Tomorrow Never Comes

When I started thinking about weight loss and dieting often I would put it off until “tomorrow”. The thoughts “I’ll start my diet tomorrow”, “Tomorrow is just at good as today anyway”, and “There won’t be a change in one day”. This went on for years because tomorrow is a day that will never come. This reasoning quickly polluted other areas of my life to the point were all I really did was eat garbage and play video games. I wasn’t happy or satisfied with my life and no wonder. When issues in my life arose, they were much more difficult to deal with because I would put them off and let them get worse before addressing them. My world was small and horrible.

The day I decided to go get a gym membership was the day something clicked. I had been reading about diet and weight loss online and watching transformation stories on YouTube for a little while. The thought of transforming myself was planted in my mind. I was still in a deep depressive state and thought that if this is how my life was going to go than it would be better to end it or actually try.

I looked into two local gyms and I was very uncomfortable and embarrassed walking in at my sorry state. I decided to go with the gym closest to my home to save as much travel time as I could. After I purchased my gym membership, I considered getting some pizza and ice cream as my last “free day” but then there was a angry voice that came screaming at me from within “If you start quitting now, you’ll always quit!” I changed my mind and started that night.

The gym I go to is a 24 hour gym so I always went in the middle of the night. This was mostly out of embarrassment, although I prefer lifting alone. Day after day I continued going to the gym faithfully. My diet was far from where is needed to be but I was gaining traction. At first I would just do cardio for as long as I could handle, with some breaks to catch my breath. I would generally go until I was just out of energy which was about 2 hours. After about 3 weeks I started trying out various machines and began some type of whole body routine. At roughly the 2 month mark I went to an upper – lower split and continued that with two cardio sessions one before and one after. I would use the machine calorie counter try to hit 200 calories before and after my workout. I kept this up for over a year without missing a day until switching routines.

I bargained with myself by having cheat days so that I would stay on my caloric deficit all week and look forward to that. Cheat meals are a better idea but when you are starting if a cheat day keeps you on track, then do it. Somedays after stuffing myself full after a cheat day I would feel like vomiting while working out but I would just push myself as much as I could. I felt like I deserved to feel the punishment while working out as a penance for being such a loser. It is ok to have some bad days at the gym. I feel that it is more important to show up and try than to have a perfect day. Doing something consistently will often reap more results than doing something perfect rarely.

Looking back the only thing I wish is that I had started sooner. It took getting to a pretty low place in my life for things to get so bad I felt forced to change. Bad times seem to be a driving force for growth, although not necessary for it. No one could have forced me to change even though it was for my betterment, the decision had to come from within. That day I made a committed decision to myself that I am still continually working on and it is continuing to reap results in my life.