About Tarb
The Beginning
Hi, I’m Brian Tarbell (Tarb). I’ve been fat my whole life, but all of that changed in January of 2006. I started counting calories and working out in an attempt to lose half my weight in 50 weeks. When I first stepped on a scale, I found that I weighed 364.4 pounds! That was over 30 pounds more than I thought I weighed. So, I set my first goal at being under 300 pounds within 16 weeks. By the end of those 16 weeks, I had exceeded my goal – weighing in at 293 pounds.
9 Months Later...My First Triathlon
In October of 2006, I completed the Emerald Pointe Triathlon. It was a sprint triathlon with a 400 yard swim, 13 mile bike and 5 kilometer run. I knew I could handle the swim and the bike portion, but was unsure of the run. In the end, I was able to complete all events in just over 2 hours. My goal was to weigh less than 225 pounds by the time of the triathlon. I exceeded that goal and was 212 pounds.
50 Weeks Later
By the end of the year, I had dropped from 364 to 180 pounds. I was in the gym for 2-3 hours a day and being very careful about what I ate. In fact, a lot of my cravings had disappeared. Over the next few weeks, I would continue to lose weight and bottomed-out at 172 pounds. I had very few rough patches along the way. I credit the right way of thinking to keeping me focused on this long journey.
I Lost My Battle With Carbs
As a carboholic, I deal with my cravings for sugar and carbs every day. At the end of my diet, I was working out 2-3 hours every day – even the weekends. As a result, I was eating over 3500 calories a day and not worrying about what I was eating. Then in April of 2007, I injured my knee and stopped working out for a few weeks. After my knee recovered, I tried to get back on track with my workouts, but I had quickly lost interest in exercise and had already packed on over 20 pounds. That was also the end of daily weigh-ins. Before I knew it, I was back to over 330 pounds.
