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I hit rock bottom twice. I was never overweight growing up- but after graduating from college and getting my first "sit at a desk all day" job the weight just started adding up. Before I knew it, I was over 200 lbs and disgusted with myself. My first trip to rock bottom, for me, was when my little boy wanted to go to the beach and I wouldn't take him solely because I couldn't

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I hit rock bottom twice. I was never overweight growing up- but after graduating from college and getting my first "sit at a desk all day" job the weight just started adding up. Before I knew it, I was over 200 lbs and disgusted with myself. My first trip to rock bottom, for me, was when my little boy wanted to go to the beach and I wouldn't take him solely because I couldn't stand how I looked. It broke my heart to think that I would live my life not doing the things I wanted to do(and have my kids miss out on an in-shape, energetic dad, because of the way I was trending.
Around this time my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child, a girl. This should sound insane, but I had visions of her being a teenager and bringing some guy home and me being obese and not being able to project an image capable of defending her. I know it sounds ridiculous but, for some reason, that was motivating for me. I started going to the gym 3-4 days a week, for about a half hour in the morning, on the elliptical machine. After 4 months of that I lost, maybe, 4 pounds. This was very discouraging & sort of demotivating. After my daughter was born I now had 2 kids under the age of 3 and absolutely no free time. Within months I was back up to 200lbs.
My second trip to rock bottom was about a year later, December 2005, and I was playing with my puppy (yep, puppy, 1 year old and 4 year old= not a lot of free time) and actually slipped in the grass, tweaked my back, and could not get back up for several minutes. I think my pride took a bigger hit than my back there. I was only 27 years old and already ready for a spot on the "Help- I've fallen and I can't get up!" commercial.
With the new year of 2006 I resolved to stop eating so much junk. Cutting down red meat to 1 serving a week inherently forced me to cut back on McDonalds & Burger King etc (where I previously went EVERY DAY) to... well, to never. Literally, within a month of doing that I was shocked to find out I was down 15 lbs to 185! I honestly thought I must have cancer (bit of a hypochondriac) because there's no way I should have lost that much weight that quickly.
After plateauing, I realized I had to start exercising if I was going to continue to improve my health. I started running and signing up for 5k races... and half marathons. I loved running but was constantly injured. So it was difficult to ever stay on a routine for several months at a time.
Finally, my brother in law recommended P90x, my father had already bought the DVDs so I was able to borrow them to try them out and see if I liked them. I loved them. I tend to overthink things- so part of what I loved about p90x is that you don't have to think about it. You have a schedule set up and you just commit for 90 days to just follow it. Just do it. When I tried to do it by myself in the past, there's so much conflicting information on the internet, I would get almost overwhelmed with data, and sometimes use that to create excuses or justifications for me to not do things. W/ p90x you just pick out the DVD you're supposed to do for that day, throw it in, Push Play, and just do your best. As long as you just follow along w/ the routine you'll get results. And after working so hard, I find that I'm less likely to overindulge in eating a lot of the junk that I have cravings for. I actually find myself looking forward to my workouts each day. Now I'm constantly being told by family and friends that I'm "too skinny," lol, it's ok, I know I still have a ways to go- but I can definitely see improvements each day which gives me extra confidence, which really feeds on itself.

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