Changes: Five years and counting

Five years ago I weighed somewhere around 235 pounds, give or take a few pounds. To be quite honest, I avoided the scale at all costs back then. That’s why I’m uncertain as to exactly how high those numbers really got. All I know is that after a month of trying to “eat better”, I finally climbed on the scales to weigh because I knew that I had lost some inches due to my clothes fitting looser. Only then did the reality of the situation give me a damn hard slap across the cheek: 225 pounds. Within the month I was a card carrying member of the local gym.

I won’t go into all the details of my decision to join a gym. I had my “aha!” moment and that was that. It was no longer an issue of wanting to join a gym, it was a matter of needing to join the gym. It was a matter of me taking responsibility for how far I had let myself go. It was a matter of deciding, once and for all, what was more important: living life to its fullest and seeing my children grow up or not. I opted for the former.

Joining a gym wasn’t the entire answer, though. Little did I realize the extent of the journey that was before me.

I spent the next three years of my life educating myself in all things fitness, nutrition, and health related. I read everything I could put my hands on. I was a sponge. I had a hunger and thirst for knowledge, which was a huge change from having a hunger and thirst for things that put pounds of fat upon my ever expanding ass. It was finally my brain’s turn to benefit from the constant knowledge cravings I was feeding.I not only focused on learning through reading, but I experimented with my newfound knowledge as often as possible. If I read about fat loss through carbohydrate cycling, I would perform my own experiment with it and find out if it worked for me. I had some success and I had some failures. Through trial and error, I learned what worked for me and what didn’t. This, in turn, helped me weed out some of the “fads” and “myths” that exist about nutrition and fitness. We all know about those, right?

It is my hope that with this site I can share what I have spent the last five years learning for myself - with you. In the process, I hope to help further debunk all the “fads” and “myths” that exist out there about health, fitness, nutrition, and weight loss. I know from experience that it can be very intimidating to tackle such things without knowing and fulling understanding the basics. It’s hard to learn and understand the basics with all of the false information and fad tech gadgets that the weight loss industry wants to push on us that don’t work, will never work, and never meant to work. Do I know it all? Of course not. No one knows it all. The health/fitness/nutrition industry is a booming business and ever-changing. There are new studies released each day claiming something different. And, like all other businesses, has people in it to make a buck. It’s important to know how to sift through the study results and weed out the money makers and still gain a working and understandable knowledge of how to get and keep a healthy body, mind, and spirit.

With the invention of this site, I also hope to renew my own commitment to myself and my health. In the last five years I have gained a lot of knowledge, but what good is knowledge if you don’t put it to use every day? And how can one justify not learning more and putting it to use, as well? I managed to rid my body of 70 pounds of fat in three years. After those three intensive years of tracking every single move I made and every single thing I did, I took a much needed break. Seeing as how I’m human, it was easy to get off track. Consistency became a word that meant less and less to me, especially over the last year. As a result, I’ve gained weight and I’m wearing jeans a couple of sizes bigger. How much do I weigh? I honestly couldn’t tell you. Do I care? You know I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t, at least to some extent. Do I care enough to weigh? No, I don’t. Because it’s not about a number on the scale for me anymore. It’s about my health. It’s about my fitness level. It’s about my nutrition habits. It’s about how I feel. While the physical changes I have endured over the last five years have been remarkable to some, I am still amazed at the emotional and mental changes that took place. My mindset is in a different place now. And this renewal is something I need. It’s something I want. And I hope it’s something that you can benefit from, as well.

Welcome to Bicycle Blues. I hope you enjoy the ride.