Relaunch

I used to be active.  I used to care about what I eat.  I used to train 4-6 days a week and I used to be in my 20’s too when everything physical came easy.  I could squat 3 times a week and press overhead every day.  15 pull ups was a warm up and recovery for a heavy deadlift was just 48 hours.

Now my lower back is tight, my shoulders take turns telling me which one hurts more and my body just hurts too much to move sometimes.  I don’t eat nutritious things and my clothes don’t fit like they used to.  Sleeping is a struggle because I’m always uncomfortable and my job has me sitting a lot which is also uncomfortable.  Everything I do is the contrast of what I used to be and what I used to teach.

A year ago I was a trainer helping people as best I could reach their fitness goals while trying hard to maintain my own.  I was spinning my wheels in a new environment and in a job that I was growing more and more dissatisfied with.  Movement was money and money isn’t fun when you are trying to make it.  Exercise was just what I sold, not what I was striving for.  My heart was somewhere else.

In 2010, I became co-owner of a personal training gym.  I was 27 years old, loved moving heavy things, jumping around, and even running.  I had everything. I could want as far as equipment went and training was easy to do and always on my mind.  I broke my own records every month and I was in the best all-around shape of my life.

The business of fitness is a hard mistress though and pay-to-play was getting far too expensive to keep up with. I had gotten married in 2011 and I had a wife to think about.  It was a hard, foot-dragging decision to leave my business partners and engage the fitness world on my own at a little gym in our apartment complex. Gone were the familiar nuances I had become accustom to.  No barbells, not medicine balls, no battle ropes.  Dumbells only went up to 50lbs and I had to share the gym with people who had no idea what they were doing.  My fitness suffered and coming back from injuries just didn’t happen.  My back was so tight from muscle imbalances that I would shy away from most activities that pushed me.

I left the fitness industry on a large-scale when I applied for and was accepted as the youth pastor at my church.  In 2014 I had dropped what was left of my plan to complete my degree in exercise science from Columbus State and I enrolled at Liberty University.  God had bigger things for me that I had felt for a long time.

I took comfort in the fact that someday fitness would no longer be a part of my identity and I could eat all the pizza and cookies without a double take from my friends and family.  I thought I would finally have the time to enjoy food and fitness on my own terms.  While I let my training business putter out, my attention to the amount and kind of foods I was eating did too and before I knew it my medium shirts didn’t fit anymore.

Now I don’t think there is anything wrong with me wearing a large shirt.  They are more modest on me especially when I raise my arms up, but the reason I wear large shirts has nothing to do with modesty and everything to do with my out of control eating.  During the winter I hid myself with sweatshirts saying to myself that I’d have it under control by spring time.  That’s something I’ve said for 2 years now.

The time has come to drop the excuses, drop the “soon I will”‘s, and protect myself and my family from the dangers of overeating, poor nutrition, and general couch-potato-ness.  I know that my pains can be fixed by the right kind of movement and better eating and the only thing stopping me is me.  One of my students has been a big inspiration to me as she just decided one day to get off her butt and get to work and her results have been amazing.

For myself who wants to be in great shape for my health and my family, for my wife who wants the same thing for herself, for God who has given me a body to do work for Him with, I dedicate this blog of accountability.