For the first year and a half of my job, I was on the road just about every single week, and being on the road, we ate out at restaurants just about every single night. Having just found out about this really sweet concept of “money,” plus the fact that work paid for my meals while I was on the road, PLUS the fact that I really like eating AND can eat more than just about anyone I know, well, you do the math. I ate. And I ate a lot. And a lot of what I ate wasn’t exactly good for you. There was one restaurant near that first client site where we ate at pretty consistently, and my dinner was an appetizer of buffalo wings (which was split between me and another person, so I’d eat about three or so. They were a pretty solid size though) and lobster mac & cheese. Trust me when I tell you they did not skimp on the cheese. On the drive home, I would stop at a rest stop on the turnpike and get a bag of those mini Reese’s just because I could. I wasn’t paying for it! May as well eat it! I’d eat the entire bag in one sitting. I’m not saying eating those things is bad or wrong, and I’m sure if I had them with any sort of moderation, it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad, but the word “moderation” never registered when it came to food. It never had to. But a typical day over the past three years has included a lot of me sitting or lying down. Work for eight to ten hours, sitting in front of a computer screen. Drive to and from work, sitting in my car. Watch Netflix, sitting / lying in bed. Watch TV or play PlayStation, sitting / lying on the couch. You get the picture. My daily exercise was when I walked the 250 feet from my car to my desk at work. There wasn’t much physical activity to balance out the crazy amount of food I was eating like there had been in the past. As I said, I’ve never really been in the best shape, but I would always at least go play football or basketball or do something when I was in school. After I started work? Yea, I used my free time to do absolutely nothing. And it really started to show.
I noticed, but I didn’t really care that much. What’s it matter? Everyone gains some weight after they start work. It’s basically a rite of passage, right? I refused to go anywhere near a scale, partly because if I didn’t actually see the weight, then it wasn’t true and partly because I really didn’t see an issue. One year went by, then another. Finally, this past year, I really started to notice it, and so did other people. I play in a softball game every Memorial Day with my church, and I hit a SHOT way over the outfielders’ heads (let me brag a little. I destroyed that ball). There’s no fence, so I probably should’ve had a home-run on it. I got a triple, and was absolutely completely out of breath by the time I got to third. It’s not like we were playing on a major league field with 90 foot base paths. They were like 30-40 feet or so. Not exactly a far distance… Someone mentioned that I really shouldn't have been that out of breath from just running that much. They were right. A little later, a co-worker saw a picture of me from college and said “wow, Steve! You used to be really skinny!” (which, compared to what I looked like at the time, he was probably right, but that was also the first time I was ever called skinny in my life, so I’ll take it!). Moments like these would happen every so often during the last eight or so months of 2015, but it never really registered with me. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I had gained some weight, but I didn’t consider it a problem or anything. In my mind, I was probably around 190. No way was I over 200 pounds. Couldn’t be. Finally, as a result of curiosity moreso than anything else, I stepped on a scale. Imagine my surprise when the number 231 was staring back at me.
You read those last two paragraphs. The fact that I had ballooned up by about 50-55 pounds shouldn’t really have surprised me. But it did. I stepped on that scale in December, so I told myself I needed to do something, and I needed to start it soon. I decided to do the most stereotypical of stereotypical New Year’s resolutions: lose some weight. One of my best friends lost a ton of weight a few years ago, so I knew I could count on him to help throughout the process, plus, I have three brothers, all of whom work out and work out a good amount (one’s a federal agent who literally gets paid to chase people, the other runs a sports complex where he basically lives in a gym, the third is on the high school football team and lifts just about every single day), so there are positive influences in my life from that perspective, but that wouldn’t have remotely mattered until I wanted to actually do this for myself. I could have had the best influences in the history of the world, but until I told myself that I wanted to get in shape for me, I never would have actually started down this road. On January 4, I started P90X. It’s probably the eighth or ninth time I’ve started it since the program came out when I was in high school. The furthest I had made it was about mid-way through the second month the very first time I did it. That was because I was doing it with two of my brothers. I don’t even remember the reason I had at the time, but I stopped doing it mostly because I didn’t care enough to. As I said, 175-180. That’s where I was most of my life. At that time, I was probably closer to 170. I was fine. High metabolism or something or other. Every other time I did it, I’d last pretty much a week. This time though, I was committed. I had a legitimate reason and a legitimate drive to do those workouts each and every day. This was one of those times when I channeled my competitiveness and stubbornness towards myself and tried to make something good of it.
Last Saturday was day 90. Of the 90 days, I only missed two workouts (once because I did not feel well, which I blame on quinoa, and once because I went skiing, so it still counts, right?). I was pretty determined to get through all 90 days, but even I was a little surprised that I actually made it. There were definitely days when I didn’t want to commit an hour plus to having Tony Horton yell at me or make me contort in ways I still don’t think are imaginable, but I pushed myself every single day to, as Tony says, “just push play. Do your best and forget the rest.” As of last Saturday, I was 205 pounds, down 26 pounds in the last 90 days. It’s still not where I want to be, but it’s WAY better than where I was when that scale stared back at me last December. This week, I re-started the program from the beginning, with today being day four (yoga day, which I still contend is the most difficult one seeing as how I’m the least flexible person in the entire world). I don’t have a number in mind for what I want to get to by the end, but I want to just be a bit healthier, a bit more mindful of how much and what I eat, and in overall better shape.
To be honest, I don’t write this for the potential “congratulations!” posts that could come when people read this. I almost feel like the arsonist who gets credit for helping put out the fire that he started. The only reason I lost this weight was because I found it in the first place. I don’t even write this to potentially inspire someone else, because, as I said, you have to want it for YOU; otherwise, nothing will come of it. I hope that will happen with someone, but it’d be a secondary goal. I write it mostly for selfish reasons. To hold myself accountable. Peer pressure is real, and the more people that know what I’m doing, the more I’ll hold myself accountable to continue to get in better shape. I feel better. I look better. And I will continue to be better. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m well on my way.