Hey guys, I’m the digital marketer for Flaman Group of Companies. I'm 29 years old, married to a beautiful lady, with a 7-year-old step-daughter and a 7-month old son. I’m about 5’9” and I weigh somewhere around 180 lbs.But there was a time from 2014 to 2017 where I ballooned to about 200 lbs from the 175 lbs I weighed in university, mostly from a toxic combo of bad diet, over-indulgence and a lack of exercise.
I wasn’t happy with myself and I vowed to make some serious changes, which included eating better and being more active. In early 2018 my brother and I trained for a half marathon, and besides getting down to 177 lbs, we both crossed the finish line with a time of 2:08, running the whole way without any walking breaks.
Not long after, my son was born. To be honest, I didn’t think it would affect my life much; hoooo boy I was wrong. Everything changes. Goodbye after-work downtime. Goodbye free time in general. Goodbye sleep.Oh man… I loved sleep.
The point I’m trying to get across is that I no longer have a ton of time to dedicate to working out. That’s why when I stepped on the scale at the end of December and it read 187 lbs, I decided to get back into shape.It had a little to do with the excessive treats and adult beverages over the holidays and a lot to do with getting complacent again.
So, I devised a doable plan. It started with getting up a little earlier every weekday to exercise before work, instead of trying to squeeze a workout in after the kids went to bed, which I had attempted in the past and failed at.Since driving to a gym in the morning was also out of the question, I decided to start at home by doing a 15-minute high intensity interval training (HIIT) kettlebell workout or a 25-minute yoga YouTube video.
One of the best parts of working out at home is that my home gym is about as simple and cost effective as it could be, consisting of 2 kettlebells (6 kg and 8 kg), a yoga mat, yoga block and a strap.If I had more space to work with, I’d have liked to have a few more pieces to my home gym like a weight bench, adjustable dumbbells, inversion table and a Max Trainer but for now I’m keeping it simple. Total cost was less than $100 and it provides all the sweat-inducing punishment I can handle before my day even really begins.
When my alarm goes off at 5:45 AM, I’m not exactly inclined to stroll out of my cozy bed. But when I think of my 15-25 minute time commitment, one simple two-word phrase has become my mantra: NO EXCUSES. It’s a simple little change I made in my life and it’s yielded big-time results so far.I’ve successfully exercised for at least 15 minutes a day every single day in 2019. I’ve also lost 7 lbs so far and I have so much more energy than I used to. It’s a huge turnaround from my lethargic existence to cap off 2018.
Here's the thing, though: it’s a long-lived joke that gyms get packed on January 1 and are ghost towns by the time the calendar changes over to February.That’s because people set unrealistic goals (or don’t set any at all) and aren’t willing to make small changes that result in slow, incremental benefits.Rather than deciding to go from 0 workouts in a week to working out 5 days a week for an hour like most people are inclined to do, start at 2 days a week and 20-minute workouts and grow from there.I am confident that I can keep this going because I’ve found a routine that works for me.
I can say from experience that the first few days were a grind, but a sadistic feeling has slowly started to creep in: I actually look forward to my alarm going off because it’s another opportunity to be better than I was the day before.It’s a mentality that has required a little bit of will and some hard work. It sounds so cliché but really and truly, if I can do it anyone can.So, what’s your excuse?