New blog series: Choosing a healthier path

For some of us, the fitness lifestyle comes easy.

You played sports in school. Your parents were active and instilled that value in you from an early age. Your partner or family loves active adventuring. You have a dog or a pet that keeps you moving. These early-formed habits are usually something you take with you through your entire life. Keep up the good work!

But for many of us, we didn’t make the team, or we didn’t enjoy high school sports, or we didn’t give two shi*ts about exercise until we had a health crisis and needed to get healthy. Or we saw someone else go through that experience and didn’t want it to happen to us.

It’s one of those it’s not important until it’s extremely important kind of moments.

That’s my story. I managed my anxiety, stress and extremely low self-esteem by drinking, smoking and eating like crap. I was never extremely overweight, but I wasn’t healthy. I suffered from pretty severe gastrointestinal symptoms for years until I finally started looking into the causes.

After several tests with no answer, I got a colonoscopy to test for Crohn’s and IBD. The good news is they didn’t find any of that. But the bad news is that they did find an adenoma — a precancerous polyp.

That probably should have been my wake-up call right then and there, but it wasn’t. I continued to be unhealthy, eat unhealthy, drink lots of beer, you know, things that promote cancer development. One positive thing I did for myself was finding a new job, away from the extreme stress of producing a daily newspaper.

But the stomach pain didn’t completely go away. I ended up having another exam a few years down the road, and while there was no adenomas this time, the polyps were still continuing to develop. Adding to that was the fact that my body was developing more serious reactions to my environment, and my allergies sidelined me.

My body was done.

I sunk into a deep depression because I was in constant pain. I had a severe sinus headache every single day. I desperately sought relief for all of this by visiting several ENTs and the allergist. Eventually, I got put in several allergy medications and decided that this was the last straw. I’m cleaning up my life.

I quit drinking, I vowed never to touch another smoke again, and I started going to the gym religiously. Group fitness became my rock. I went to as many classes as I could, because it helped me to forget about everything at least for the time I was in there. I had a crew that I could laugh and enjoy myself with.

I started focusing on strength gains and thought lifting was really fun. I spent a lot of time chasing strength gains and muscle growth. At one point I could deadlift 205 lbs! I wanted to be big and strong, and I thought it was fun.

But I eventually got kind of bored with going to the gym and feeling stuck inside all the time. I got preoccupied with my own body, and I wasn’t enjoying it that much. I’ve always had body image issues, and this just made me feel more self-aware of them. Plus, I enjoyed my workouts way more when I was surrounded by people who made things fun.

That’s when I started focusing more on cardio-based hobbies like running, cycling, spinning. Through a couple years of immunotherapy for my allergies, I’m once again able to enjoy being outside, and I’ve learned to manage my symptoms and inflammation a lot better. Not being in constant pain is a plus, but it’s not something I would’ve achieved without turning my life around.

…

Maybe you can relate to that story. Maybe you haven’t hit that spot yet. Maybe you are terrified of hitting that spot and want to make changes now.

Well, good news: You totally can. And it’s never too late to start.

I want to let you know up front that it is a long and slow process. There’s no miracle diet or magic answer to get fast results. Long-term changes require long-term investments. That is the road we are going to take, not the GET ROCK SOLID ABS IN 12 WEEKS one.

The first step is accepting that you will fail a lot, and that failure will be hard to overcome at times. The learning and self-discovery process is a life-long journey, though. It is honorable and admirable. And there are so many people that will help you along the way! The most important piece to remember is that you just have to keep going, and even while “failure” may make you feel bad, learning from your mistakes is the most important thing you can do.

One example of this kind of failure is that I used to always think that running was the ultimate measure of fitness. I constantly did this yo-yo thing where I’d get into running and then stop because I hated it. I don’t know why I thought that, but no wonder I was failing at exercise. I was doing something I didn’t enjoy! But oh man, now if you give me a challenging HIIT class, I’ll be ALL IN. It’s so much easier to motivate myself to go to the gym and maintain a healthy routine because it’s something I absolutely love.

So while ultimately I failed at running, I succeeded in finding what made me keep coming back to workout day after day. Sure, it was discouraging at first. But I stuck with it, and kept going, and eventually found my thing.

Let’s get you headed in the right direction

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to write a new blog post each week about that process of discovery, about that trial-and-error, about that desire for change and how you can start your journey toward a healthier life.

We’ll start with the overall benefits of health, and why it matters.

Then we’ll look at the three YOU’s and discover a new way of thinking about our selves and our bodies.

And then we’ll hop into goal setting, discovering what motivates you, choosing which types of fitness will ultimately make you happy, and then diving into things that will steer you off-course.

I’m excited to get this project started! It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, so I hope you find this information valuable. You can reach out to me at any time if you need individual help with some of these questions. I won’t be able to answer health-related questions (please see your doctor, I am not a professional, just a motivator).

But we can start with mindset, goals and motivation: Some of your most important tools for making a lifestyle change!