I wrestled with the decision to post this for quite a while, because let’s face it… this is not my proudest moment. But I said in the when I made my first post that this blog was going to chronicle the ups and downs of an everyday guy trying to get in shape. Unfortunately at this point, I seem to be going more down than up, and definitely headed in the wrong direction.

There I am in the picture on the left – not too shabby if I do say so myself. I had set a goal last year in the winter of 2017 to reach 198 pounds. I took this picture that May when I was somewhere around 196 and I looked pretty good. Sure, I’m employing “Basic Selfie Strategy 101” by turning ever so slightly at the waist to give the impression of wider shoulders and a narrower mid-section, (I’m not going to lie, I’ll drop that pose every time I see a camera come out). But the fact remains, in this shot, I hit my goal, looked better than I had in a long time and I’m feeling pretty damn good about it.

So what do you do when you do get a big win? You celebrate of course!

And boy, did I ever.

I enjoyed all of the food and beer that I had deprived myself, and I’ll be honest, they never tasted so good. And exercise? Screw that! Look at me! A guy that good looking doesn’t need to exercise (I think I started to believe the selfie pose was actually how I looked in real life). Nope, the time for hard work and determination was over, and the time to party had arrived. Sure, I kept telling myself that I would start again later, but for the time being I was going take a break and enjoy all the good things in life: food, beer and relaxation.

The problem was, I didn’t stop celebrating. So there I am on the right in a picture that was taken a few weeks ago after what turned out to be an 8 month celebration, and lack of exercise. I was back up to 225 pounds, pretty much right where I’d started out the year before. All that hard work was down the toilet. Now, with the weather getting warmer, it’s time to break out the summer clothes; and I’m here to tell you there is not a more depressing feeling than having to suck in your gut in order to button your favorite “comfortable” shorts, or needing to identify shirts you can wear in public that aren’t too tight around your gut and/or man boobs.

The moral to this story is simple:

Goals are only that… They are just goals. When you reach your goal you need to keep moving. Sure a break is fine, and celebrating when you achieve a goal is good. But don’t let a break turn into a prolonged rest period… that ends up becoming a new lifestyle… which in fact, just happens to be your old lifestyle that you worked so hard to change.

Let me put it this way, if you were hiking Everest, you wouldn’t start partying when you reached the base camp. No, if you did, you would run out of food and have to go back down the mountain. Instead, when you got to the basecamp, you’d rest for the night and then keep moving toward the summit. Then when you reach your objective, you’d party and have to go back down the mountain. Maybe this is a bad metaphor, because either way in this case, you end up back down at the bottom of the mountain. I don’t know, I really don’t know anything about mountain climbing. Forget I brought it up.

Anyhow, you get my point. Don’t quit when you reach your goal…keep climbing until you reach the top! Then go find another mountain to climb. You have to keep working or you will always be at the bottom of the mountain (there, I knew I could save this whole mountain analogy).

So for me, the bottom line is simple. I need to get back on track again. I have a lot of work to do, and, like I pointed out in my first post, you are all welcome to follow me to see how I make out. You’re also welcome to join in if you like, offer tips and advice or you can even just laugh as I make a fool out of myself. The choice, is yours, but for me, it’s time to get moving, pass the base camp and move towards the summit. This time it’s going to be a long climb and there’ll be more mountains after this one, so I’d better get started…

…right after I finish this beer.