Fitness

At the age of 41, almost 42, never did the phrase “I need to do yoga” ever cross my mind as something that I would be saying. Somewhere along the way of life, I realized that my knees would not hold up enough for me to be a runner anymore.

Yoga has become a great way to be a stress reliever from work and life, but also gives me a chance to workout. I’ve gained more flexibility in the last several weeks, than I had in years of going to the gym.

My wife and I had decided to get back into working out, but we not only had different goals, but we had different preferences of what we used to work out with. She went with Beachbody and that is great, it works for her, but it didn’t work for me. I went with DDP Yoga, which challenged me and I was able to relate to the injuries that some of the athletes had, my wife could not get with it.

The outcome, we are both working out daily, tracking our progress and our goals. And more importantly, we are determined. We are determined to live healthier lifestyles, which in turn, teaches the boys to be healthier. As I told a co-worker today, I didn’t put on 20 lbs of extra weight overnight, so it is going to take a lot of extra work to get it off too.

But what I’m learning, is that I’m it isn’t just yoga that is helping, it is working on meal planning and ensuring that the entire family is eating healthier as well. So, as I sit on the sofa, the boys are asleep, I’m working on meals for the next two weeks and planning out my workout schedule.

Who knew that yoga could be fun?

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As we grow older and face certain realities, we realize that life changes have to be the first thing that we evaluate and begin changing.

This week I started my P90 Workouts and Shakeology & of course I got sick. It seems that whenever I start to really workout, I seem to always get sick. But this time, I did something different. I was able to get in 1 workout in the last 3 days and should be able to get back into tomorrows workout, but I modified my diet and I’m happy to report that I’m down 5 pounds already.

But weight loss is only one of the life changes that I’m making. I’ve also cut back drinking alcohol to 1 beer or a glass of wine a day. I was really only doing 1 – 2 a day anyway, which is going to really help with the weight loss too. And the other big life change is that I’ve started evaluating all of my recipes and coming up with healthier ways to cook them.

Life changes are hard. But change is hard, but my hope is that the changes that I’m working on implementing and plan on continuing will allow me to be around a long time for my children and my wife.

 

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Changing leavesJust like the leaves are changing and the seasons are changing, I am finding the need to make some changes in my life too. And today seems like a greT day to start.

1) lose weight – I need to lose 30 pounds atleast, but probably more  I want to be around for my kids.  So today I walked about 10,000 steps, and continued to modify my diet by implementing a morning Beachbody Shakeology Shake.

2) find a church home – This has really bothered me, just as much as the being overweight.  I miss the church and fellowship that I had when I was in Texas and it is something that I want my kids to  have as they grow up.

3) better financial position – This is a constant struge for most Americans.  One minute I feel that we are moving in the right direction, the next I am up all night worrying.  My wife and I are really focused on getting out of debt and have been throwing all the extra cash that we can at paying down credit card debt.  But, if we can get all of our debt paid off in 2 years, we should be able to save enough to pay for all 4 years of college for both boys and increase our 401k contributions from 8 to 12%+!

4) technology- My job and life revolves around technology  so this is going to be hard.  But I really want to cut back on my usage and dependency on technology.  This is crucial because I constantly get emails, text messages, calls, etc and everytime one of those messages comes in at night, it takes away from my kids.

These are a lot of changes and I realize that.  But i have asked several friends and my wife to help keep me accountable and focused.  So as the seasons are changing and the leaves have started to slowly change colors, I too am changing and I hope that these changes are for the best and for my sons.

 

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Kids, they say the darnedest things, but when it is true, it just gets you. Tonight, Baby A got me good. I was rocking him and he says “Daddy, Big Tummy”.

Do I need to lose weight, yes. Am I working on it, yes, but apparently not fast enough. I wasn’t expecting that from my son. Well, I guess I know what I need to do, starting to hit the gym, so that daddy can get rid of his “Big Tummy”.

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