I’d love to sit here and tell you that my fitness journey began as a result of falli
ng ill or some military doctor solemnly telling me that if I didn’t change my life, I was going to die, but that isn’t my story. My story centers on a more primal perhaps even vain premise. Plain and simple I was 27 years old and I simply let myself go. I was fat, out of shape, and quite honestly unmotivated to do anything about it. It’s not like I even knew it was happening. In my youth I was always a guy who could eat anything and never gain weight. After all I was a 2 sport letterman in High School with an unstoppable metabolism. I had issues gaining weight as a football player but I could shed weight like nobody’s business during wrestling season. I just never connected the dots that this wouldn’t be my “blessing” for the rest of my life.
Looking back, it’s actually quite baffling how I never even realized how heavy I had let myself get or w
orse yet how far out of athletic shape I’d fallen. I distinctly remember a night of drinking and playing poker at a buddy’s house. For some godforsaken reason a scale was sitting next to the kitchen where we were playing and we decided to take bets on guessing each other’s weight. When my turn came, with a straight face I looked at everyone and said, “there’s no way I’m over 170.” Everyone buckled over in laughter. Seriously I thought they were gonna shit their pants. I couldn’t possibly be that far off could I? I stepped up on that scale and was blown away: 202 pounds!!! I was in such disbelief that I weighed myself 2 more times, needless to say it never changed. I even checked to make sure the damn scale was calibrated to 0 (as if that were the reason)! Each time I reweighed the “clowning” I received from my friends intensified (and rightfully so), I was completely unaware…somehow, I had “clowned” myself into thinking I was something I definitely wasn’t anymore. You could say that was the first realization I had about my weight, my “waking from the matrix” moment even though my fitness journey didn’t start for a bit afterwards.
You see I’m an Airman in the United States Air Force and as such there is a standard, dare I say requirement, to be “Fit to Fight”. That said, the first few years of my career, fitness testing was a joke; 
relegated to riding a stationary bike and monitoring my heart rate. If my HR maintained a specific threshold then I was considered “fit”. So rather than going for a run or doing some pushups and situps, my fit test prep consisted of downing a Mountain Dew and smoking a cigarette before walking into the testing facility. I wish I was lying but I’m not and I passed every time. Eventually (and thankfully) that test was replaced with a more realistic measure of cardio and strength endurance: a timed 1.5 mile run and a specific number of pushups and crunches in a minute. Needless to say the transition from bike to actual physical exertion wasn’t conducive to the girth I had packed on. I physically could not run an entire 1.5 miles without stopping. It was this point I knew I had to step up my game because my career literally depended on it.
Enter P90X into my life. Look, I’m not even going to bullshit you…I hated every day I had to do an hour and a half of yoga or every time I thought I was going to puke after plyometrics. Whatever poses I was doing didn’t look anything like what was on the TV screen and I spent half the time cussing whilst falling over. I WAL
KED through plyometrics for most of the program. The first major accomplishment I had was being able to finish the entire workout without stopping! But I did it, all 90 days of it and quite frankly was disappointed with my results. My before and after’s didn’t look like the infomercials. I kinda felt like I was duped BUT I went for my first run post P90X and ran a 14:21. That time is actually failing by today’s standards, but it was the first time I had run an entire test without stopping and it was also my fastest time ever. It was a major victory and I accepted it! Also somewhere along the way I had developed an enjoyment of working out; a passion. I had created the time in my day to do it and I didn’t want to let it go. Before I knew it I started dropping my run times, my waist size, my pounds. I’m not going to lie, I enjoyed what I was seeing…especially in the mirror. I was getting that swagger back. It didn’t happen overnight, it happened over the course of hard consistent daily choices. It was a transformation for me mind, soul, and body.
So as I round the final lap of my Air Force career I can look at myself in the mirror and honestly say I did a 180; an ABOUT-FACE if you will. For my final fitness test I ran a 9:35 mile and a half, 1 sec shy of a perfect score. I currently weigh as much as I did during my high school football days and aside from some gray hair and a few more wrinkles I’m feeling just as young as ever. Why am I telling you this? Because I’ve been there, I’ve told myself that I either don’t care, can’t afford it or don’t want to put in the work. If you are waking up to the fact that you want to be something better than your tired old excuses, I can help you get out of that rut. I KNOW I can because I dragged my ass out of it myself and I’m here to help you do the same if you’re willing to commit. So what do you say NEO, you ready to unplug from the matrix? Let’s talk!
ASP Fit-Life 