Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Getting older doesn’t mean we have to turn into slobs, does it?  It does if it means never working out and eating at Applebee’s all the time.  This subject has been so played out that it’s almost not even worth talking about anymore.  Losing weight is psychological as well as physical.   Basically that means people who are overweight, for whatever reason, need Tony Robbins and Tony Horton.  I’m not here to tell everyone else what to do to lose weight.  I’m here to tell everyone what I did to get back in shape.   My life story is full of screw ups that I find myself constantly trying to fix.  One such mistake happened between 1999 and 2000.  I gained 45 lbs in 1 year.  That’s pretty impressive for a skinny runner who had never weighed over 155 lbs.  I gained that weight, realized I gained it before it was too late (it’s never really too late unless you’re dead), and lost it all in about 8 months.  I don’t want to be the guy to say anything is easy, because it isn’t.  I will say though that anybody who really determines to do something will have an excellent chance of doing it, not guaranteed but almost.

My Weight Gain

I ran track and Cross Country for the University of Oklahoma for two years.  I ran through high school too.  When I graduated from college I got a job, as people do.  I went from exercising every day, twice a day, to sitting in a cubicle at American Airlines headquarters.  It’s no wonder that without my typical 5000 calorie-burn days I gained so much weight.  I ate the same as always and I did no exercise.  It happened so quickly that I don’t even remember the details.  It was as if I woke up one day and suddenly felt terrible.  I went to the doctor because I had started to develop allergies, and I was having headaches.  The doctor put me on the scale and it said 200 lbs.  To many of you that doesn’t seem like a lot of weight.  For me it was.  I am a naturally skinny person; 200 lbs to me is quite overweight.  I just couldn’t function and my body was breaking down.  I went from waste size 31 to 36 in 1 year.  It was really terrible.

The Next Day

The day after I saw the doctor and realized just how much I weighed, I connected the dots.  My sicknesses were because of my poor diet and lack of movement.  My weight was only an outward manifestation of everything that had gone wrong that year.  I said to myself, “This ends today.”  I went to a martial arts studio I had remembered seeing, and I paid for a whole year of instruction in advance.  And, things started to turn around.  I remember the first lesson feeling like a religiously cleansing experience.  The sweat and muscle pain was rejuvenating, and I instantly remembered what it was that I loved so much about exercise.  It was the pain and the relaxing sense of accomplishment that came afterwards.

Kept Going 

 

I won this race!

I took one Karate class and one Muay Thai class 6 days a week for a year (12 classes a week).  I started walking during my lunch breaks instead if sitting idly in the cafeteria.  When I started to get lighter on my feet I began running again.  I lost all the weight, ran a few 16 minute 5k’s and finally did the Chicago Marathon to top it all off.  My proudest accomplishment from this experience came in 2003 when I got my black belt (I never missed a single day of class).  That same year I bought the Academy where I had been training; my master went back to Thailand and he asked me to take over for him despite my being only a first degree black belt.

I Know

I know that being overweight is a bad feeling.  What I know most of all is that there is no amount of wishing to lose weight that will get it done.  Weight loss results require a complete and immediate change of attitude.  There is no short-cut and there is a lot of pain.  But anything worth doing is worth doing right.  Why go through even half the pain if the reward is nothing?  I know people who try to lose weight but only exercise when it is convenient for them.  The true test comes on the crummy days when everything stands in the way of success.  There were many days that I was the only student in my Karate class.   Those were the days I got my master all to myself and the days that I learned the most.  He taught me things nobody else knew because I was like a fly on poop.  I know how it feels to not fit into pants, it stinks because you start feeling like life is on the downward slope.  There are only two options: give up and let it happen, or turn it around.  Like Yoda says, “There is no try, only do.”

Today

My kids have a healthy father who isn’t tired all the time and who doesn’t have any serious health problems (except the skin cancer which I can’t exercise my way out of).   My weight has maintained itself at about 160 lbs without ever creeping back up.  I decided to stop exercising like a maniac and just start eating better instead. These days I eat a bunch of good food and do moderate exercise for an hour a day.  Since the weight is off it’s easier to maintain it.  I just need to be vigilant and keep on top of it.  I don’t need more allergy problems and headaches.  The headaches come with being a parent.  Why add to it?

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