The Incredible Shrinking Man | Jesse Shand Lost 350 Pounds

our next speaker is a very special guest, in fact, one of our own community members who started his transformation on our own forums and started that transformation weighing almost 700

pounds

and to date has

lost

over 350 thanks to the help of members of our own forum, our content and the work you do on the site and here to talk about that experience, please give a warm welcome to Jesse Shand in May 2013. He weighed almost 700

pounds

. He hadn't left my house in years. I hadn't seen my friends. and years I couldn't even get into my own shower and I hadn't showered for over a year.

I had long since given up on my life. What's happening? Everyone breathes wet. Here I have my son. Today I'm going to start cutting. phase after a wildly successful 25 year bulking phase, I was always a heavier kid, I was still active playing basketball and that kind of stuff, but I started to get more reclusive and started spending time online playing video games on line and that kind of stuff. I started going out less and doing even less activity and that's when my weight really started to increase and I found excuses to tell my friends that I wouldn't do the activities they wanted me to do.

They eventually stopped calling me and stopped trying. because they knew it wasn't going to come out, you know, die, it basically ceased to exist. I think it was 700 pounds or very close to it. I never thought it would be possible to get that weight, as far as I knew. There wasn't a personal scale you could buy in a store near me that would weigh someone my size and when I started weighing myself I had to use two scales, put half my body weight on each scale and then do the math. . To get an accurate weight, the more I weighed, the less I cared to even look at myself.

I avoided the mirror. I never took photos, so I crept closer. I mean, I knew I always weighed in, but I didn't. I really realized the extent of this until I started losing the ability to do the things I did before I started not being able to fasten my seat belt so I was driving a car without a seat belt for a long time and you know this It's dangerous and I was always afraid of being pulled over or having my seat belt and shoulder strap restrained without plugging it in. One day I got up to take a shower and realized I couldn't even fit in it with a shower curtain. stay at home and that was a big shock for me.

I had so much, you know, self-loathing at this point that it was getting worse to the point where it was easy for me, you know, to keep doing these things because in my mind I had already made a mistake. so much so that you know one more mistake wasn't going to put me in much worse condition and it was just a vicious cycle that continued until I got to this huge weight so I knew my health was fine. terrible and I hoped I wouldn't live long and I really gave up shortly after. I wish I could say that the reason I came to bodybuilding.com is because I was ready to make a change, but that's not the case at all, the only thing that attracted me to bodybuilding was that it had a reputation for having a deep culture. on the internet, so I was completely avoiding all fitness forums, a moderator quickly found me and gave me this ultimatum that ended.

To save my life, he told me that I had to delete the avatar and not have an avatar or post my real self, you know, being the typical troll and negative person that I was. I thought okay, well you want to see the real me. I'll give you all the real me you can handle and that's how the threat began. The threat that I started was called. Ask the fattest man in the section. I miss anything. I miss being the miscellaneous subboard and I was posting all these photos, these real, you know, brave photos. of myself full body, you know, I thought I was going to get a lot of nasty image macros and stuff, and although I did get some of that, that's where people started trying to help me and they really believed that I could undo some of the damage that I did and that was something I didn't expect, it wasn't like I hadn't tried to lose weight and in my mind right now I couldn't even lose weight when I was only 25 or 50. pounds overweight, there was no way I would have the willpower to drive to lose weight when I was hundreds of pounds overweight.

I had this image in my mind that it would just take me hours and hours every day of dedication to, you know, working out. You throw up so I mean I wasn't willing to do any of that so I had all these excuses but you know the forum members are very persistent in trying to convince me that this can be done and they give me these unique steps to my. situation and somehow took the thread and turned it towards me. Hey, I just wanted to say that I've gotten some really good advice here and I'm going to try to keep in touch with you guys and keep my head up and stay in touch.

Updated with my progress on what I'm doing and I hope you guys can give me some tips, some of them are doing it wrong and know how to stay motivated. I really appreciate the help and this thread has been most helpful. I didn't even mean to say. for it to be a life-changing thread, it was just an interesting topic, but I'm glad I posted it. You know, that night I was supposed to have chicken quesadillas and some rice with broccoli and cheese, that's what I had already planned and instead a member told me that I should cut it down to seven quesadillas with cheese and you know, although It's only a couple hundred calories, that was a start for dinner today, it's going to be chicken and wild rice quesadillas, on a normal day I keep a lot of ten.

Eleven of those guys today I'm going to try it and maybe six or seven when a member told me I could just drop it seems so silly to me it seemed like it would be the perfect exercise for me so I just turned on my webcam and immediately started , you know, just dropping my upper body. I was very surprised by how tired I became of something so simple, so from then on it was very easy for me to be an open book about every point of the process. What's wrong with everyone? Press here. I'm using this video to list five short and medium term goals.

One of them is to reduce food intake by 25% to increase water consumption by 200%. I've already started three. Talk to a social worker about getting medical help. number four increase activity by 100 percent, that should be easy for me because right now my activity has been spent at 0% increase hygiene by 100 percent because I had this threat of people encouraging me, naturally I took to record all these activities when I would do them a training I would record it when I ate something I would record it sergeant, I brush here reporting it and although I can't talk about my condoms, it was done today I woke up at 700 hours, then Chow came The time I had that making peanut butter sandwiches and a Greek yogurt, it's a sign, so I got to where, if I wasn't making these posts, all these people who supported me would know that I hadn't done it that day, the day of the boom. very nice so date 5 is day 6 today and you know what that means random dance day doing my condition all I was doing was my base.

I started out doing just bodyweight squats, you know something you didn't need, nothing for a member was kind enough to send something. Exercise band just so you know, I used everything I could do to take my body temperature, anything I could do to start breathing fast, oh the sound, I'm just going to press my arms a little bit, sit up, elevate, That's a lot more physical activity than I've ever done. After a while, the more physical activity I tried to incorporate into my life, the more I realized how much I got carried away. You know, my legs and feet would be very tired after walking and my feet would be enormously swollen.

They would almost look like. balloons when I first started, so it was really evident how bad my health was at the time. One video I made really sticks in my mind that is the day I did 50 laps now to explain what it says that a lap is just walking. to the kitchen and the living room, that was one turn away, so you know it's only five or six steps from there and you know that walking 50 T is now. I look back at it and it looks so dumb, there's absolutely no break, 100% no breaks, I was sitting down.

I am very excited to have been able to do this and it doesn't seem significant, but that was strengthening my legs a lot and suddenly I saw these benefits coming and from there it multiplied. I always liked the dumbest suggestion, so you know, and someone told me. I was supposed to be playing Wii tennis, so a video I had was playing a game of Wii tennis and I recorded it, so I was, you know, finding new ways to do things. I was, you know, dancing, I got up more often, these little steps were kind. from combining to do four workouts a day to where I was actually moving and burning calories quite frequently.

I always had this image in my head. You know, you see these reality shows on TV where people exercise until they vomit. You know people pass by. stop working out and that was always the image I had in my head and it ended up not being the case at all and it would end up just being great results with just consistent effort. I'm about to lose a pound, maybe lose a hundred. I'm about to drop it, we're on the right track. I took this boy to the garden and filled him with water from the hose and it was very cold but I didn't care because for the first time in years I had a bath now you can imagine me not having had a shower in years I wasn't going to get rid of this but it didn't matter because what it gave me was a huge boost in morale and it gave me something that I hadn't had in The years it gave me hope, okay I just woke up and it's time for what I still 5:51 so there you go and I'm not too surprised because last night I cheated and weighed myself because the anticipation was killing me.

I started publishing. the big events, you know, every time I had a milestone, I remember suddenly being able to shave my face, again being able to drive a car and that was huge for me, so of course I commemorated that event with a video, then the whip sounds in the ear. a vibration went through the window the first time I was able to go see my doctor very well, so what happened on the first day ended up being a thread that, you know, I received a lot of support and encouragement. I started dieting. Well, now I exercise. seven days a week something like that and everything is going well about twenty-one quid and I feel like the least I can do for all the support I've received is share these events and you know, make it a community event because for me it is. a community achievement, it's not just my shower moment of achievements, yes, that person, it was an

incredible

way to be guys.

I'm going to show you how to make a really simple smoothie, but this is really good. I'll move on and regards. One of the biggest things the community did to help me was they came together and got me a gym membership that I never would have been able to afford before, when I started I really couldn't fit on a lot of the machines. I didn't have the balance to do a lot of free weights, so I had to start swimming, which is something you know was good for the joints and it's very easy for someone my size to have done at that time.

It's hard for me to do that first, but I just tried to, you know, keep my focus on fitness, but now not only do I get encouragement from people on the forum that I don't see, but there are also people at the gym that come constantly. me and congratulating me, Dave, a lot of people have seen me since I started, they don't even know my story, they don't even know how much weight I've

lost

and they come up to me and just say you. I know the difference you're seeing since I've been in the gym Hi everyone, why press here?

It is a year three hundred and fifty-six days of transformation and it is amazing to me that a year has passed so quickly. So many things have changed in my life that, you know, aren't even necessarily related to physical exercise, suddenly now I worry about my hygiene and I realize that I really worry about what I wear and I find myself wanting to, you know, make sure I do it. At least I have some rooms when I leave the house, even due to eating habits. I find myself trying things I never would have tried and now you know I find myself enjoying fresh produce and things I would never have gravitated toward before.

I find myself wanting to get more into sports and physical activity and do fun things outside the home and you know, suddenly I'm going out with my friends again, things I never would have imagined doing. You know, I feel very different now than I did. so that's very easy for me almost detachment, I don't feel like the same person at all, okay, let's live with a weigh-in, here we go 2.2 oh man, that's such a nice loss, I'm so happy made three hundred on weights a hundreds now man it's so hard to believe it's only Banyan not even a year and a half thank you all so much and this is a good day I don't want to feel like my travels are over And I always want to have something to strive for and you know sometimesI go back and I like to watch those first videos to remember where I came from and where I was.

He had no future to look forward to. I didn't expect to feel much better and I feel like I now have unlimited possibilities. I can't imagine, now you know, a couple of years later, that I would still be here in front of you if it weren't for bodybuilding. com, so when I say it saved my life, it's not just words, it literally saved my life. I want to thank everyone who has supported me because it has had such a monumental impact on my life. I definitely still have some things that I'm struggling with. I still have a tendency to want to binge when you know, eat something that I know I shouldn't eat, I still have a natural desire to keep doing it because I feel like I've already screwed up, so okay.

I could do it and that's something I really have to be aware of and not allow myself to do. and that's another place where the community really came through bodybuilding.com is still my main source of motivation. I keep posting my victories every time I achieve them. You know, I still post my milestones there. You know, I thought Lottie is fit people. I thought they would be completely disgusted with me. I didn't think they would have any interest in talking to someone like me once they found out she was the fattest man on the thread and the way they have been. helpful in the way they actually approached is something that was completely new to me.

What I quickly discovered is that people who do bodybuilding are fit and actually respect people who have a lot of weight to lose and are trying to gain. I made an effort when I heard that it was on the news again. I had no idea what it was going to be, whether it was hacking Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook profile, you know, or some crazy thing that someone posted or something funny about debating how many days there are in a week, you know, I was very excited to see that It was something super positive like this, not just fun, the miscellany is amazing, it's something I'm super proud to have started and seen flourish over the last 16 years, but now I see something even more positive.

I like this and getting the recognition I feel our members deserve for what they do every day was a huge and

incredible

milestone for our company. When you hear about bodybuilders and people in a gym, sometimes you get the idea in your head with someone that Do you know that super vain people worry about themselves and you don't want to go talk to them because they will just make fun of you if you are not around. their level, but what I found in our industry, especially on our site, is that people want to help I want to personally thank Wiggy Wonka helga bill Dubrow my team at in it for fitness I also want to thank all the other people who were part of the Jesse's journey, each of you had a great impact on Jesse's life and on other people who are now following this story, one of my most popular videos was one where my mom, you know, is thinking about the community of bodybuilding, she has always encouraged me, she never gave up on me even for a moment.

I just can't believe the outpouring of support for my son. I'm choked up by this because you guys just don't know what you've done for my son and me, you know you're actually saving my son's life, so one of my biggest goals right now is to get to a point where Not only do the world of my life not depend on her and you know I'm not burdening her, but I also want to be able to support her and give back some of the support she gave me, the biggest advice I can give you. It is and not to make it too complicated, it really is as simple as consistency and you really have to start small.

I feel like my future is open to any possibility and at some point I would like to work with people who have a lot of weight to lose because I feel like I'm in a unique position where I can help people and understand some of the things they're going through. are going through and some of the mental obstacles they have to overcome to achieve it. and you know, I hope I can make an impact on people's lives in a similar way to what was made in mine. There is someone at home right now watching this video and you are thinking that maybe it is now possible for you on your trip.

Whether it's losing 400 pounds or more or just getting a little better in shape for whatever your goal is, Jesse shows you that it's really possible that it's Jesse's amazing determination and willpower when most people would have given up for he. He could do that, but the help he received was an inspiration to all of us here at Body McComb. I was completely out of line and you know I decided to make a troll thread at a formal bodybuilding event and you know, I started from the Fattest Maui here so my message to you is that what you are doing is not only making a difference but which also saves lives and I know that there are millions of people who are helping, but I am very happy to be here as an example. from someone whose life you gave back and humans have so much potential and so many limitless possibilities and mine is gone but you gave it back to me and now I feel like my future can hold anything so I just want to thank each and everyone. of you for what you have done and I want you to know that you are making a big difference and thank you for letting me speak and thank you for listening to me tonight.