December 6th - reflection and motivation

Well driving into work this morning I had LOTS of thoughts on how I was going to blog today and what that entry (or entries) would entail. Nothing like a morning full of work to FLUSH that down the toilet. lol Forgive me as I ramble, somethings may not even make sense - but I just try and do a brain dump essentially when I post. The thing that usually holds me back is my typing skills. lol

I was recently asked to share some pictures of the last time I had taken my personal fitness seriously. (I did share). Fortunately I still have those pictures from nearly 9 years ago. At that time I was pretty close to the same situation where I am now. I'm 39 now and getting ready to hit a milestone age of 40. Back then it was right after I turned 30 that I realized - WOW I am frigin FAT! For someone who was always very active when younger, I didn't like that realization. I had allowed myself to get from 150 - 160 lbs all the way up to 215lbs. What a HUGE jump. At that time my girlfriend (and biggest supporter) and I made a commitment to fitness and ourselves. We busted our asses and focused on nutrition and got to arguably the best shape either of us had ever been in.

That woman continues to be my biggest supporter and one of the best things to ever come into my life. I've been fortunate enough to marry that woman and now we have 2 beautiful (troublemaking) children to share with the world. It has been amazing journey with her. However, going through that journey we got off track. We allowed ourselves to get in our own way. We stopped working at it. End result? Fat again. That's really the bottom line. At the end of this past summer (August 2011) we again decided it was time to make our personal fitness a priority. We have made a conscious and consistent effort to do just that. You can say you want to do it for your family, your children, etc... In my opinion - the first person you need to want to do it for is yourself. If you can't be motivated to do something for yourself or WANT to do something for yourself, you aren't going to do it. My motivation came because I did not like being what I had become. A fat, out of shape man who no longer was looked at as attractive. That's what it came down to for me. Not knowing what direction to go, just knowing I needed a change, I started doing Weight Watchers with my girlfriend (now wife) and lost a ton of weight. Later, after I started slipping - I upped the ante when I saw an infomercial for BeachBody Power90. Ordered it and completed the program in that 90 days.

The program was no joke. It sells you an image with a promise that you can obtain that image (or something reasonably close to it) in 90 days if you follow the program. They show you tons of success stories of other "ordinary" people who managed to pull this off. The program works. IF you commit to it. Not just getting up and working out for 15 weeks or whatever it was. But going hardcore and getting your nutrition in line and eating the way you are supposed to. I did it. Well..... at first I just did the workouts =) Then after not seeing the results I wanted to see I went hardcore on the nutrition. I was bigger than I had ever been, stronger than I had ever been, at my optimum weight (around 170lbs) and felt FANTASTIC! On weekends I would do double workouts. I'd wake up, do a strength workout, go for a couple mile run and come home and do a cardio workout. A fitness level I had never been to in my life.

What happened? I reached the end. I did my 90 days. Although I looked and felt significantly better than I ever had, I didn't look like the cover of the program. I didn't have chiseled abs. That really frustrated me. Also, there was no "next stage" to the program. When you completed your 90 days, you were encouraged to do a rest week and then what? There was no P90X or P90X+, or P90X2. Yeah, I could have done Power90 again, but what was the point. In my eyes it had already failed me. I didn't get those abs I was promised and I was pissed!

I then turned my efforts to a different BeachBody product which some Power90 graduates were doing. It was called Slim in Six. I'll be honest, that program was ridiculously hard. I didn't think it would be because it was a woman teaching it (again - honesty here). Debbie whatever her name is kicked my ass. Unfortunately though I didn't see it as a graduation level from Power90. I started to lose the upper body size that I had worked pretty hard to get and from that I started to lose motivation. I kept at it for a little while, but my workouts were very inconsistent and eventually I just stopped. I easily found distractions and let those distractions become the focus of my life. No longer did I make time to workout. I started to eat like crap and it was a very gradual decline. Just like the boiling a frog theory. If you take a frog and put him in room temperature water and then start to slowly increase the water temperature until it comes to a boil, you will kill the frog and the frog won't even realize you are killing him. Well that is

essentially what I was doing to myself. Although I didn't realize it.

Here is where I started/looked like when I first started caring about working out (nearly 9 years ago).

I sadly do not have pictures of when I completed the 90 days. I've looked over and over and over, but can not find anything. It pisses me off, but hey, what doesn't? lol Here is what I do have. My 60 day pics. You can see the transformation and how much progress I had made in just 60 days. 60 DAYS. It goes to show how much a person can accomplish when given the right tools, information and motivation.

Looking back at these pictures I realize how far I had brought myself and I'm really proud of that. At the same time I look at how far I've let myself go and it gets me mad. I can't blame anyone other than myself. I did that to myself. Now, nearly 9 years later I find myself fighting the same uphill battle that I put myself in so long ago. This time with lots of different elements changed in my life. The constant though will be my desire to succeed and get to the fitness level I believe I should be. Not for my incredibly supporting family. Not for anyone other than ME. the pictures I put up in this blog are to serve as a motivational reminder of where I once was and until I feel I have surpassed that fitness level I had once reached I won't be posting anymore pictures. I'm OK with that.

Today was day 2 of my P90X journey. Plyometrics. It wasn't easy, but I did it and made it through the whole workout. I need to pick it up though. I need to push harder. Tomorrow is another day, another workout and another chance to get closer to my goals.

FYI - I love Scooby-Doo and yes, those are Scooby boxers. Don't sweat my shit. lol