By his own admission, Dave Thomson needed a good “kick up the ass” to point the compass of his life in the right direction.
At age 53 and weighing 253 pounds, Thomson was caught in a vicious cycle of taking pain-killing (and weight-gaining) drugs to ease his debilitating and rare form of fibromyalgia.
And with his disease sucking the life out of him on a daily basis, he was resorting to at least two sugar-rich “energy” drinks a day to get through.
To top it all off, the drugs he has been on for more than 10 years aren’t recommended to be taken more than a decade, with some patients even dying as a result.
Thomson, the community outreach coordinator at the Richmond Center for Disability, knew time was running out to make big changes to his life, but couldn’t quite find the motivation.
Then, an email dropped into his inbox.
“It was from people producing a TV show, called Mind Set Go,” said Thomson, referring to the documentary series on AMI, which follows the high-stakes journey of eight Canadians as they attempt to transform their physical, mental and emotional health with the help of fitness experts and Paralympians.
“Here it was. Right in front of me. They were asking if I could reach out to people in the disability community. I gave them a whole list, with me on it.
“I’d been running on neutral with my illness for some time. I thought this might be the catalyst to get me going.”
Now in its third season, Mind Set Go follows for three months the lives of Canadians living with a disability, debilitating injury or chronic pain.
At the end of three months, each participant tackles a physical goal that reveals how their lives and attitudes have progressed over the course of their “journey to health.”
Thomson was chosen by the show to be star in one of the eight episodes, which airs next Wednesday, May 6.
“I started (the training) last August and it went until the end of October,” said Thomson, who used to be a competitive swimmer and a prison guard before his illness took over.
“They set you up with the host Stephanie Dixon, a former, gold medal-winning Paralympic swimmer, who was born with only one leg. She would look at my fitness plan and critique it.
“They would phone me each week and ask what I was doing that week for training and then would come out and follow me around.”
As part of the show, Thomson hired a nutrition coach and bought a swim membership. "Anything in the water used to be the thing for me,” added Thomson.
“We just trained and trained. I cut out sugar and 25 pounds came off in a month or so. I was dropping about two pounds or more a week.
“I used to drink two energy drinks a day. I stopped eating late at night. People kept asking what great diet I was on. I just had some really bad habits.”
During the three months of intermittent filming, Thomson also trained with another Canadian Paralympian, former wheelchair basketball player Richard Peter.
“They sent a TV crew to film me getting weighed every week. I lost 30 pounds and 10 inches (four in the chest, three on the hips and three on the thighs),” said Thomson.
“It sure felt better when I sat in the airplane seat in November. ‘What’s this? Wiggle room?’”
As for the “final challenge” at the end of the show, Thomson was coy about the outcome, saying only that it involves trying to squeeze into a wetsuit and an open-sea swim with Dixon.
“I’m swimming three days a week now. But this is a two-year plan for me to try to get drug-free,” he explained.
“I’m taking two drugs that are pure poison. People have died. Many people are trying to get off it. It has all kinds of side effects and it has only been tested for use over 10 years. I’ve been on it for more than 10.
“I’m on drugs that no one knows what it does to people over this length of time and it scares the crap out of me.”
Thomson recognizes he has to find a balance in his life to turn it around.
“If I had less weight, I’d likely have less pain. I’m hoping to get to a place to deal with my disability and put myself in the strongest place possible to handle it without drugs,” he said.
“I’m not going to be doing that at 253 pounds. I’m hoping to do that at 200. I’m at 228. I’ve kind of got stuck at that weight. But both drugs cause weight gain.
“If I can get away from them, I’m hoping to lose more weight.
“Who knows, I could maybe even go back to work full-time for a couple of years and give my wife a break.”
Mind Set Go airs May 6 at 5 p.m. on AMI - usually channel 888 on Shaw and Telus. The show also repeats numerous times, go to AMI.ca/category/2746/schedule for the list.
It can also be streamed after it’s aired at AMI.ca/category/mind-set-go.
