Stanley Bronstein’s Weight Loss Journey and Life Philosophy
Written by Stanley Bronstein
I believe it’s often best to teach by example, I want to share my own personal story with you and talk about how my life has changed over the years and my personal development system, The Way of Excellence came to be.
The Way ofExcellence was not created overnight.
As I look back, it was a constantly evolving system that sprang from my search to bring my mind, body and spirit into alignment with each other.
For that reason, I’m going to share my life story and how I got to where I am today.
As Glinda, the Good Witch of the North from the Wizard of Oz said:
It’s always best to start at the beginning.
So, here we go …
The Beginning and Early Years of Stanley Bronstein’s Life
I was born in 1959 to Mary and Hyman Bronstein.
My mother was 40 years old and my father was 45 years old, at the time.
My earliest memories were sitting in my mother’s lap while she would read to me and teach me math.
From the very beginning, my mother was obviously trying to teach me as much as possible, as quickly as possible.
As a young child, I was always eager for more knowledge. You could take a toy away from me and I wouldn’t care, but if you took a book away from me, watch out …
What I didn’t know at the time was that my mother was very ill and that she was dying. She was undoubtedly aware of this and she was obviously racing the clock and trying to do as much for me as she could, as quickly as she could, while she was still alive.
But, as far as young Stanley was concerned, all was well …
Little did he know what the future held in store for him …
Stanley Bronstein’s Life Changed on September 1967 at the Age of 8
My mother was in and out of the hospital from time to time, and to be honest, I don’t recall thinking much about it at the time.
One day in the middle of September, I rode my bike to school, as I had typically done each day.
In the middle of the school day, the school office administrator came to the schoolroom door and asked to speak with me. She asked if I had ridden my bike to school and I said, yes. She then said my father had called and told her that he needed me to come home and that it was okay for me to leave and ride my bike home.
This had happened before with other kids in my class and they would always return to school a few days later and you would find out someone in their family had died.
I was a little puzzled as to what was going on. Yet, I left school and got on my bike.
I got one block away from the school and fell off my bike.
I got up and immediately realized what had happened.
My mother had died.
I got back on my bike and turned cold.
That Stone Cold Feeling of Grief
I did not cry.
There was nothing to say.
I simply got back on my bike and rode home.
When I got home, my father greeted me at the door and he was crying. Others in the house were crying as well.
My father was busy making funeral arrangements, so he put me in his bedroom, shut the door and left me by myself.
I did not cry…
I had nothing to say…
Life continued, and I was now living alone, with my father.
I was just a confused 8-year-old boy living with a 53-year-old father; both of whom were doing the best they could under unexpected circumstances.
Little did I realize that the best I could do wasn’t going to be nearly as good as I might have hoped …
Stanley Bronstein: Ages 9 to 13
School-wise, my grades didn’t suffer, so I apparently wasn’t affected academically.
However, as you can see from the picture of me with my dad, I started to put on a lot of weight. My father was getting larger as well.
Over the span of just a few years, I had gone from a relatively normal sized boy to the most obese kid in school. Obviously I was satisfying my feelings of loss with food and my father was doing the same. My father was a good cook (a former cook in the Army during WWII) and that didn’t help the situation.
The High School Years
I continued to do well in school and continued to grow larger at the same time. My social life suffered as a result. While I wouldn’t say the other kids were mean to me, I certainly wasn’t popular in the dating circles.
I don’t have exact figures, but by the time I went to college, I was probably around 225 to 250 pounds (and I’m only 5′ 7″ tall).
The College Years
This was just a continuation of high school, but I was now on my own in a much less restrictive environment.
I continued to eat poorly and to eat way too much, but I was combining that with all the partying you will typically find in a college environment.
By the time I was a junior, I was probably up to 275 – 285 pounds and I felt a little disgusted with myself and my social situation.
I decided it was time to make a change.
I went on the Atkins diet (now commonly known as the Keto Diet) and successfully got down to roughly 205 pounds.
My social standing obviously improved.
Life was good again…
Or so I thought…
There was just one problem. Although I had lost the weight through the Atkins diet, I didn’t really modify my behavior. I didn’t learn to eat properly in a manner that was sustainable.
The changes I made and the results I achieved proved to be only temporary.
When I stopped sticking to the Atkins diet, the weight started to return. Not only did it return quickly, I grew even larger than I was before I started.
This was not the first time I had temporary success with weight loss and it wouldn’t be the last …
Stanley Bronstein and the Law School Years
By the time I was 28, I was three things:
- A successful certified public accountant (CPA)
- A successful commercial real estate broker
- Massively obese
One day, while working with one of my older brothers, he suggested to me that I should to go to law school.
For some reason I decided to listen to him and in January 1987, I started attending law school night classes, at the age of 28.
As one might expect, the stress of law school didn’t help my weight problem. By the time I started my third year, I maxed out at 367 pounds.
The Final Year of Law School
As I entered my last year of law school, I wasn’t too happy with myself. My mind and spirit were okay, but my body was obviously a mess.
Once again, I decided it was time to take action. This time I joined a reputable weight loss program (Weight Watchers) and started taking the program seriously.
By the time I was ready to take the bar exam in 1991, I had lost 100 pounds and was down to approximately 265 pounds.
I graduated law school, passed the bar exam and became a lawyer.
Life was good, but I wouldn’t exactly say it was great.
Stanley Bronstein’s Post Law School Years
I began dating quite a bit around this time and this led to taking dates out to dinners at fancy restaurants and eating rich food.
As you might expect, I began putting weight back on.
However, there was one major difference this time around. As a result of behavioral training I received from Weight Watchers, I stopped eating meals in the middle of the night.
Yes, that’s correct. During law school, I would wake up at 2:00 AM and eat a full meal and then do my studying.
As a result of not eating a meal in the middle of the night, my weight only ballooned back up to 325 pounds (not my max of 367 pounds).
Over the next 8 or 9 years, my weight would go down to 260 and then go back up to 325 pounds.
Back and forth; back and forth; back and forth …
I got married to my lovely wife, Julie, in 2000. I was roughly 260 pounds at the time.
As married life went on, we moved to Arizona and I grew comfortable in my new life.
Too comfortable…
My weight would continue to yo-yo up and down from roughly 260 pounds to 310 pounds.
The Journey to Losing Weight Began Again in 2007
In 2007, I met a doctor while staying at the Miraval Resort in Tucson, Arizona. He suggested I put a treadmill in my office and set it to 2 miles per hour and walk while I was making phone calls. He said this would be an excellent way for me to begin getting more exercise.
I took his suggestion to heart and started losing weight, yet again.
However, fate intervened and I ruptured my Achilles tendon in late 2007 and I had to discontinue my walking activities.
The weight started to come back on rather quickly.
While I was unable to walk on the treadmill, I was obviously able to walk to the kitchen and the dinner table …
FEBRUARY 1, 2009 Stanley Bronstein’s Rebirth Day
On February 1, 2009, I woke up and stayed in bed a few extra minutes, as I was doing some thinking; some heavy-duty thinking.
It was roughly 4 months before my 50th birthday.
I was 310 pounds at the time.
My legs, knees, and feet all hurt.
My blood pressure was high.
I hadn’t had a heart attack, YET.
I hadn’t had a stroke, YET.
I hadn’t had knee replacement surgery, YET.
But I had no doubt in my mind these things were coming.
Slowly but surely, I was killing myself.
It was just a matter of time.
As I like to say, I wasn’t committing suicide, I was committing slowicide.
I was slowly eating myself to death.
There Cones a Point in any Story Where You Must Take Action
I turned to my wife and said:
I’m done playing this game.
I’m going to stop tolerating nonsense in my life. The first person I’m going to stop tolerating it from is myself.
I’m going to start eating better, every day.
I’m going to start exercising every day, and my exercise of choice is going to be walking.
Little did I know how prophetic those words were.
Since that time, I’ve walked approximately 46,000 miles over more than 16,000 hours (although I don’t have exact figures as I didn’t start keeping records of my walking activities until July 2009).
That’s almost 2 times around the circumference of the Earth at the equator.
I was a person who used to eat a pound of pasta daily. With a pound and a half of meat on it, with half a jar of parmesan cheese.
I could eat 15 to 20 chicken wings at one sitting.
And maybe a whole slab of pork ribs, along with the chicken.
I would wash that down with 2 or 3 of the 2 liter bottles of diet soda (caffeine free, of course).
I was a mess…
Take Stock of Your Mess
Since that time, my weight has dropped to 145 pounds.
I don’t drink sodas or eat meat (I went vegetarian about 12 years ago and I’ve been vegan for the past 6 years).
I stopped drinking alcohol. Smoking was never a habit I picked up, so I didn’t have to worry about stopping that.
I eat salads for lunch just about every day. These aren’t normal salads. They’re chock full of berries and other items that are loaded with anti-oxidants.
I’m getting ready to turn 66 and I can tell you I don’t feel that age. Not even close. If you asked me how old I am physically, I feel a heck of a lot closer to 35 years old than I do 66.
What Was Different This Time?
But, there’s just one difference.
I didn’t feel this good when I was 35. Not even close.
It took me a little more than 10 ½ years to get from 310 down to 145 and I’ve kept it off since.
It’s because the changes I’ve made in my life have been more or less permanent. As a result, the benefits I’ve enjoyed as a result of these changes have been more or less permanent.
The changes I made were PERMANENT changes, not TEMPORARY ones.
TEMPORARY CHANGES = TEMPORARY RESULTS
PERMANENT CHANGES = PERMANENT RESULTS
On some level I realized this, but I refused to accept it, until February 1, 2009.
I didn’t accept it until I became “sick and tired” of being “sick and tired”.
That day and all the events (both good and bad) leading up to it were the genesis of the Trans3mational System of Excellence.
Do Your Vices Serve You, or Do You Serve Them?
Shortly after beginning my daily walking program, I gave up all alcohol. I quickly realized that drinking at night wasn’t conducive to getting up at 5:00 a.m. and walking the next morning.
How did I give it up? By realizing that I was serving the alcohol and that the alcohol wasn’t serving me.
I gave up eating pastas and pizzas, because I was serving the pastas and pizzas and they weren’t serving me.
I gave up my 5 to 6 liters of Diet Pepsi Caffeine Free that I was drinking daily. Drinking mostly water became my new habit.
I realized that I was serving the Diet Pepsi and it wasn’t serving me.
I replaced the soda with water. The water was serving me and I wasn’t serving it.
Beef and pork (but not chicken and turkey) were the next things to go.
I realized I was serving the beef and pork.They weren’t serving me.
I gave up my desire to sit back on the couch and replaced it with a habit of walking out the front door. Going for a walk was a better habit.
I realized I was serving the couch by sitting on it all day. The couch wasn’t serving me.
February 1, 2009 was my rebirth day. Since then, I’ve created my lifetime passion project, The Million Pound Weight Loss Challenge so I can help others be reborn as well.
