My favorite number.....9

Just finished the second of two workouts for the day. (For those keeping count, its 12 in 9 days.)

I'm pretty much beyond the point now of worrying about nutritional slip ups, I'm in a routine and I like the way I feel. I'm feeling results, so it's just a matter of keeping it up. I don't crave soda, I give myself enough sugar that I won't all of a sudden want to binge on Hershey bars and I'm eating enough small meals during the day that I don't truly get to where I feel like I'm "starving" except when I first wake up in the morning (obviously sleeping is the longest amount of time I go without eating in a 24hr stretch.) Of course the best part of the day, most days, has been to see what Jodi has planned for dinner!! Tonight was no exception. She just keeps being awesome....I'm pretty sure she doesn't know how to be anything else but awesome (but don't tell her I said that, she'll get a big head about it.)


So, everyone has different stories and different motivations. Take a look at www.teamddpyoga.com and you'll see thousands of different stories as to why people are "owning their life" and have embraced the program. Some are doing it for weight loss, some to heal from injuries, some to gain strength or flexibility and some just because they like trying every fitness thing they can.

Well...for me, being out of shape or even "fat" still seems like a foreign concept.  It shouldn't, I've struggled with weight for over a third of my life now. But like everyone else, I had my "glory days." I still see myself as the same guy in those glory days. I played professional baseball. I was pretty damn good, too. When I was younger, I had a heck of a build, muscles on top of muscles (in some places,) certainly wasn't ashamed to take my shirt off in public. Could do push ups, pull ups and run all day long. Then, what seems like all in just one day, it all went away.

My loose 34 pants became 36's...shortly after 38's.  My son is born, then my daughter, shortly after I bought my first pair of pants that had a waist size in the 40's. I decided, in my mid-20's that I was still young enough to give baseball another shot (I left the game voluntarily)and gave myself six months to get back in shape. Physically, I got to, pretty close to where I was in my late teens, but my arm was gone.  My 90+ mile an hour fastball was not even hitting 80. It was a hard reality, but I was no longer an athlete.

I stopped working out. Again. Stopped eating right...again. I focused my energies on my work and my kids and I actually did quite well at both, but the weight kept coming back on. 38....40....42. When I started with my company 11 (almost 12) years ago, I was a size 44 in the jacket.  At one point in my career, I bought a 50.  That's a huge difference.  One I was never happy with.

It didn't go unnoticed by me. I'd do little things here and there for quick fixes.  When I got to 42 pants, I'd starve, give up sodas or do whatever to get back to a 40, hoping for a 38.  Then, slowly but surely, I'd be right back again, bigger than before.

I don't like being called "big guy."  I did't like having people jokingly pick on me about my weight.  I didn't like helping a guy in the big and tall section and having him say something along the lines of "yeah, guys like US have to do what we have to do." But I never did enough to change it.  Always something, never enough.

Back and forth for over a decade.  One quick fix after another.  Nothing permanent. This excuse or that excuse.

Then came the day I asked and she said yes. Then I started preparing mentally for the change.  Not the quick fix, not the temporary change, the permanent, life-altering change. 

I have someone who loves me unconditionally she won't love me a single ounce more if I have sculpted abs on our wedding day, just like she wouldn't love me any less if I showed up that day weighing 300 pounds.  She loves my kids as if they were her own and she is an amazing mother, spouse (close enough, we live together) and most importantly, best friend. I treat her like a princess and I spoil her in every single way I can (don't belive me?, ask her, she'll back me up) and this, this journey, this change, this new me, the end result, will be just another in the many ways I show her that I love her.  That I can be better for her. But also, that I can be better for me...once and for all.