Does size really matter?

[AndyLee]

Yes, I believe size really does matter. I attribute a good part of my happiness in meeting women in Latin America to the weight I lost 3 years ago. The years between age 40 and 60 had not been good to my health. When I first conceived the idea of coming to Latin America to find my new love I took stock of my circumstances and my situation. Everything in the US was turning out to be a bust for me. My real estate business that had provided an extraordinary income for so many years was suddenly all but dead. My real estate holdings that I had so carefully set aside for a financially secure retirement dropped fifty percent of their value almost overnight. Unfortunately the fifty percent value that remained was barely enough to pay off the substantial mortgages that had held everything in place. Stress and sleepless nights became the new norm. The health I had enjoyed most of my life, and the lively libido, was being buried under fat. I was eating more and more and enjoying it less and less in an attempt to make myself feel better. All my waking hours were consumed with work, trying to get things back to normal. No time for exercise or meditation. I was 60 pounds overweight, short tempered and irritable, my joints ached, my face looked ancient and my love life suffered dramatically.
A year before I moved to Colombia I challenged myself to straighten out my life and get myself back together. I gave up my business, gave the bank the subdivision lots and the houses, went on a month long spiritual retreat and faced my libido issues head on. During the retreat I read and took to heart the book The Hardness Factor http://www.amazon.com/Hardness-Factor-Achieve-Health-Fitness/dp/0060755512
I followed the recommendations for food, exercise and attitude adjustment and the results were excellent. Within one year I had dropped 60 pounds and reduced my waist size from 40 to 34 and my shirt size from Large to Medium.
I increased my stamina by walking, swimming and yoga. In the beginning I could only walk 1/2 mile now I do 4 miles each day. I have removed all the candy and junk food and replaced it with good vegetables, fruits, healthy meats and whole grains. All of this, combined with the daily yoga and meditation has reduced my blood pressure from 180/100 to 120/70 and I no longer have to take any medicine for blood pressure, high cholesterol or high triglycerides. i no longer need the testosterone patches or the anti-depressants. All I take now is a nice glass of brandy with dinner and that's it.
The best part? At one time I enjoyed sex maybe once every other month or so. Now, I am able to enjoy sex many times each week.
The happy result of this transformation is that I now have a happy, stable relationship with a wonderful woman, and I am convinced I've added years to my life.
At one time I might have been considered the stereotypical short, fat, bald man with a lot of money who went to Latin America to fix himself up with a 20-something supermodel because he couldn't get a date in his home country. Now I consider myself a normal guy with normal features who feels very lucky indeed to be enjoying life with a much younger and much prettier woman than any I could have attracted in the past.
Here are a couple of pictures to show what a loss of 60 pounds and an increase in body tone can look like. These pictures are taken 18 months apart.
I know several other posters on this forum have enjoyed similar success and I hope you can share your stories, too and encourage all of us to live better and enjoy our relationships better.
Take care
Andy

[Researcher]

    Dramatic improvement AndyLee.It is amazing how a lifestyle change can impove a person's life.Thanks for sharing.

    Researcher

[raycjs]

Andy
 
i am always happy to hear when people take the health serious and then after only a short time you can see the great results... best of luck to you and i hope you are enjoying your retirement.
 
 
 
Ray

[fathertime]

Hey Andy!


You are indeed a stylish 60 year old now!  It seems to me the most important thing is that you physically feel better.


Fathertime!

[Alabamaboy!]

Great story Andy. But do you think the difference was all the exercise and eating right, or the high dosage of Colombian Vitamin P you have been enjoying there?
 
I always seem to lose dramatic weight when I am in Colombia. I am good for like 5 lbs a week. My longest trip there was 6 weeks I think, and I lost like 25 lbs. And I thought I was in good shape before I got there! I think stress hormones have a lot to do with it. Because when I am in Colombia, I always sleep really well, eat throughout the day, and RELAX. No rat race there. And at least for me seems to make a huge difference. Oh, and sex with a beautiful Colombiana multiple times a day helps a lot too.
 
Good to hear such a positive report!

[Gato4Astrid]

Andy Lee Robert Duvall

Keep up the good work

[Chris F]

CONGRATS TO YOU ANDY!!!  Your hard work has really paid off!!
Now once again, how about some background info on the new Mrs. Andy Lee??
 

[Fuzzyone]

CONGRATS TO YOU ANDY!!!  Your hard work has really paid off!!
Now once again, how about some background info on the new Mrs. Andy Lee??

   Chris I would be careful hate to see you get banned from you know where for being here.

[utopiacowboy]

AndyLee, you are truly an inspiration. You also demonstrate the fact that, yes, life can be and is better outside the US. If only millions of other Americans could open their eyes to this reality.

[whitey]

Incredible transformation Andy - congrats!

[AndyLee]

Thanks everyone for the congrats, I do indeed feel like a lucky man. Here are some fotos of my fiancee. She is 38, widow with 3 children, teaches traditional dance and music at a private school, has masters in education and is working part time on a masters in languages. Speaks intermediate English. She grew up on a finca about 3 hours north of Medellin where her parents still live. Her ancestry is Spanish, Indigenous Apia and African. We live in a 25,000 pueblo about 2 hours from Pereira and our plan is to relocate to one of the pueblos near Armenia where she attends University. Thanks again everyone, I'm really proud of her.

[utopiacowboy]

Gotta love those widows! They're the best!

[euforia51]

Congrats Andy Lee ... good looking pics!

[no comment]

Congrats to you Andy, very inspiring story.

[robert angel]

Best wishes to you and your new extended family, Andy. Sounds like you are all very lucky. Thanks for sharing your story--actually adding more to the good personal news as things have progressed and adding the health information, which can help others, including myself. Well done!
 
Happy trails to you!
 
Robert

[fathertime]

Great photos Andylee!   I don't think you can really ask for anything more!


Fathertime! 

[saleens7tt]

Andy lee..or shall I say robert duvall
 Man, you don't even look like the same person. OUTSTANDING JOB.
Its amazing A.L. how just losing 10 pds makes you feel better, and you lost 60. Dam.Great story.
I got sick of not bieng able to buy the clothes I wanted and since jan of this year have dropped 26 pds. Losing weight/getting back in shape makes your everyday life better. Your happier, not as sressed, you feel good, look good...it all ties in together when your healthy. Everything improves..including the best thing of all...SEX and gettin your freak on...lmao. Big ups to ya a.l.

[Gato4Astrid]

Gotta love those widows! They're the best!

Then I am going to shoot the father of my girlfriend's children    ja ja ja

[Researcher]

   Nice pics Andy.Being with the right woman makes all the difference, she seems like a keeper! Just look, you transformed from Bob Newhart to Robert Duvall!!

     Researcher

[Zohan]

Congratulations on the weight loss and that fine lady!  You've won a complimentary hair cut and style. 

[Docsurf]

Hi Andy,
Your story has struck a chord...I'm in the same boat you 'were' in.  At 6'3 270 I know I need to lose 30 lbs so I can at least feel like I look good, but I am really interested in the other aspect of the libido/ED.  It had never been an issue till I got divorced four years ago.  So now I've reset a goal.  I'll post photos is oh say...6 months and give an update.


BTW...Dennis Levy and I are emailing each other and he suggested I speak to you as well.


PM me when you have a moment.


Doc

[AndyLee]

Hi Andy,
Your story has struck a chord...I'm in the same boat you 'were' in.  At 6'3 270 I know I need to lose 30 lbs so I can at least feel like I look good, but I am really interested in the other aspect of the libido/ED.  It had never been an issue till I got divorced four years ago.  So now I've reset a goal.  I'll post photos is oh say...6 months and give an update.


BTW...Dennis Levy and I are emailing each other and he suggested I speak to you as well.


PM me when you have a moment.


Doc

Docsurf, please tell Dennis I said hi. I miss his commentaries on the forum. Hopefully he will rejoin us at some point. I'm looking forward to learning more about Ecuador.


As I understand it there are 3 aspects to weight loss and increasing one's libido. First is weight loss, second is proper vitamins and third is proper exercise.


Speaking rather graphically I remember the erections I was getting back when I was in my 50's that were only semi hard and didn't last very long and almost never could I have an orgasm. I remember complaining to the doctor that my penis felt almost weightless and my penis when soft was about the size of my thumb, good mostly for urinating and not much else.
Within four weeks of starting The Hardness Factor routine I was back to a full erection and normal orgasms about once or twice each week. After 6 months I was up to two per day. Now I wake up with morning wood and I can tell you straight up that it is a flat out wonderful feeling to wake up and feel confident when I roll over and start giving my lady hugs and kisses. I love morning sex and fortunately she does, too.


The exercise routine recommended by The Hardness Factor begins with 5,000 steps per day and rising to 10,000 steps per day. That's about 2 to 4 miles each day which is not very much really, but seems like a whole lot to a people who are used to walking only a few hundred feet each day from their house to their car and from their car to their job then return. Plus there are lots of stretching and toning exercises recommended in the book, some of which are very similar to beneficial yoga stretches.
The vitamins recommended by The Hardness Factor include Horny Goat Weed, L-Arginine, Pycnogenol, Grape Seed Extract, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and a few others. When I came to Colombia I brought with me a 1 year supply of all of these, knowing that most of these were not available here. After the year was up I discovered that because I was eating Colombian food that is mostly home grown and free range that i was getting all the vitamins I needed from the food. Unlike the US where most of the food in the supermarket is but a pale shadow of the real thing. If you live in the US or most first world countries and want to get all the vitamins you need only from food you would almost certainly have to buy nothing but Organic produce and meats.
the other thing that worked for me was to remember how hard it was for me to quit smoking and to realize that it would be almost that hard for me to quit eating junk food and start exercising properly. That's what I meant when I said earlier about the attitude adjustment. (And I didn't mean the Happy Hour attitude adjustment that I used to go through every day back when I was struggling with depression and stress all the time).
Now I think of myself as an ex-smoker who hates smoking and I think of myself as an ex-fat man who hates being fat. That helps keep me straight.


You already know this, and please believe me I'm not criticizing. I've been there too. At 6'3"and 270 you have a body-mass-index of 34 which is half way up on the obesity scale. Add 10 pounds and you will be in the morbidly obese range. You  would need to lose 90 pounds or more to arrive at the normal range of BMI at around 22. I'm 5'9"and weigh 165 which puts me in the upper reaches of the normal range. Ideally I should be at 155 or 160.
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
I can almost guarantee that if you dared to achieve a normal BMI your life would improve in ways you can only dream about right now.
Good luck and God Bless,
Andy

[AndyLee]

Some somewhat useful figures to throw out for our consideration;
Roughly 50 percent of men and women in the US are overweight. That is 1 out of 2 people.
Roughly 35 percent of men and women in the US are Obese. That is 1 out of 3 people.
Roughly 55 percent of the US population is "on a diet" at any given moment. Again, 1 out of 2 people.
The failure rate for dieting in the US is roughly 95%. That is, almost everybody fails when dieting.


Why? Because weight loss and good health are more than just a product of balanced diet. We also need a good attitude and proper exercise.
By comparison, Mexico, Guatemala and Venezuela are among the top ten countries with high obesity and Colombia is near the bottom of the list, about 3% in rural areas and 5% in urban areas in Colombia are obese.

[Researcher]

  Hey Andy, my Mother-in-Law is coming to visit this month from Bogota.She has never been to the US.My wife has already told her to be prepared and not to stare at all the fat people here!!
I always tell my wife that I may be overweight by Colombian standards but here in the US I am like a supermodel by comparison!!! hehehe!

    Researcher

[Gato4Astrid]