I began reading Drew Manning’s Fit2Fat2Fit, and he has done a nice job so far of talking about his anxiety and frustrations. It will be interesting to see how this book develops and I get further into it. I am inspired though.
I certainly can identify. My own journey began as far back as 2001, so in some ways his short term experience exhibits a lot of what most of us feel as we move along the rocky path to lose weight and get into better condition. In most cases though, the bad habits and poor diet we’ve established are well ingrained into our daily life. We have no recent memory of eating well and working out to draw from. For many of us, this compounds the problems we face.
I, at least, have a mixed bag of good and bad, so it’s not as dire for me as for many others, but my issues have their own history.
To begin with, I have a life long history of ADD. I have long ago learned adult coping skills to deal with it, but in truth, we never outgrow it, so it is an ever present bug in my brain's software, and I have to be mindful of its presence. Maybe this is why I have been so poor at execution of a number of things I've done in my life. I am very good at some things, and have had some real brainstorms at times, but for some reason, I never saw them through to their most positive conclusion. Don't get me wrong, I have had some great successes, like my early effort at racing motorcycles, getting my bachelor degree, reaching 18,800 ft while mountaineering, achieving black belt status in Japanese swordsmanship, raising two great boys, and building a street rod from scratch, but these things could have been even better. The misses are the ones that haunt me at times. They could have made my life a lot different.
I have known about the importance of eating right and conditioning my body, but old habits are tough to break. When you add in the spans of time when doing these, it makes a difficult combination. Too much work, unplanned distractions, and self-doubt, make it easy to fall off the wagon.
I was doing OK in 2006. I was a little overweight, but was maintaining, and working out at a reasonable pace. Then my brain tumor struck, and everything changed. Although the surgery and therapy rid me of this menace, the chemo kicked my butt. From the time I began it until I was over the residual effects of the fatigue, was around two and a half years. By that time, I was far behind the eight-ball, and picking up martial arts again was a bigger hill to climb than I expected. Although the desire was there, I just couldn't muster enough encouragement to make it a priority. People around me were too busy with their own lives to take an interest in challenges that weren't their own. I never faulted anyone else, but it made my own climb an even steeper one.
I knew better though. In 2004, I gained my certificate as a personal fitness trainer, so I knew that deep inside it was up to me, it was just that all the effort to get it and all that had happened in between, seemed like a mountain I would never scale again. In the last two and a half years, if felt like my body's metabolism had changed. I was eating about the same, but the lack of any real physical activity, was helping me to pack on the pounds. Before I knew it, I was courting 200, and not very successful at getting it back off. I was still playing racquetball with my son, and going to the gym, but nothing was making a difference. I even hired a trainer at the gym to help me regain my old form, but despite this effort, I made little progress. I seem to be resigning myself to the fact that this was going to be the new me. I've tried several times since to make a difference, but nothing to date has taken off more than a few temporary pounds.
It was only by chance that I stumbled onto Drew Manning's clip on the news. I was intrigued by his experiment. Could this be the difference I was missing? Did this guy understand what many of us had tried and failed to do? That still remains to be seen, but contacting him through his web site, gave me a little hope.
The one thing that he told me though that I still am not sure I have, but he stressed as a very important part, and that is the support from those around me. I'm not talking about occasional patronizing remarks. I'm talking about solid, measurable support. All the diet, and exercise you can gather, is not going to get you where you need to go (particularly for someone like me), unless there is something more. I aim to try my best, but it will be tough to break old (practically hard-wired) habits, and put on a new suit of discipline.
The desire is there. Let's see how well it holds up when the rubber hits the road. Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment