I have always been active, doing all kind of (team) sports and I’ve been going to the gym to get better in those sports. Due to moving around I had to stop doing the team sports of my choice and my motivation for doing necessary cardio disapeared and my lifing got lazy. I still got into the gym, but I had no goals and no reason to push myself. I am the guy who doesn’t have the most talent, but I will bleed for my teammates. While playing football I never missed a training even when I blew out my knee. I was on the sideline trying to encourage them, trying to do whatever I could for them to still reach OUR goals. I even cried by myself on the sidelines at a practice once standing on my own. I cried because I wasn’t able to be in that huddle, calling plays, getting in on gang tackles, throwing blocks on an INT. When I was in the service I made sure of not being the one that complained because something was too hard, I gave my everything for my team to get the job done. I love being a member of a group pushing towards a common goal. When I went to the gym before, that was always in the back of my mind. When I put on my running shoes, that was always in the back of my mind. "I will NOT let my buddies down!!".
I never thought of being healthy as a reason to train. I never set goals for just myself and that came to bite me in the good old behind when I went out of the service, footballcareer done. I had to move because of job opportunities, away from friends and family. Suddenly on my own. Even though I had completed an education revolving around being healthy and staying healthy, I never saw that as something that applied to me. I had never been the one skipping practice or going to the gym. I spent over 2 years to figure that out, still going to gym my fitness level dropped. I never got really fat or really weak, but I was in decline. My total activity level had gone down, it wasn’t enough to just lift half ass weights 4 times a week (and not really pushing it). I had never taken eating right super serious, just something like 75%. I definitly didn’t make a serious commitment to cardio, sports had taken care of that for the most part.
So last year I decided to get a job as an spinning instructor. I sure as hell didn’t look the part. Rarely do you see a spinning instructor being 5′7 and almost 230ibs!! But I decided this was my new team and noone was going to work harder than me in class. When I have a class I want them to look at me and see that I’m working hard, I’m dripping sweat, that I’m giving it my everything, sometimes struggling to shout out instructions. Getting this job also gave me some structure to my cardio training. I could feel that I was getting in better shape, lost some pounds.
So then I bought myself a mountain bike, and when spring came I started riding on my own. I set goals for every ride. I was going to go up that hill or that mountain or today I’m going to ride 30miles, I would not turn around halfway through. I experienced the satisfation of motivating myself for my own welfare, getting out of the house, breathing fresh air and being the best that I could be. I signed up for a race at summers end and knew that if I was going to be able to get through those 45 miles over a mountain I had to ride a lot. But I made every ride fun. Setting a goal for that particular ride. I finished near the bottom in my class in the race, but I’m going to ride the same race next year and I will improve. I will make a significant jump in my time. It’s not even an option to not doing way better than last year…
So this winter I’ve cleaned up my diet quite a bit, started to get a little bit of seriousness back into my weighttraining and I’ve been kicking ass in my cardio. I’ve dropped over 25ibs since October. It doesn’t hurt that I like what I see in the mirror better now than just a year ago. But that’s just added motivation. I want to be healthy and I will never ever not have goals for my training. I will forever be grateful to all the awesome people that I have been on different teams with, but nothing lasts forever…teams dissolve as we grow older. Thankfully I have found a new team consisting of just me and myself. It’s not a team that will last forever either, but at least the timeframe is a bit longer. My team will be better this year, even if it’s just competing against myself.
Thanks, people of BB.com for all your help and support so far!!
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