Today I Killed a Man.......Again

Three years ago this past October, my wife and I got serious about losing weight. It was something we had struggled with for close to 20 years and seemed to be getting worse and not better. Collectively were tipping the scales over 600lbs with me making up at least 350lbs of that. 10 long months of hard work and good eating later we had dropped over 250lbs.

From that date we started I haven't had one cookie, pizza, piece of bread, pasta, or anything else that I shouldn't have. Last year I did the unthinkable. I spent a week in Italy, ate fantastically and lost 5 lbs on the trip.

During the first two years since committing to losing wieght and living healthy I would become a workoutaholic. I would routinely hit the gym 4x per week, running on off days doing 50 pushups every morning and enjoying every minute of it. I would on occasion play full court basketball for two hours running up and down the court every possession and then go workout at the gym afterwards.

Then last fall I started going to the gym less frequently and that became even less frequent this year. When I would go, I would dread going and got no enjoyment out of it. It became a chore.

While my eating habits haven't changed drastically, I have definitely snacked more between meals. The results have been that I am now tipping the scales about 25lbs more than my lowest point.

I am not the first approaching 40 year old male to find that I have put on a little extra weight I would rationalize. I've lost 130lbs, I can drop 25 any time I decide I would also rationalize. This is the same type of thinking that made me look like I do in picture above.

Last week I got a lecture from a friend that I need to get my lazy ass to the gym and stop making excuses. This was after having gone to the gym twice last week, but I was merely going through the motions. I've been twice this week so far(three times if you include the day I left because I forgot to pack sneakers)and am playing basketball tomorrow. Maybe I will even go to the gym afterwards. I'm not waiting another day.

While I am at it I am setting some goals and making them public (as public as a blog with 5 readers can be). So here are a few. I am going to drop 34 lbs, from 243 to 209. Also, barring injury next year I am going to run the New York Marathon in November. I am going to crack 200lb bench press, at my peak last year I could do 185, I'm back to about 135. Those are some fitness goals, all I can tell you is that when I felt better physically, everything else followed because my mindset was so much better.

I went to the gym Monday and ran into a friend of mine, and he reminded me that I said that "old Phil" isn't coming back because I killed him. What I discovered since is that he is tougher to kill than I thought, he was only sleeping. Tonight I had a great workout and killed him again. Tomorrow I will need to fight him and kill him again and fight him every day that follows. One at a time.

I started today, I'm not waiting for my 40th at the end of the month or the new year. Tomorrow is my enemy, today is my friend.

No more excuses