Chuck Turocy remembers September 19, 2016, very clearly. As the Pittsburgh resident waited in the emergency room to see a doctor, he was barely able to stand upright because of shooting pains in his abdomen. Once he was taken back for his examination, the nurse had him step on the scale. Suddenly, even despite his agony, he felt like jumping off.
Then 49 years old, he thought he weighed somewhere around 300 pounds, but was shocked to see the number 360 appear below him.
“Of course I knew I had terrible habits, like being sedentary and eating mostly junk food, and I’d been steadily gaining weight since high school,” he says. “But to see that number was beyond disheartening. It felt like an eye-opening moment.”
一个晚上和朋友一起闲逛，享用典型的炸鸡和苏打菜，他去了急诊室。那天晚上晚些时候，突然而非常严重的疼痛激发了他的医院访问。他被诊断出患有胰腺炎，这种疾病是由炎症引起的，导致消化酶开始攻击胰腺。对于Turocy来说，它是由胆结石的形成开始的 - 可能是由于他大量的炸食物和不健康的脂肪而开发的。
For three days, he waited in a hospital bed for his pancreas enzyme numbers to come down and spent the time building his resolve to make significant changes in his life.
Post-hospital, treatment for the issue consisted mainly of sticking to a bland diet. Bananas, unsweetened applesauce and broth were staples, and he had to give up soda completely. Turocy was diligent, mostly because he didn’t want the intense pain to return, but also because seeing his weight made him connect some dots when it came to his physical and emotional health.
“For years, I just hadn’t been feeling well in general,” he says. “It made me think about my dad, who’d had bypass surgery 20 years ago. Back then, he told me he didn’t realize how bad he’d really been feeling until he started feeling better. It was only when I got on this track that I began to understand what he meant.”
Before that ER visit, Turocy admits that healthy people annoyed him, and he’d roll his eyes at photos of salads or 5Ks posted to social media. One of his co-workers ran marathons, and he remembers being irritated by the colleague’s enthusiasm and energy about exercise and healthy living. But he gets it now.
“When you feel good, it’s hard not to share it,” he says. “You don’t want to keep it to yourself, because you want other people to feel good, too. You break an unhealthy cycle, and the more you do that, the more you want to celebrate.”
最终，Turocy从平淡的饮食过渡到涉及沙拉，蔬菜，瘦蛋白和健康脂肪的饮食。他还加强了自己的活动，从步行开始，然后购买一套自由重量的套装，替补席，哑铃和一个沉重的拳击袋。
到他的医院住院两周年纪念日，他已经降至255，但已经达到了高原。在一个朋友建议MyFitnessPal（无数次）之后，Tolocy终于屈服了并下载了该应用程序。
Although he wasn’t diligent about logging food every day, he appreciated the ability to track his activity and see his daily macro results. That helped him stay away from junky carbs like cookies, cakes and white bread. Checking the app was a reminder to stay on track with protein and fiber, and it helped him do even more with exercise than he’d been doing.
Today, the 6-foot-tall Turocy hasn’t reached his goal weight of 200 pounds yet, but he’s lost 120 and is confident he’ll get to the number he wants, thanks to the consistency and focus that have brought him this far. Most of all, he’s sure he’ll never give up the feeling of being healthy.
“When I was a teenager, I remember feeling great and just having that physical and emotional health in place,” he says. “Now, I feel like I’m finally getting that back again.”
