My Fit Journey
Today’s episode is entitled My Fit Journey. Thanks for checking out the video. I am also on Spotify at Fit Hippy Dad. And check my website out at fithippydad.com. Please like this video and subscribe to my channel. BTW….Hippy is spelled hippy. I’ll take just a few minutes to review my journey and dive into the Fitness part of my journey-the physical part.
Fit means to be physically and mentally and spiritually fit. It’s about being sober-minded. Today we will continue to focus on the physical part of my fit journey. So, to review, I am now 55, with hip replacements. I had the right hip done at 28, revised at 39, and the left hip was done when I was 32. I still have that hip after 23 years. I had Avascular Necrosis, or AVN for short. It means dead tissue. Basically my hips had no blood flow. How, we still don’t know. Genetics, medicine side-effects. Who knows. Once I found out, the damage was done. I was a normal boy growing up, but by my mid twenties, I was fat. It was gradual. When you don’t weigh yourself, you can delude yourself. The pants shrink in the dryer, right…So, once I was diagnosed with AVN at 28 in 1997. I lost about 60 pounds in about a year. I was about 248 and was about 185 for the first surgery in 1998. I did it by having a physical job at a grocery store, smoking instead of eating, and being aware and mindful of what I ate. I kept smoking until 2002 and quit after the 2nd surgery on the other leg. I replaced smoking with exercise and would ride a stationary bike instead of smoke. I was 176 when I went in for the surgery in 2002 and was 169 weeks later. I now weigh about 160. I weigh less now than I did after I quit smoking and even when I was in 6th grade. I am 5’11 and was that height in 6th grade. How many people can say that? I am proud of this! Anyway, from 2002-2013 I probably exercised up to about 2 hours a day, mostly cardio. I did cut back as time went on. I moved, walked, 10 thousand steps a day was the minimum. I practiced NEAT: Non-Exercise-Activity-Thermogenesis. It means moving without exercise. I’ll again add some links in the show notes. I would park far away from the store to get more steps, no escalators and elevators. I took breaks throughout the day to move. It’s fidgeting. It’s just moving in small ways throughout the day. Before we dive into the fitness part my journey, I must say that I probably did have an unhealthy obsession with working out and keeping the weight off. I constantly monitored what I ate to the point that I could guesstimate how many calories I consumed everyday for years. I have scaled back all this, but there are still remnants left. It really is a work in progress.
Okay, so now we are in about 2013 and I discovered working out, lifting weights. I was the Athletic Director at my middle school that I taught. The football kids wanted to lift weights during the offseason and needed someone to supervise. I figured I would do it. I also figured if I am going to supervise, I might as well work out as well. And, I loved it. In fact, I soon moved the training schedule from two to three days a week and sometimes even four days a week.
Backing up a couple of years, back in about 2011-2012, my fiance soon to be wife recognized that I was exercising too much and pushed me to limit cardio or the stationary bike to 45 minutes a day. That was hard to do but I did it. Instead, I could now lift weights. I left my school in 2014 and did the district-level office job in education in another district. I could no longer work out in the gym at school. Instead, I joined the local park district at my new school district and worked out during my hour lunch. Working out consisted of either a 4 day split of 2 days legs, back, and arms and 2 days of chest, shoulders, triceps and some core/ab work. Or, I did 3 full body workouts a week. I’ll save the specifics of the working out for another video. Fast forward a few years and I discovered CrossFit or HITT or high intensity interval training. I loved CrossFit. But, at some point, it became a financial burden, think divorce and child support so now I do HITT at home. I split between a back and legs day that always involves kettlebell swings and a chest and shoulders day. When I have my children overnights I still do some exercise, even if it’s 100 pushups and 50 kettlebell swings. Burpees are not my favorite but I’ll throw those in once in a while, yea, thanks CrossFit for introducing me to burpees. Burpees are an amazing exercise. They just suck while doing them.
As we wrap up this video, I have to confess something…I don’t think I have missed a day of some sort of exercise, even if it’s a 10 minute walk in years. Remember, it’s all about awareness and movement. Just move!
The biggest takeaways I think to my fit journey, the physical part, is really the awareness and movement. I hope you realize you can lose weight and be a better you without needing drugs. I struggle with that with the people in my life who I know take Ozempic or the W drug. Forgetting the name of that one.
I think in the next video I’ll pivot a bit and talk about the religious or spiritual fit part of my life.
Don’t forget the Spotify channel and Fit Hippy Dad and my website fithippydad.com. Also, remember to like and subscribe to my channel today.
Until next time, thank you and God Bless!