Last week: 384 lbs.

Start (Dec. 17): 470 lbs.

Total lost: 77 lbs.

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Eight years ago, 53-year-old Lake Placid native Wes Wilson weighed about 300 pounds. Now he’s down to 185 and has completed five Ironman triathlons.

Lake Placid helped save his life.

Wilson — portrayed in the media as the “truckin’ triathlete” — currently lives in Vermontville. And yes, he’s a tractor trailer driver who just so happens to compete in triathlons, marathons and an assortment of other endurance events. His transformation is inspiring.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” Wilson said. “My whole life changed.”

I first met Wilson at the finish line of the Lake Placid Classic Half-Marathon/10k on Sept. 6. He introduced himself so I could learn about his weight-loss journey, as he had read about mine in the newspaper. This past week, I’d been thinking about my own journey and what taking off about 80 pounds has done for me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It’s been a transformation, one that is far from complete, so I began to wonder what my transformation will look like at the end of the year, in two years or even eight years like Wilson.

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TRANSFORMATION QUESTIONS

I have so many questions.

-What will my weight-loss transformation look like, and when will it be complete?

-Is there a final destination? I say 220 pounds is my goal weight. Is that my destination, or is it 190 pounds? And what then?

-What have I learned about myself this year?

-I wanted to transform myself into a healthier person, but what exactly does that mean? That I can do things I couldn’t before? That I have a new outlook on life? That I have moved from a sedentary person to an active person? That I have extended my life?

-Will I always be changing, striving to be better?

When I get to my goal weight, it makes me question my motives. I wonder what’s next. Will I write a book, hoping I can inspire others and sell a few copies to pay some bills? Am I trying to become a triathlete or a marathon runner? Am I trying to reduce my body so I can do normal things? Am I doing it to look better so I can feel better about myself? Or am I simply trying to live longer?

When I embarked on this journey in December 2013, I started with a before picture, a weight of 470 pounds and a goal weight of 220. That’s it. I knew my experiment would lead me to local weight-loss resources and I’d meet new people along my public journey. I knew I would start to see physical changes, such as fitting into clothing better and reducing the swelling in my legs and feet. Whether I was ignorant, short-sighted or lacked self-confidence, I had no idea there would be a major transformation in my life. After all, I had failed so many times before.

This time has been different. I’ve been held accountable by the public (and my mother, who is apparently the potato chip police chief – “You can’t eat those.”). And now that I’m seeing the beginnings of a transformation, I’m getting real curious as to what it all means.

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TRUCKER TRANSFORMATION

It was time for a phone call to Wes Wilson to see what the future holds for me. If I could see how weight loss transformed his life, maybe I’d be able to visualize my own future and have one of those crystal ball moments.

“When I look back at it, almost everything about my life changed,” Wilson said. “It’s amazing, the transformation.”

Many weight-loss journeys that begin in adulthood stem from bad eating habits and emotional scars from childhood. It’s true for me, growing up in Tupper Lake, and it’s true for Wilson, growing up in Lake Placid. I’m not sure exactly how much my parents’ strained relationship and eventual divorce contributed to my eating problems, but it was a stressful situation. My own relationship with my father was strained, to say the least, and I haven’t seen him in more than 20 years. For Wilson, it was a different story.

“It was a place of bad memories for a long time,” Wilson said of Lake Placid.

Wilson’s father died when he was 14 years old.

“He had a real serious heart issue,” Wilson said. “For the last four years of his life, he was dying. He had several heart attacks. From the time I was 10 years old to the time I was 14, my life just got really turned upside down, and my mother comforted us with food.”

After Wilson’s father died, his mother was away from home more, working the 3-to-11 shift as a nurse and leaving her children to eat whatever they wanted.

“Before she left (for work), just to comfort herself, she’d make great big pots of spaghetti and meatballs and big batches of cookies,” Wilson said. “I’d eat until I was sick. That was what I was taught as far as eating habits. And when I decided to eat healthy, I didn’t even know what I was doing. I didn’t know where to begin.”

Wilson’s heavy-set frame also made going to school uncomfortable, and he got picked on because of his size. He sometimes skipped gym class because he dreaded playing “shirts and skins” tag football, as he was afraid of being chosen for the skins team and taking off his shirt. This was in the 1970s, and they would play on the field in front of the high school before it was transformed into a 400-meter speedskating oval for the 1980 Winter Olympics.

“I was just mortified,” Wilson said about the football games. “If I got picked on one of those teams, I could have just dug a hole and buried myself. Taking my shirt off in public was just like … it didn’t happen. And then to be ridiculed when you did.”

Now the oval is home to the Ironman finish line, and it has new meaning for Wilson.

“To run up to that campus and look up at that high school as an Ironman, this is amazing,” Wilson said. “What a transformation. Sometimes I don’t even believe it. And to this day I won’t take my shirt off in public.”

Life as a trucker has its challenges, and the lifestyle added a lot of inches to his waistline before he made his own “change of life.”

“There would be four or five of us leaving here together, and we’d drive out to Kingsville, Ohio, and get to the buffet and sit there for an hour and just eat and eat and eat and talk, get back up and eat some more,” Wilson said. “Slowly, as I started getting into this (triathlons), I started eating in the truck, stop and go for a walk. And it was like I didn’t have any friends anymore. … None of my trucking friends wanted to hang around with me anymore because I wasn’t fun anymore. The next thing I know, I’m getting all these new friends at home.”

Wilson is talking about the local running community that took him under its wing.

Before losing all that weight, Wilson would spend his work time on the road and off time working on projects around the house, except on Sundays.

“I used to sit here on the couch all afternoon, eating pizza and drinking beer while watching NASCAR for four or five hours,” Wilson said. “Now I get up, go out the door and I’m on my bicycle for four or five hours. I’m gone constantly training.”

While on the phone with me, he was looking out the window of his house, thinking about the old days. His garage is about 100 yards away from the house, but he never walked to it to work on a project.

“I used to walk out my front door and into the basement and start up my four-wheeler with the electric starter and drive up to my garage,” Wilson said. “If I had to go back down to go to the bathroom or take a phone call, I’d get back on my four-wheeler and drive back to the house. I wouldn’t even walk to my own garage. I look at that now, and it’s just so pathetic that I would live that way.”

Wilson’s weight eventually got in the way of everyday activities, and he couldn’t do household projects anymore.

“It hurt so bad,” Wilson said. “Shortly before the big diet started, we were in the basement working one day. I was on my hands and knees putting the floor down, and I literally could not stand up. My wife had to help me. … I look back at that, I couldn’t literally get off the floor and now I’m swimming, running or biking something every day doing marathons, half-marathons, Ironman.”

Wilson had some defining moments that pushed him into his weight-loss journey. One was at a wedding; he had to drive to Plattsburgh to buy special clothes that would be appropriate for the occasion. And one was at the swim start of the 2007 Ironman Lake Placid. His heart was racing, and when the cannon went off to start the race, he instantly decided that he was going to be an Ironman.

“When I was fat, I didn’t want to go back over to Lake Placid,” Wilson said. “I didn’t want to be around jocks or people working out. But then when I got involved in Ironman, now it’s a very special place. Now I want to be there all the time.”

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WILSON’S DIET

Oh, he probably hates that I used that four-letter word. “Diet” is not appropriate.

“The first thing you have to do — and it’s really, really hard to do — is it can’t be a diet. It’s got to be a lifestyle change,” Wilson said. “It’s got to be more than just the food. I used to think you could just start eating less and not exercise. I learn that they come hand in hand.”

He preaches “less intake, more output.” Calories in, calories out.

“With all these fad diets, I find none of them work,” Wilson said.

Wilson has also learned that people have certain foods that put weight on them more than others. For him, it’s wheat.

“I try to stay wheat-free six days a week, and then on Sunday, I eat whatever I want,” he said.

Like me, Wilson is a self-described foodaholic, an addict, and he has bouts of bingeing now and then.

“I binge eat. I’m terrible,” he said.

Wilson’s real struggle is the weight fluctuation. He’s been as low as 176 pounds and is about 185 now.

“I can gain 10 or 15 pounds in the blink of an eye,” Wilson said. “I’ve got friends who have been fit all of their lives that when I tell them that, they look at me cross-eyed.”

After Ironman every year, Wilson’s weight fluctuates 15 or 20 pounds.

“That’s what I’m trying to learn this year,” he said. “I’m trying to learn how to maintain a steady weight. I’m not having a whole lot of success. I’m trying.”

Eight years in, and every day is a battle.

“It’s never over,” Wilson said. “When you get in the right frame of mind, there’s times that are easier, but it’s never easy. It’s a struggle every day.”

It’s not easy, and it is an emotional journey.

“Somebody said one day, ‘Why are people on the ‘Biggest Loser’ always crying?'” Wilson said. “And I thought back. It’s such an emotional journey. I don’t know what there is about it, but … I don’t think most of us get to 300 or 400 pounds without an emotional problem over something. It goes way back when I was a kid for me.”

Thank goodness for Wilson’s wife, Cheryl, who had grown up eating healthy. She is his main support network.

“When I was ready to get healthy and listen to her,” Wilson said, “I did have that avenue. She was healthy and had lived healthy her whole life. I was very lucky that way. I had a built-in mechanism right here.”

And no matter how much other people want you to lose weight, people can only embark on their weight-loss journeys when they are ready.

“Nobody can make you do this,” Wilson said. “The only person who can make Andy lose weight is Andy, and the only person who can make Wes lose weight is Wes.”

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REWARDS, ADVICE, CREDIT

Wilson’s journey is filled with new knowledge about healthy living. He’s learning something new every day. And the benefits are life-changing.

“I’ve been such a happier person in the last eight years than I was my whole life before that,” Wilson said. “Every minute of it is worth it. Just getting up in the morning and feeling healthy. I used to get up in the morning and feel like crap all day long. I was lethargic, and I didn’t feel good. Everything I did just took an effort to do.”

Then there are the everyday rewards, the ones many people take for granted.

“I reach in my closet and take anything that’s in my closet out and put it on, and it fits me,” Wilson said. “That, to me, is such a reward.”

For those who are taking their own transformational journey, Wilson offers the most basic advice based on his own experiences. While he always keeps up the exercise, he sometimes falls off the wagon when it comes to eating.

“There’s going to be days you fall off,” Wilson said. “If you’re off for a day, crawl back on. Don’t give up. … If I fall off the wagon, sometimes I’ll fall off for two weeks or three weeks, but I just force myself to crawl back on and get back focused.”

Wilson’s focus has led him to a new lifestyle, an active one filled with new friends, new challenges and a whole lot of swimming, running and bicycling. In the last eight years, he has competed in five Ironman Lake Placid triathlons, two Tinman triathlons, four full marathons and several half-marathons.

Why does he do it?

“My smart-ass answer is ‘Because I can,'” Wilson said. “I just enjoy my lifestyle so much more now.”

Once estranged from his hometown, Wilson now gives Lake Placid most of the credit for his weight-loss success, not simply the village, but the supportive running community and Ironman.

“I give like 90 percent of my credit to Ironman because Ironman found me. I didn’t find it. It chose me,” he said. “Thank God for giving me life. Thank Ironman for giving me my life back.”