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| Yours truly, December 1996. Photo by Stazja Caprix |
Start here. It's December 1996 and my daughter (8 at the time) and I are playing photo session. Before i get into the shower I strike a few body builder poses (I'm actually holding my stomach IN) and go on about my shower. When the pictures came back I realized I was a fattie!! I won't go in to how much fun I was having in the 90s, you can see it on my frame. The only weight I remember from this era was 225 lbs. I may have been a few pounds more, maybe a few less.
Something had to be done. My motivation? My daughter, a precocious kid who I knew would grow up to be gorgeous. I knew that in the next five years she'd be dating and I could either be 25 pounds lighter or 25 pounds heavier. I pictured myself as some fat sloppy dad sitting in the Lazy-Boy recliner trying to dictate to some jock when he should have my baby home. I envisioned myself at 250 lbs., maybe more, trying to regulate. I imagined my daughter embarrassed and her date not even feigning courtesy or respect as he flagged me with his hands and walk out the door with my kid.
This image went entirely against my "Protector" personality. I set my ideas in motion. I had read that to get back into condition one should allow as many years as it took to get deconditioned. For me, that was 10 years; so I split it into two five year plans. Part I - bench press my own weight. Because I'd been lifting weights since I was twelve [thanks Dad] and all through my military service, that's what I knew. I joined the YMCA and went at it.
The results weren't what you see in fitness magazines. It took me an entire year to just to start going to the Y on a regular basis. At the time I was a single dad raising a 9 year daughter and 5 year old son. I signed them up for martial arts lessons and while they were training, I was training. The short story is, in five years I dropped 25 pounds and I'd achieved my bench press goal, along with a lot of other achievements that weren't even on my list at the beginning.
With the help of some photo editors with fancy special effects I am gathering together images from this near two decades long fitness journey. The images will come together as I discover them, the words as I remember them. By the time this is completed, the journey may have extended to twenty years.
If you're a friend, someone who new me back then, a dad with a beautiful daughter, a veteran or jock who's become deconditioned, feel free to follow along. Most of the hard work is behind me now, but the lessons I've learned along the way are valuable. The fitness industry has changed over the past two decades, but the fundamentals are still the same. You will have to make the decisions, set the goals, make the time and do the work. This page and your humble scribe is merely here to guide you along your own journey.
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| January 5, 2003. This is the year I stepped into digital photography and discovered my back. All the upper body work I was doing really carved it out, although the belly was sill bigger than I wanted and flabby. |
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| March 2005. At this point I'm in weighing in around 190 - 195 lbs. I've just become certified as a personal trainer and I'm concerned that I could stop training if I get too busy as a trainer. Also I've just come off my strongest year nearly reaching my bench press goal of 300 lbs. I learned a bit about myself and goals in 2004. Nine year into the journey. |
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| July 2007. Two months earlier I started teaching a group fitness class called "Awesome Abs" at Temple University. I've been "leading sessions" there ever since. |
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