My name is Dylan Cornelius, and I’ve lost over 100 pounds.

How I accidentally lost 65 pounds…

When I graduated college, I was fat, and I was broke.

I needed to buy a larger pant size, painfully buttoning each morning, feeling the cutting around my waist when I sat down.

• But I wasn’t gonna buy another pair of pants because I couldn’t afford it, and I was big enough.
• I had $14 a week for lunch after student loans, credit card payments, rent, limited groceries, and a new car payment.
• I didn’t even have money to buy beer!

• My meager lunch diet of two street tacos (or a simple, homemade meat and cheese sandwich) and water,
• My limited dinner diet of roasted chicken and broccoli (or macaroni and cheese with tuna fish),
• My restricted alcohol consumption, and a very active white-collar job where I walked miles every day, back and forth, up and down a long, narrow office,

…helped me lose 65 pounds that year.

I looked in the mirror one evening and thought, “How’d I get so skinny?!“

At 5’11” and 145 pounds, I altered a beautiful, formerly GIANT navy dress suit to fit my new, lower weight. It was cheaper than buying a new one!

Thankfully, by that time, my income had gone up and my payments had fallen.

I began eating more.

What’s the point?

When we focus and create a life that supports weight loss (even if we’re not aware of it), weight falls off while we’re not even paying attention.

• • Just as we grow heavier over time … without even noticing it…sustainable weight loss works the same way, gradually, and permanently.

• …but before success is inevitable…you know the story…
• I hadn’t learned the secret of sustainable weight loss.

In The Rush Of Life, I Gained All The Weight Back…

• Family, career, debt, mortgage, stress,
• Too much coffee, fast food, entire bags of chips at one sitting,
• Reckless abandon, no time for health or fitness. No exercise — ever: a long walk was when I couldn’t find a spot next to the store entrance,

Careening down the road of life…

• Mouthful by mouthful, day by day,
• Months became years, and

• 14 years later I was obese — again.

Round 2. No More Accidents. The Road To My Ideal Weight.

My company had a Wellness Rewards program. They literally paid me to get a physical examination every year!

• At my first exam, my doctor said I “could stand to lose a few pounds” or we might have to consider medication for my growing Cholesterol level. I resented her for it, and I asked for a specific number.
• I didn’t believe I needed to lose more than 20 pounds, even after she showed me the chart, which indicated 30 pounds was just a good start. It would barely squeeze me into the “Normal” weight range.
• The next year, every single metabolic number in my annual blood test was a point or two worse…in the unhealthy direction.

That got my attention.

I recalled the uncomfortable, unhealthy aging, and premature deaths, of my young, overweight grandparents, and parents of friends.

• High blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides.
• Type 2 diabetes.
• A fistful of medications at every meal.
• Heart attacks
• A grandfather so disabled by years of strokes, he had lost the use of speech (he was so frustrated, and it was so sad…), and he confusedly called all his daughters by the same name.

I was scared and motivated. I knew I needed to lose weight.

I Got Scientific And Relentless About Weight Loss

• I bought a bike and started exercising 3 days a week.
• In a few months, my mileage per ride went from 3 miles to well over 20.
• Yet, I came home one evening from a ride, sweaty on a hot afternoon, and I knew I would die young and fat if that was all there was to health and fitness.

I needed more.

Meanwhile, I read books, looked for free advice on the internet, counted calories, and watched every bite.

I even participated in Weight Watchers for a while.

I Learned The “Secrets” Of Sustaining Permanent Weight Loss

Through my education and career as a Fortune 500 change leader, I’ve spent my life creating and sustaining change in people’s lives.

I’ve distilled it down to 3 Phases of Transformation.

In a nutshell, it’s a means of scientifically assessing and strategically organizing your life, so the overall system supports you in reaching your goal and then sustaining your result indefinitely.

It includes elements of product development, systems engineering, and human performance, in a project framework, with support and tools to:

• create laser-like focus on exactly what you want and what you need to do,
• re-invent yourself, your lifestyle, and your environment to powerfully support you,
• devise workable action plans to deliver the results, in the context of your own life and lifestyle,
• master the skills necessary to build and sustain results, and
• build habits that will support you for a lifetime.

Three Phases of Transformation

1. Plan your Product

   1. Power. Find and sustain the inner power you need to be, do, and have the results you really want.
   2. Purpose. Define a future lifestyle, activities, and habits that inspire you.
   3. Policy. See the internal and external rules that have held you back. Define new rules that empower you!
   4. Product. Define measurable results and achievable activities that will support you reaching your goals.

2. Plot your Path

   1. People. See the people and organizations in your life, and assess their level of contribution to your best you.
   2. Places. See the places in your life, and assess their level of contribution to your best you.
   3. Plans. Create plans that will result in habits, teams, and environments that will support you being your best you.

3. Perform and Produce

   1. Practice. Practice the techniques, develop the skills, fail fast, get support, celebrate, keep going!
   2. Perform. See results, change your plans as you learn and grow, keep going!
   3. Produce. Be amazed at how far you’ve come, be thrilled with the result, celebrate, create new plans.

Sandy overcame what she believed might be an ice cream addiction, reckless binges, overwhelming mood swings, and a reputation as a “hangry B.” She did it by identifying and overcoming her thoughts of being stuck and helpless, chose to stop suffering, then created and managed eating and movement plans that fit HER lifestyle and preferences. Sandy is not an athlete and “will NEVER be an athlete.”

Larry lost 50 pounds, ran his first marathon at age 55, and went on to build an amazing set of six-pack abs. While this was going on, he also found the inner strength and confidence to stop tolerating his boss’s misbehavior at work. He did it all when he began looking at the areas he could control, and then staying focused in that sweet spot. He retired 7 years ahead of schedule, and he now travels the US and the world, spending lots of time with his friends and family, daughters and grandchildren.

I learned to conquer:

• all the reasons not to bother, (and just sit on the couch with another bag of Doritos).
• late night, uncontrollable “cravings”.
• feeling “hungry all the time”, through months of weight loss.

After I gave up cycling just for fitness, I raised the stakes, took up competitive triathlon, became a runner, eventually completed 5 marathons, and became an award-winning age-group athlete!

When I found what really motivated me and raised the stakes from “health and fitness” to “finishing a triathlon”, I kept losing weight and never looked back.