Character My faith My family and friends My wife My crazy quest for FITNESS! The new year - going fast already

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Character - My crazy quest for FITNESS!

What's fueling you?

Growing up as a kid, life's nutritional chart consisted at times of Doritos, potato chips, cheese curls, and chili cheese dogs. I certainly enjoyed eating them back then. I still enjoy the occasional indulgence. However, my point of view of how I eat has changed drastically.

How did that happen?

I got my hands on a copy of Body of Work, a videotape produced by Bill Phillips that introduced the world to a brand new method of bodybuilding. It was designed to get results, not just in the gym, but in multiple facets of an individual's life. Bill called this approach "building a body for life." As I watched the videos, I saw people that went through his exercise plan and came out drastically physically changed, as well as changed internally.

I wanted to find out how those people changed, and how I could do the same. I bought Bill Phillip's Body for Life book in a bookstore and sat down with it. I started to read and thumb through it, and decided to go to my college gym more often. I wanted to succeed. However, like so many other things in my life at the time, I only gave it a half-hearted effort. My effort level fizzed out a few months later. That was 1998.

Four years later, I was married, living in Pennsylvania, and casually pursuing diet plans with my wife, but really not putting my heart and soul into them. Over that holiday season, I took a look at myself and thought how badly I wanted to look ripped for my wife, how I wanted to be healthy for her and our future children. I resolved to join a gym in January of 2003 to pursue the goal of getting in shape.

I wanted to get in shape because of Holly, because of my dissatisfaction with the way I felt and looked, and because I wanted to know what it felt like to physically look in shape. I still have not reached my goal, but I know that one of the things that started the fire inside of me was the desire to finally get myself in the best shape of my life.

Climbing the mountain

I was almost 25. I had a huge belly, and a desire to get buff. I joined a local gym and started going in the mornings as I had the time. Initially I only went once or twice a week. The first few weeks were harsh - I would feel sore the next day after going to the gym, and I don't think I initially had as much energy. It was hard to move through the slush of being out of shape. But January melted away into February. As I started going a little more and more, I began reaping the benefits: carrying my body better, being able to walk more and more without being so tired, and building my energy stores. The only problem was the way I ate, but at the least, I was starting to work on my body.

My wife and I took a break from the gym in the month of March due to personal events that we needed to deal with. We returned in April, even more determined to get in shape and do the best we could. April turned to May, and one of the fitness trainers became interested in helping us out. He cut us a really great deal and started to guide us in terms of what kinds of workouts to do, what motions to avoid, and things to eat.

By that point, January, February, March, and April were all behind us. The summer lay ahead, and my metabolism was really beginning to kick in. Over the course of June, July, and August, I dropped 4 percent of my body fat, going from 24% to 20%, and from 220 pounds to just about 200. (Most of it I think was due to the fat loss.)

It takes work

When I reached the middle of August, I had reached a point where I was machine pressing 200 pounds with a spotter to help me, and I felt in great shape again. I used my energy to help in moving to our current apartment in Pennsburg and was generally pleased with my success. However, I wasn't riding on top long before I had a slight accident. During one of my upper body gym sessions, I pulled one of my arm muscles while using the bench press configuration of a gym machine. It wasn't much pain, just enough to not have me work out that muscle group.

I think it was this that began my turning away from the gym for a while. I did still go, just in reduced amounts of time. By the time October showed up, though, with my waning interest in gym activity again, I started gaining back weight, and body fat. I was looking at 217 pounds and 23.7 percent of body fat again in the mirror over Christmas of 2003. The year's accomplishments were notable, but still, I had lost the momentum I had before.

There was one life preserver that I had thrown out of the boat myself before it sank, though. Back in October, I had shown one of the fitness trainers my Body of Work tape, lending it to him to see what it was about. He felt compelled to do something with it, and I encouraged him to start a Body-for-Life contest at the gym. When the Christmas season ended and January arrived, the gym held a special consultation to invite its members to start a body transformation challenge.

Starting over again

January 5, 2004 began my gym workouts once again under full power for a moment, until some sad news burst my motivation once again: my great grandmother-in-law had passed away that afternoon. That Friday, I was one of the pallbearers who brought the casket to its plot in a cemetery in Bethlehem.

The events of that day remain in my head...

...the open casket at the funeral home... the family gathered together to say one last goodbye... the tears of grief and loss... the respect for the brevity of life.

As that day melted away into time, I promised myself I would make something of this year, of my workouts, of my body. I have yet to taste success in its fullness, but I profited so much from the struggle to push forward. I had to get a few things down and out of the way, though, in order to push effectively.

1. I needed to get my nutrition plan in order. As I began this exercise effort yet again, I realized that eating right was the part of the equation I had effectively missed before. It was hard to do, but my wife and I, renewed once again in our efforts to lose fat and feel great about our bodies, began developing diet plans to get in shape and push forward. I was focused on the contest, the body transformation challenge, to develop and stick to nutrition plans, no matter how shocking the changeover from our normal eating habits it initially was.
2. I needed to push harder than ever before on my workouts. I don't think I worked out to within an inch of my life, but almost every day that I went, I tried as hard as I could. That's not to say that there weren't days or weeks I did not work as hard as I should have. It is simply the plight of every human being to falter a little bit in their own strength. But, the overall push was to get in shape, and to do so full steam ahead, by working out in such a way as to attempt to maximize results.
3. I needed to follow through. This was the hardest one. I could not simply go into this workout and just quit like before. I needed to stick to it. I wanted to win the gym contest (and the Body-for-Life one I signed up for, although I ultimately did not complete that one). It meant something to me to finish, to encourage others to keep going.

As more and more time went by, and January and February melted into march, the fat dropped and the muscles began to return from their dormant state. (Mind you, I still don't look like Arnold, but I feel great today.)

The Boston experience

The first weekend of March, I took a bus ride up from New York City to see my friend Jeremy get married. I travelled with my wife and my friends Shaun, his girlfriend Lorraina, Peter, and his wife Tao (the latter two meeting us later in Boston). It would wind up being a litmus test to truly discover how much shape I had gotten myself in.

After a four hour bus ride, we arrived in Boston in 40-degree weather (give or take 5 degrees plus winds). I had brough along my bookbag, a duffel bag, and my wife brought her clothes bag which I carried. Due to a mishap in boarding the bus, Shaun, Lorraina, Holly, and I waited another hour for the rest of our party to arrive before we got moving, unfortunately costing us the ability to check into our hotel until later that evening. I would ultimately carry my bags and my wife's bag for the remainder of the day, a combined weight of probably about 60 to 75+ pounds.

And aside from the annoyingly taught handles, it really wasn't that bad.

In fact, on our way home from Boston, I wound up carrying the baggage from downtown Manhattan up through to northeast New Jersey by way of two subway lines, multiple flights of stairs and escalators to the Port Authority Bus Terminal from the subway system, and walking 10 more blocks home - most of them uphill - from a bus stop. I was beginning to feel the burn a little bit. But I was still going. It was validation that my workouts were working.

April - the final frontier

March finally folded into April. My workout challenge at the gym was done, and I submitted my photos in time for judging. I was disappointed initially at the lack of perceived change, until I started to notice how I had lost more fat. At the challenge's outset, I was 23.7 percent bodyfat. After having taken a final measurement, I was actually at 18.7 percent bodyfat - a 5 percent drop, having shed almost 13 pounds of fat. And this summer hasn't even begun yet.

At our recent celebration party a few weekends ago (April 9, 2004), we celebrated completion of the challenge. I didn't really complete as well as I wanted to, but my decision to take final photos and submit them meant that I had closed the book on my attempt. And that, in and of itself, was my milestone to say that I completed the challenge I started - even if I did not become a ripped super-athlete in the process. For my efforts, the encouragement I gave to others, and the perseverance to finish, I received an inspiration award.

It felt good to receive the award, and hold an EAS shirt which said "Winners Finish - Finishers Win". I don't think it even sank in then that I completed the challenge. But what I gained was so much more than material compensation:

• I gained more energy and stamina to do what I need to do throughout the day.
• I learned how important it was not just to control how much I ate, but to monitor exactly what it was I ate every day.
• I learned that perseverance and sticking to a goal inspires others to continue forward, even if you don't say a word to people who see you.
• I learned that getting healthy is a reward in and of itself.

At first, winning the challenge rewards were the focus of my workout, along with getting in shape. As I continued in my efforts, however, rewards occupied less and less of my focus, and getting in shape meant more and more as workouts were realized more and more in everyday living. As I continue to pursue getting in even better shape than before, I offer a challenge to everyone who wants to get in shape, but thinks it's impossible, to everyone who wants to look good but have yet to succeed:

Don't give up.

The efforts may seem insignificant at first, but keep plugging away. If you stick to a healthy regimen and feed your body the nutrients it needs when it needs them, and you pursue proper cardiovascular and resistance training methods, even if you mess up from time to time, even if you occasionally cheat, when your good days are your habit and your bad days are your occasional slip-up, you will still transform your body, and your life, in ways you haven't imagined.

Keep going. You may never know who you are inspiring.

For more information, visit the Body-for-Life website at http://www.bodyforlife.com. Check out the gym which held Pennsburg's 2004 Body-For-LIFE Challenge here.