In this post I’m going to tell you how I changed my diet and exercising habits.
This will be divided in 2 separate posts, since it’s already late in the evening.
In this first part I’m going to provide you with some background information, so that you have a better idea how I realized I needed to pay more attention to diet and exercise, and how I found the motivation to keep me going.
When I was a kid I used to be very active. I was always doing something with my friends, like playing football, cycling, doings lots of tree houses in the woods near our place. I even walked to school most of the time. During holidays was even crazier. Sometime we used to play football until past midnight. Good memories, when I think about it. When I’m with those old friends, we often talk about it.
At age 12, I joined the local Handball team, and that added even more exercise to my daily routine. Training sessions during the the week, and games at the weekend.
Needless to say, I was slim, without paying any particular attention to the diet, like most kids do.
Then, by the age of 22, my life style changed completely. I got married, started working, and quitted the handball team. I work as a programmer. I worked as a programmer in a small local software company, so that made things even work, as I spent most of time time at the desk. Also, I was driving to work, since I worked 20kms away from home. My daily-routine had almost no exercise at all.
I started gaining weight. At first I didn’t even noticed. For all that I knew, the mirror kept showing the same person. Looking at pictures of myself was a completely different story! I could clearly see the difference. I think I gained maybe 10gks, but because I also lost muscle, it seemed a lot more on the mirror.
During 5 years, I tried to fit exercise into my daily routine, always failing. My daily routine was just made for laziness.
Soon after I got divorced, a childhood friend made a joke on me about how fat I was. I wasn’t that fat, but compared to the way I was when we were both kids, I was indeed quite different. He, on the other end, kept a more active live style, so he was practically the same. The moment he made the joke on me, I didn’t took it as an insult. I like to challenge myself, so instead of taking it as an insult I laughed about it, and I just though to myself… “You just wait and see”.
I used that single joke as a motivation factor to change the way I looked, in a healthy way. I still do. Its as simple as that. You just need to find out what motivates you.
As the saying goes… “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going” !
That’s all for today. I’ll let you know the conclusion in the second part, probably tomorrow. Feel free to contact me. I’ll be happy to share my experiences or any ideas. You can find my email in the Contact page.
Check the second part of this post