The Chronicles of “B”

I have been a BodySpace member for almost 2 years now.  When I started I was a 248 pound fat slob of a couch potato who couldn’t even bend over and tie my shoe without getting winded.  My diet was horrible and exercise was a foriegn concept to me at the time.  Basically all I did was work, sleep, eat and watch TV.

The funny thing is I didn’t realize that I was in fact slowly killing myself.  I was just doing what hundreds of thousand of Americans do each and everyday.  Same old routine day in and day out.

Thankfully I got a wake up call in the form of a picture that revealed to me just how far I had sunk into the abyss of obesity.

Then a trip to the cemetary on Memorial Day made me remember how the same lifestyle that I was currently living had taken my parents from me at a very early age.

I recalled the agonizing pain they suffered in their last days as they slowly succumbed to heart and liver disease.

I remember my father who was a proud and strong man lying there in a catatonic state unable to even feed himself.  I remember thinking how humiliated he would be if he knew that he had to wear a diaper and have strangers change it for him.

I remember my mother grabbing my shirt…in horrible pain…pulling me down to her and begging me to make it stop.

I remember the tubes running from her body bringing her food and pain medication.  I remember the beep…beep…beep of that God awful heart monitor and waiting for it to signal what we all knew but somehow tried to pretend was not really going to happen.

I remember the last few hours of her life when all hope of any recovery was gone and we waited by her bedside for the enevitable.  I remember standing there and holding her hand as the strongest woman I had ever known breathed her last breath.

My mom and dad grew up in a time when a typical meal was something fried in lard with a generous helping of potatoes smothered in gravy that was made from the drippings of the lard fried meat.

Everyone smoked….movie stars…athletes….hell even Doctors smoked.  No one was there to sound the alarm.  So my parents just did what every other normal American did and because they followed the crowd and didn’t think for themselves they paid the ultimate price.  My dad at 55 and my mom at 66!

One good thing did come from their passing though.  It taught me a hard lesson and one that I hope I can pass on to others by my example.

If I can turn my life around at the age of 50 to the point that I recently walked onto a stage and not only competed in a bodybuilding contest but walked away with the prize….then anyone can do it.  That’s why I do what I do….each and every single day.  All the hours I bust my hump in the gym.

It’s not for the trophys or the praise it’s in the hopes that others will learn from my example.

We don’t have to be typical when we can be exceptional!  We don’t have to end our lives in a nursing home just waiting around for the sweet relief that death will bring.  We can make it happen if we just try.  It’s really just that simple.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 5:23 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.