My Fitness Journey: How I Got Here

The Beginning

246 lbs.  Those were the numbers I saw on the scale back in January.  By far the heaviest I have ever been in my life.  I've struggled with weight, or at least I've always felt like I've struggled with weight. I was a baseball player all through High School and it's probably the only reason I would maintain a decent weight.  As summers came to an end, my weight would slowly creep up until spring came and I could get back on the field.  Even during hunting season, despite all the walking up and down the mountains in north central PA, my weight would creep north.

In college, I faced the same dilemma.  This time however, there was no baseball to counterbalance the insane amount of food I could put away.  Luckily, the summer times I usually spent out of the house fishing, or working some type of labor intensive job.  By graduation my weight reached the 230s.  At the time, the heaviest I've ever experienced.  My brother got married that year, and it wasn't until I had seen the photos from the wedding, that I had realized just how bad it had gotten.

Luckily for me, I was off to grad school in sunny Columbia, South Carolina.  The warm weather coupled with the fact that my major was focused in exercise science helped me reach what I thought was a respectable 195-205 by the time my wedding came around.

The Turnaround

It wasn't until our move to Nashville, that I discovered more was possible.  A co-worker of mine introduced me to the Paleo diet and another co-worked in my office lost a ton of weight going vegan. My wife and I decided enough was enough. I started a Whole 30 at 225lbs and the rest was history. 6 months after the start of my Whole 30 journey and I reached a weight I never thought possible, 165 pounds.  I was stunned how much energy I had, and just how good it felt to exercise.  The weight was easy to maintain and I kept the weight off for 4+ years.

To maintain the weight, I stuck to a fairly strict Paleo diet, following the words of Mark Sisson and his site Mark's Daily Apple as if it were religion.  The high nutrition dense foods along with a fairly strict workout regiment made keeping the weight off a breeze.  At the time, I had ambitions to join the Navy and so on top of my regular workouts I was swimming over an hour each day.

The Fall

Fast track to the birth of my first child and things began to quickly spiral out of control.  The lack of sleep, uncertainty at work and the eventual move from Nashville back to Pennsylvania and my weight began to balloon like I had never experienced.  Couple that with the feeling of guilt for backing out of an incredible opportunity with the Navy and my weight quickly got back up to the 210s. Despite the intense amount of knowledge I had around nutrition from my experience years prior, the self control went out the window when things began to spiral.  210 quickly became 220, 230 and even 240.

From time to time, I would complete Whole 30s again but the will to keep the weight off just wasn't there.  I would go from 240s down to the 215s, maintain it for a summer and all would be lost by the time Thanksgiving rolled around.  To say it has been a rollercoaster is no joke.

Now

246 is a number I never saw coming.  By the end of last summer I was at my lowest weight in a while. I had seen a number south of 210 for the first time.  I'm honestly not sure what happened other than I let my guard down.  Stress from work, the birth of our 3rd child and probably many other factors led to seeing 246 on the scale.  I am ready for change and this time, I am slow playing it. Not even a pandemic can stop me (in the past it would have derailed me). 

In January I joined the Mtn Ops Conquer Fitness challenge and the results have come slowly.  January 1st to April 1st I went from 246 to 231.  I know its not a huge loss, but its something, its sustainable.  Multiply tha
t by three and by September I'll be a lighter 201 lbs, 45 whole pounds lighter.  Think about that for a second. in 9 months I could be a whole 45 pound Rogue plate lighter. Tack on another 3 months and that's potentially 60 pounds down. Looking at it this way, it feels doable.  Of course there will be a lot of kinks along the way, but this time will be different.

This time around thought I am less focused on the number on the scale and more focused on listening to my insides.  This time I have a goal in mind.  The goal is no longer just to arbitrarily lose weight.  It's specific.  I've lost the last two hunting seasons because I was so fat and lazy, that I just didn't have the strength or energy to do it.  Not this year.  This year I am going to go into the season the lightest, yet strongest I have ever been.  The last 6 years I have spent being tired, unable to fully engage my children. NOT THIS YEAR! This year will be different, this year I will conquer.

I hope you will join me on this journey.  Hit me up via email if you want to join a group of like minded individuals on this or a similar journey. Share your story, connect, and most of all, lets do this together.