Fat and over fifty

How I found myself, an overweight fifty-year-old stuck in a rut

It was October 2022, I was just a tad over 52 and was coming off a another fantastic Swedish summer. This was the longest break I had ever taken for a summer holiday and I had made the most of it. There was a great visit from a friend, a bike trip with my son and another amazing trip with my wife. On top of that, my wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary in August by traveling to Croatia and spending a long weekend soaking up the sun and enjoying the beautiful and relaxing Adriatic sea. Life was good but physically I was not happy with myself and my overall health.

I had already been back to work for just over two months and my routine was somewhat steady again. The late night\mornings of partying over the summer had subsided and I was now sleeping normally again. My alcohol intake was greatly reduced and I even took a few weeks break from drinking any alcohol at one point during this stretch. Yet, my weight had started to peak to a 12 year high and I was relying more and more on short lunch naps to help with my low energy. It's my fitness I thought, I just need to focus on running more, and perhaps some more strenuous rides. No thought at all went into the numerous times that I had hit the all night hamburger stand outside of our flat that had conveniently opened during the past summer. Many times I would be up late at night with family or friends and suddenly we would have the great idea of getting a second meal of burgers (vegan burger for me) and fries. Not a single thought about the amount of potato chips that I was eating on a regular basis, along with the other poorly chosen "vegan" processed snacks that I would grab without thinking. No care had gone into my sleeping habits, where one night would be an 11PM bedtime and the next night 3AM. No, it was just that I wasn't running! Sure….

The video …

Then there was the video. I was reviewing our pictures of Croatia and I came across a video my wife had taken of me running and jumping into the ocean. I saw the video, but I had a hard time processing that the person in the video was me. All I saw was the figure of a person that I did not recognize, running across the pier and jumping into the ocean and making a huge splash. Now, I had not been imagining myself as the person that had previously completed three ironman events, but more as a somewhat overweight, yet still athletic person. This figure that I saw couldn't be me. But it was!

A time for a change ....fast

One night my wife came home from being out with friends and told me about a fast that a friend was preparing for. She told me she was thinking of trying it as well and I decided to jump right in. I will share more on this experience in a future post, but this event was the catalyst I needed to drive change in myself. I started to rethink everything that I was doing, and realized that I needed to evaluate the items that I was putting into my body. I also needed to change the habits that were leading me to making poor choices. This need brought me back to a tool that I had used in the past, a tool that helped my keep my focus and drive new actions. This tool was the daily journal, a simple yet effective way to hold myself accountable. I went about creating a template and added the key components that have supported me in achieving various goals in the past. And so the process began, day by day I worked towards the goals that were important to me, one of them being weight loss, but I also incorporated long term, mid-term and short term goals into the equation. Another one of these goals was to share these tools, by producing a book that can be used to help others achieve what they want in their lives. The result of all of this is the publication of my first book which I am proud to share:

I will share more about this book in a future post, as well as the details in the process that I went through in my personal change journey. For now, feel free to look at Amazon(click on the image above) when you get a chance and subscribe below to receive future updates.