. Then I dug out the Nutrition plan and lo and behold it was pretty much how I was already eating on South Beach. I ordered some of the Beachbody Supplements, kept working out, and kept eating right. When I went back to see my doctor 6 weeks later I was down to 235 pounds, dropped 6 inches off of my waist and my blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar were all in normal ranges. I think the Doc’s jaw hit the floor. Apparently most people don’t act on their doctor’s advice. Go figure. Through a combination of proper nutrition and exercise I was able to avoid medication. I had made great progress, but I knew I couldn’t go back to my old habits. This was a new way of life for me. I continued doing Slim-in-6 and went to the Beachbody website where I found P90X. I ordered it and committed to starting the program on January 1, 2007. I was in the process of applying for full-time position with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and that would give me exactly 90 days before the Academy started. On Dec. 31, the day before I started P90X, I was down to 208 pounds. An amazing transformation already, but I was not prepared for what was going to happen next. Check back later for Part 2 of my story...