Anyone who has known me for more than ten years, or has been an intimate part of my life in one form or another, knows that when stress hits, I hit back with exercise. To say that I’m an athlete would be a lie, but I’ve always dreamed of being in shape, not pear-shaped, but with a body that isn’t pudgy. The journey truly started in July of 2023, I’ve been battling depression my entire life, I have ADHD, and just eleven months earlier an event happened.
It was late August of 2022, I was working a job that I took for the money and it was located near the person I was dating and living with at the time. I had moved out in July and was now, once again, living alone, as I had been off and on since my divorce in January of 2019. My ex-wife from that divorce knew I liked to exercise and did it more often when I was stressed or depressed. Divorce does it, another failed relationship does it, and what was coming was definitely going to do it. I had started exercising because the job I had was killing me. I had just upped the weight on a shoulder exercise that week and was doing a pushup challenge, at 53 years of age. I tried to go to bed that night but the pain in my left arm was intensifying and I honestly thought I was having a heart attack. I called my ex girfriend, to stay on the phone while I drove to the ER. When I arrived I literally parked on the front steps of the ER and went inside stating, “I think I’m having a heart attack”. My blood pressure was 179 or something outrageous and I was given nitro. The kick to my head due to it instantly lowered my blood pressure. It was the night before school but I called my daughter that lived locally. She asked if I was okay and I said, “I think I’m dying.” She came as well as my youngest, who was pregnant with her first child, driving two hours to see me all wired up. That brought me back to when I was a young boy, my father had heart issues and was often on a monitor. The nitro had lowered my blood pressure too well and I was unable to be discharged, but they didn’t see any signs of a heart attack. I weighed in at 202 pounds. I texted my boss that I wouldn’t be in, I was the supervisor and payroll was due, he asked me if I could do it from there. I said where? The ER? He did it poorly but he did it, and I was discharged later that day and took the next day off, which angered him more. By the end of September I would walk off the job with no plan and no hope because what truly happened is I had torn my rotator cuff and left pectoral, my hope to get in shape was done, and soon my bank account would be done too.
I decided to take October off to contemplate my future, when in retrospect I should have found work immediately. I ran through my savings and wasn’t doing well. I was single, chatting here and there with people but felt disgusting but knew a grandchild was coming soon. In January of 2023 I met someone. It was going to be a long distance relationship with a married woman with a then six-year-old daughter, married but separated, more or less. Over the next few months we planned to meet, but the months passed until we finally met in July of 2023, roughly six months after we first started talking. We went to the New Zoo in Green Bay Wisconsin, a place I had gone to with my kids and all three wives. I loved it, to be “dad” again, and getting to show them around. Pictures were taken and it was when I looked at those pictures I realized that I was still close to 200 pounds and looked my nearly 54 years.
The visit led to another visit, this time in Texas. By then I had worked my way down to 185 pounds, which was about where I had been for over 20 years. That visit went wonderfully as we toured the Alamo and spent quality time together. But I simply couldn’t get that picture of 200-pound me at the zoo out of my head. In April of 2024, I decided to try to get treated for my ADHD. This required a letter from my therapist, one I had been seeing for a couple of years. I was then put on Aderral. A big side effect of this medication is that it kills your appetite. I started to lose weight and found my drive to return to the gym. May came and went, then June, and again it was time to see them again, this time at a waterpark hotel in Minneapolis before coming to my home in Wisconsin, (that’s a story for another day). I was now 175 pounds and had been working out and for the first time in decades, I took my shirt off to swim. I still wasn’t slim, but I felt good. It’s now the last week of September of 2024, and as of the 25th I’m 165 pounds and in the best shape of my life, but there’s more to do.
In late July I decided that I wanted to make fitness part of my career, to keep me motivated. With my new found focus, (that allowed me to write a book called Relationship PTSD, it’s on Amazon), I signed up for two courses, one on nutrition and one on strength and conditioning. If I pass the tests in February, 2025, I’ll be certified as a training and sports nutritionist. I’ve worked through the nutrition portion and will now need to study, and it has led me to want to be better than the best shape of my life, but be fit too. Today, September 25th I continue my journey from what I’ve learned so far to build muscle, (I have a good start), abs, and too just feel good about myself. I’ll keep you updated as I continue this journey towards the best me I can be, and hopefully a stepfather and one last marriage.
UpNorthMinimalist 