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Losing Time After Losing Weight

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By BILL WARD, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 2, 2008

TAMPA - After losing a lot of weight, Dave Dawes warned his brother, Steve, that he may not look like the same guy when they met at the airport. The last time they had seen each other, Dave tipped the scales at about 300 pounds. So as a 150-pound version of Dave waited for his brother by the trams at Tampa International Airport, it's no wonder Steve walked right past him.

"I had to go tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Hey, it's me,'" Dave Dawes said. "He was like, 'Oh my God, it's you!'"

The Wesley Chapel resident says he gets a similar jaw-dropping reaction from most people who haven't seen him since losing nearly 150 pounds. There's usually a minute or two of disbelief, followed by "How did you do it?" or "Are you OK? Did you get sick?"

Today, there's no question he's healthy. Besides dropping all that weight, the 37-year-old Dawes also quit smoking. And he is not only keeping the weight off, but also he has developed into a devoted runner.

In fact, Dawes has become so good at the sport that he has taken up marathon running and, at this month's Tampa Gasparilla Marathon, Dawes will attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon in April by completing the 26.2-mile event in less than 3 hours, 15 minutes.

Looking it Dawes' before photos, it's understandable why his friends and family are so astounded. There have even been times when his wife, Cindy, says he has caught other women "checking out my husband."

Since he was a kid, Dawes said he had been husky. And even though he had played some sports growing up in Detroit, including football and baseball, exercise had never been a major part of his life.

But in January 2003, Cindy, a teacher at Hillsborough High, came home and said they were going on a diet and would stop smoking together. They started out on the Atkins Diet, which controls the amount of carbohydrates consumed. At first, Dawes said he didn't have any goals for the diet. In fact, he admits he didn't expect to stay on it for long.

But once he and his wife began incorporating exercise into their diet - by walking - their lives began to change. The pounds not only came off, but also the routine of regular activity became a habit. Their early-morning walks of a half-hour led to a second walk after work.

Dawes said he and his wife stayed on Atkins for about nine months, where he dropped about 90 pounds and she lost 50. After that, he says they simply "got smart" about what they ate and followed the standard government recommendations of eating complex carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables and lean protein. Essentially, they "stopped eating junk," Dawes said, and began to count calories and measure food portions.

By June 2004 - 18 months after starting to diet and exercise - Dawes had lost about 110 pounds. Along the way, he bought a treadmill to use for some of their walking at home. Eventually, Dawes began to bump up the pace of the treadmill. His fast walks turned into some slow jogging. And he soon discovered he was actually running.

"I was like, 'Wow! What is this? Am I running? I really like this!'" Dawes said. "I was so surprised I was actually doing it."

After just a few months of running, Dawes was already setting his sights on the 2005 Gasparilla marathon. But like many newbies to the sport, he became a bit too zealous in his training and developed illiotibial band syndrome, which creates lateral knee pain while running. But he did manage to run his first road races the previous fall. And by then, Dawes had made up his mind to go back to school and earn master's degrees in exercise science and molecular medicine.

Continuing to watch what he ate and following an online running program, Dawes was able to finish the 2006 Gasparilla Marathon - his first 26.2-miler - in 4:36. Leading up to that race, Cindy recalls when her husband did his first 20-mile training run. He warned her he might be a while. And when he turned up later in tears several hours later, she was worried it had gone badly.

"But I was wrong," Cindy said. "He was just overcome with the joy of being able to do 20 miles."

For someone who had come as far as Dawes had in such a short amount of time, it's easy to understand how that accomplishment could have created such an emotional moment. As he aims for his Boston qualifying mark with better training and more experience, he still catches himself looking in the mirror to make sure that who he is looking at really is Dave Dawes.

"It's a little unnerving at times to see myself," Dawes said. "I was by no means an unhappy person when I was overweight," Dawes said. "But the way I feel now - the energy I have, the way I see things now - there's no way I'd ever let myself go back to that."

Reporter Bill Ward can be reached at (813) 259-7456

or wward@tampatrib.com.

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