Brandon Wilson is an Endurance Athlete, founder of the Kinston Triathletes Triathlon team and Race Director, Graveyard 100 Ultramaraton.
Brandon’s Story
The purpose of this page was to document the history of my weight loss for nomination as a PPD Beach to Battleship hero award recipient in 2010 for losing more than 100 pounds. Since that time the page has been periodically updated with photo’s from new events.
As a young teenager I was skinny as a rail. 5 foot 8 inch’s tall weighed in at 118 pounds for football in 9th grade. Late in my teen years due to a combination of life events and eating habits I gained weight rapidly weighing 185 pounds when entering the Marine Corps as a “Fat Body” recruit in 1993. I graduated from the 13 week boot camp in October 1993 at 165 pounds running 3 miles in 19 minutes. While still in great shape when leaving active duty in 1997 I’d worked up to 183 pounds.
After leaving active duty I rapidly gained weight, stopped all exercise and worked a desk job. After years of “yo yo dieting” things changed permanently in 2008 while riding in the car with my 8 year old Daughter Rebekah who asked, “Daddy what’s a heart attack”.
I fumbled for words trying to think of what I could say an 8 year old would understand and replied something like, “Well when you don’t take care of yourself by eating good and exercising like you should bad things happen and your heart stops working and you die”.
After a pause that seemed like an eternity the thought occurred I had just described myself to my daughter. At about that time I realized it had occurred to her as well when she asked, “Does that mean you’re gonna die from a heart attack Daddy”? Her honest question was devastating. It hurt me dearly I was not able to play with them, was indeed a high risk for many serious health problems, could have done something about it long ago but had not.
At this point in life I was being treated or was supposed to be taking medicine for multiple problems my Doctor said were all obesity related. Many issues I’d had, shortness of breath etc. had no diagnosis except “you’re overweight”. I’d managed to ignore this problem even when I needed 46 inch pants for work which I’d refused to buy so I was squeezing into 44’s that made me hurt by the end of each day.
On July 21st 2008 shortly after returning from a vacation I’d prepared my response to her question, No I do not intend to. I began my own program to lose 100 pounds in 1 year. Swimming at least 1 hour per day, 6 days a week (and often times 1 hour before work & 1 hour at lunch multiple days a week) and significant dieting using a combination of low carb diets and caloric restriction. While this approach worked & I had high confidence it would from my past experiences yo yo dieting I do not recommend the low carb diet approach (that’s a conversation for another article).
By November 2008 (just over 3 months in) I’d lost 60 pounds and began to wonder how I would keep it off this time. Other than swimming I was doing no other exercise. I stumbled across a brochure about a sprint triathlon close to home and had found a solution. Being a goal oriented person I could train to race and that would require me to keep me weight down. As I approached my wife with this idea she laughed quite hard. When done she said, “All you’re doing is swimming, you haven’t run much since leaving the Marines, you don’t own a bike and you know nothing about triathlon, you don’t even know anyone who can tell you about the sport”. That was all I needed to hear, I would do it for sure if for no other reason than to prove her wrong.
I found out about the Beach2Battleship Triathlon in Wilmington just over an hours drive from my house because it had a lot of press with the first one was taking place in Nov. 2008. I told my wife I would do the half in 2009. I began running on Dec. 26 2008, signed up for 3 triathlons in January 2009, bought my bike in Feb 2009, and training for my first triathlon in April the Wilmington Athletic Club Sprint.
I was completely hooked. By the end of 2009 I had finished (1) 5k run, (1) 10 mile run, (2) sprint triathlons, (2) olympic triathlons, (1) half-marathon and ending my year my completing the City of Oaks Marathon (full 26.2) on Sunday Nov. 1st and the Beach2Battleship Half Iron on Saturday Nov. 7th both in the same week.
I was completely hooked on the endurance lifestyle. It has been an integral part of a total lifestyle change in my approach to eating, exercise, stress management etc. This lifestyle change has resulted in completely normal blood work and total bill of health from my Doctor during routine physicals, 100% due to lifestyle change, not 1 single pill, ever.
I’m proud to say all of our children are active swimming on the year round swim team, competing in 5k’s, Triathlons, Cycling, wrestling etc. Being able to Enjoy these activities with them has brought me great joy.
Today my focus is on Ultra Endurance Sports. The Ultra Endurance events meet my sickness for training and racing head on. They say Ultra athletes are a strange breed and I certainly fit that bill.
Thanks for reading my story, please enjoy the photo’s from my journey below. Feel free to contact me any time if I can help you in any way, or you want to share your story. E-Mail Brandon
By the way, the goal, lose 100 pounds in 1 year didn’t happen. On July 21st 2009 I weighed 192 pounds, my beginning weight was 291. I’d lost 99 pounds. My downward trend began again in early September of 2009 after several months of plateau in the Mid to low 190s’. I would eventually end up maintaining weight in the low 170’s.
When word came from PPD I was selected as a Hero Award recipient I was told I could bring one person to the ceremony as there was limited seating. I wanted to take my whole family but we all agreed it should be Rebekah.
She said, “Daddy, I’m proud of you”
