My Journey To Fat and Back

Firefighter health and fitness is often talked about and is something we have absolute control of.  We have all heard the numerous ways that being healthy and having a high fitness level are beneficial to firefighters.  The leading cause of firefighter LODD’s is heart attacks and an even higher number of firefighters die from, or suffer, cardiac related events while off duty.  Despite the fact this information is widely disseminated throughout the fire service, there are still many unhealthy firefighters.  I’m not here to lecture anyone about being healthy, nor am I a nutritionist or physical trainer.  However, I am here to tell my story and share some things that worked for me.  If this information helps or motivates one firefighter, the time put in to this post was well worth it.

Growing up I was very active in sports and was always very skinny.  We ate well- balanced meals in my house but I have always enjoyed eating foods that were not very healthy.  However, I never saw any negative effects from this due to my activity level.  Fast forward to my first few years in the fire service.  I was a live-in at my volunteer firehouse and ate a ton of fast food due to the inconsistent opportunities to sit down and eat a healthy meal.  I was still young, and active, enough that I still did not see any negative effects from my unhealthy diet.  When I became a career firefighter at 19, I was 6’3” tall and weighed 175 lbs. While in recruit school, I exercised five days a week and was in good shape despite my diet.  When I got assigned to my firehouse I maintained the PT regiment for approximately two months.  I was still a live-in and my life literally consisted of going back and forth between work and my volunteer firehouse.  This lifestyle was not very conducive to healthy eating or living.  After I dropped the PT regiment, things began to rapidly change for me.

I began to quickly gain weight and, at the conclusion of my probationary year, I weighed approximately 190 lbs.  When I turned 21, I really started to pack on the pounds as I continued with the unhealthy diet and began to regularly consume alcohol.  People began to notice my weight gain and would drop subtle comments my way.  However, it didn’t seem to be an issue to me as I had always felt I was too skinny before.  I did not see any negative effects in my job performance with the increased weight gain and was not concerned about the other ill effects associated with an unhealthy lifestyle.  After all, I was a young guy and didn’t need to worry about that stuff.  Right? 

February 2009

At 22, I began to work for my current department and weighed approximately 215 lbs.  During the first year of employment, I exercised while on duty and my weight held steady at 215 lbs.  My diet was still horrible and I was still living the lifestyle where I travelled from work to my volunteer firehouse.  Thankfully, running calls provided some level of activity and probably prevented me from being even more unhealthy.  I’m embarrassed to admit this, but at age 25 I reached an all time low.  I weighed 244 lbs.!  This was the first time I realized that my weight, and overall health, might be cause for concern.  I quickly dropped 15 lbs. with some slight dietary changes and occasional PT.  For the next few years, my weight ping ponged between 230-235 lbs.  Comments about my weight became more frequent and I became more self-conscious about the issue.  I dreaded my annual fire department physical examination as I was sure that I was going to get gigged for being a “fat body”.  All the while, I never felt like my operational performance was affected by my weight or health.  I never had an instance where I was unable to do something on the fireground.  However, I did not feel healthy and noticed that it didn’t take much effort for me to become out of breath.  Despite this, I would not commit to a healthy lifestyle change and was in denial about the path I was going down.

In 2011, I really started to become self-conscious about my weight and I started paying more attention to the heart attack LODD notifications.  I was 27 years old and noticed that some of these firefighters were not too much older than I was.  This was scary as I have two young kids and surely want to see them grow up.  In October, one of my closest firefighter friends suffered a cardiac-related medical event.  Literally, I was riding fire trucks with this guy an hour before his event and by the next morning, we were unsure if he’d ever be riding the rigs again.  He was 26 years old at the time.  After many tests, his event was tied to a congenital defect which was, thankfully, surgically repaired and he is back on the job.  This was an eye opener for me and I knew I needed to make a change.  However, I had still not committed to a healthy lifestyle.

During the early morning hours of December 31, 2011, I ran a house fire at work and my company was assigned RIT.  There were significant fire conditions in a large house and companies were successfully making headway on the fire.  As a procative RIT task, we assisted with deploying portable ladders to the house.  In doing so, I grabbed a 35’ portable ladder and deployed it in the rear by myself.  However, I very quickly realized how unhealthy I was.  I was sucking wind and was definitely feeling the effects of being a “fat body”.  I felt like I was operating less efficient and less effective than I should be, and it was due to my health.  I continued on with operations and operated for the duration of the fire with no issues other than feeling very unhealthy.  This was the single event that triggered my lifestyle change.

January 1, 2012 I committed to living a healthy lifestyle.  I committed to this lifestyle for my family, my fellow firefighters, and for myself.  Failure was not an option and I would not allow my focus to drift from my goal of a healthy lifestyle.  I consulted with Kurt, one of the PFT’s (peer fitness trainer), on my shift at work.  With his assistance, I was able to indentify the areas of my life where I needed to start making changes.  The two main areas were, now this is going to shock you(not!), diet and exercise. 

Together we examined my diet to determine what changes needed to be made.  It didn’t take long for us to realize some serious changes were needed!  With that said, the dietary changes couldn’t be too extreme as they needed to be realistic to ensure I would stick to them.  The first two weeks were a little rough but soon after, the changes became part of my normal routine.  I utilized an application on my iPhone to serve as a food diary and track my calories.  Some of the changes I made were minimizing the amount of fried food I ate, eliminating fast food, making sure I didn’t drink my calories, increasing the amount of vegetables I ate, limiting starches, eating breakfast everyday, bringing my lunch to work, and minimizing the amount of sweets I ate.  I also bought a book entitled “Eat This, Not That”, which provided healthy alternatives to foods I usually ate.  I believe the main reason I was able to successfully stick to my dietary changes is because I kept it realistic and not extreme.  I never felt hungry and I would occasionally treat myself to ensure I kept my sanity.

I began to exercise on the stair machine as this kept me motivated since I was able to equate stairs to high-rise operations.  The stairs were also low impact and did not cause pain to my joints, so I was able to exercise 5-6 times a week.  After two months of stairs, I was able to climb 220 floors in 30 minutes and decided it was time for a new challenge.  I started running which was physically tough in the beginning.  However, once I started running, I started to rapidly shed the weight.  My endurance was also quickly increasing.  In addition to running, I began to incorporate circuit training that focused on core exercises.  At FDIC 2012, I ran the 5K and participated in the NFFF stair climb.  Upon returning from FDIC, I started running even further and dropped below the 200 lbs. mark for the first time in almost seven years.  Doing the job has become easier, is less physically taxing, and I am much faster than I had been.  I currently run 25-30 miles a week and do circuit training 3 times a week.  If I don’t workout, I feel guilty as it has become a part of my normal daily routine.  I hope to run a half-marathon by year’s end and a marathon in 2013.

July 2012

Almost 9 months after starting my lifestyle change, I weigh 180 lbs.  This is a 55 pound drop from January 1.  I feel healthier and happier.  I was eager to go to my annual fire department physical examination and not surprisingly, the results were much better than they had ever been.  Instead of receiving comments about how much I weigh, I consistently have people asking me how I lost the weight and became healthier.  I was able to get to this point because I remain focused on my motivating factors and through the support of my family, my peers, my shift, and my PFT.

As I stated in the opening paragraph, I’m not here to lecture anyone about health.  Identify your motivators, whatever they may be, and use them to make yourself healthier.  When you truly commit to a lifestyle change, you can achieve anything you want.  Once you do commit, stick with it!  It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it.  The benefits of maintaining health and fitness in our job are too numerous to list.  Enlist the services of PFT’s if your department has them.  If not, determine if it’s feasible to implement a PFT program for your department.  It’s also easy to commit to the changes when your fellow firefighters are on board and support your efforts.  Healthier meals will be cooked at the firehouse and the desire to PT can be infectious.  Healthy firefighters can generally work faster, work longer, and work at a higher tempo than unhealthy firefighter.  The more healthy firefighters we have on the fireground, the better chance we have of maintaining our efficiency and effectiveness on the fireground.