One topic I have been meaning to post about on here for months: I have been exercising four days a week, every week, with 2 exceptions (both times because of illness).
I'm not completely sure what started it, but I know a few factors.
One was my older brother (who is just about the only person who reads this blog, so hiiiii) showing up to Christmas last year more fit than I had seen him since high school. The men in my family - my father, uncle, and grandfather - all have a distinct rotundity, and I had kind of given in to the fact that I was eventually going to have an affable pudge, with a body shape like Theodore Roosevelt. Knowing that someone with my genetics and love of food could decide to turn around their physical fitness in a year was a huge source of inspiration.
A second was that my wife and I were already cutting down on sugar (and to a lesser extent, carbs in general) after watching a few documentaries on the problems of obesity in America. I haven't changed my diet quite as extensively as she has, but it still shocks me a little when I get to the checkout at the grocery store and find the shopping cart filled with fruit, veggies, protein, and dairy rather than bread, sugar, sugar, and sugar.
A third, my schedule shifted at work, and I found myself with an additional break every day. I decided to start using one break a day to work out, and I've done it every work day since then - and occasionally on weekends, too.
I was also already paying for the gym.
Perhaps the most important reason why I've continued working out for so long was the fact that I never got a chance to stop and think about how long I had been doing it before it was already a habit. Time flies so quickly when you're working my schedule that it was a month before I really thought woah, how long have I been doing this? I got to make progress before I had a chance to make excuses.
It's nice to walk into the gym, see the weights laid out on the rack, and see my progress. Ten pound free weights were a lot when I started, and now I'm using 25s and occasionally the 30s.
It's nice in daily life, too. We helped a friend move, and after a whole day of slinging boxes, I was fine the next day. Before starting to work out, a day moving would have meant I would be utterly ruined the next day. Instead? Piece of cake.
It's weird to write, think, and talk about, because I was never a "working-out" kind of guy. I went to the gym with my dad occasionally, cycled through a few martial arts for years, and did basketball camp in elementary school (including the time I got a mild concussion), but I was decided not a "sports kid." I was the "picked last" kind of guy. I was never a "cruising through town flexing at chicks" kind of guy.
Maybe that's why I don't mind it as much now. I'm not competing with anyone, just improving myself. I'm not trying to impress the ladies, just enjoying it when I pick something up and my wife looks pleasantly surprised at my arm. I don't have to become a person who works out, I just have to work out and continue being me.
