Have you ever done a complete 180 in attitude about something? [View all]

I have, fairly recently. I have completely changed my attitude about fitness from where I was as a teenager, some 30 years ago.

When I was a kid, I was the weak, nerdy, non-athletic bookworm who was into early computers (I thought a Commodore 64 was the ultimate!). And, I hated PE with a passion, it was mostly an excuse to get abuse from the more athletic guys and ignored or dismissed by the teachers, although I pretty much learned how to survive it by hanging in the shadows as much as possible, trying to blend into the background like a chameleon.

My attitude back then was "this is for dumb jocks, the ones too stupid to use their minds". And, I actually kept and reinforced that attitude through my college days.

An irony here, though, I have had some "interesting" physical health problems over the years. I was in high school when I was diagnosed with primary hypertension, and it wouldn't be atypical to have readings of something like 210/140 at a routine check. So, I was on meds for it at age 17. Not a good thing. No apparent correlation to anything medically, either, I weighed about what I weigh now, say 160ish, and am 6' even, so I wasn't grossly overweight by any means. At 18/19, just to add to the joy, I started having times when I felt very dizzy, weak, unsteady on my feet, and I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, albeit pretty mild. Again, no real obvious cause, I had actually lost some weight at the time and was down to probably my lowest adult weight, around or just under 150. When I was in my 30's, I developed GI bleeds, and ultimately had a part of my stomach and small intestine removed in 2007, due to repeated peptic and duodenal ulcers of an "ideopathic" origin, ie, they didn't really know why, probably autoimmune, since they didn't respond to treatment of H. pylori with antibiotics. I was a sick pup for a while in my 30s, I had terrible, agonizing stomach aches many nights, where I would sort of curl up into a ball because the pain was so bad, and I felt like crap yet again most of the time, and "ordinary" activities were taxing. So, I know what it feels like to be "unhealthy" and it is NOT a good feeling.

Now, another contributing factor to my attitude - perhaps this is more "out there" than the first, I was actually afraid, very irrationally, of the world political situation and that it would mean I would somehow be sucked into the military during some kind of crisis. I was deeply influenced by the attitudes of my oldest sister, who was part of the student resistance to Viet Nam at the University of Michigan in the late 1960s, and even though I was very young, I took that to heart and feared the entire concept. Of course, due to world events, like Iran and Afghanistan, and Reagan being in the Whitehouse, I figured a war was imminent at any time. I will never forget how traumatic it was for me to go to the post office and register with the Selective Service. Now, anyone with half a brain would know I was never going to be cannon fodder given my health status of hypertension (this was about a year before the diabetes thing popped up), but I still worried, excessively, about it.

So, that lead me to a place where I was sick, and I was completely unwilling to do anything to get better, because I thought if I were fit and healthy, it would leave me open to being drafted. Stupid, irrational, FUBAR thinking if ever there was. I stopped going to doctors entirely by about 20, maybe 21, and other than an ER visit for a severely sprained ankle at about 28 or 29, I didn't see a doctor until I had repeated bouts, probably for at least a year, of the severe GI pain and bleeding, when it was no longer an option to ignore it. I know it's pretty typical of guys to try to plow through the pain and avoid seeing a doctor at all costs, but that isn't really a good idea in most situations. Ignoring problems just makes them worse.

So, after my GI surgery in 2007, I had another reversal of fortune. I was maintaining about 175-180 despite the GI issues prior to surgery, but I lost about 25-30 lbs after - in late 2008, I weighed in at 155, I was pretty thin, too thin, really, for my six foot frame. And, for the first time in a long time, I felt like a million bucks -- high energy, able to do pretty much anything I felt like, able to do all kinds of routine physical things like shoveling snow or pushing a mower with no problems at all. It was very liberating both physically an mentally.

And I fucked it up in about 2 years. I gained a LOT of weight by going back to very unhealthy eating habits -- drinking a ton of pop, eating junk food and fast food for the calories I wasn't getting from pop, which was probably about 75% of my daily intake. And, big surprise, I felt like crap again, with everything that went with it, well, at least I assume, because again I quit going to my doctor. Out of shame, embarrassment, and a feeling of "I can handle this on my own" -- except I couldn't.

So, August, 2012, as most of you know, was the "August of my discontent" or, perhaps a better way to phrase it, the most fucked-up month of my life. While it was mostly a question of the mind, my physical health could NOT have helped -- I weighed 210 lbs when I stepped on a scale for the first time in 3 years back in August. A gain of 55 LBS from my 155 low in 2008. None of my clothes fit. I felt terrible all of the time, a lot of headaches and dizzyness, problems sleeping, some GI distress although nothing like I had previously experienced. I was, of course, a mental basketcase as well as a physical mess.

Although I would never recommend my method, panic attacks, of getting into a fitness regime, I am happy to say my thinking about this issue has changed 180 from where I was. I SO look forward to my gym workouts, cycling, and all of the other new things I have embraced. I am very careful about what I eat now. I try to get enough rest (not ever going to happen, alas). I drink a lot of water, close to a gallon most days. It has all helped dramatically. I have now lost 80% of my excess weight. My strength and stamina are improving dramatically. This morning, I was able to run 10 complete laps around the gym at my club, for a total of 0.6 miles -- If you had asked me in July whether I would be running in January, I would have accused you of being high, because it was not even on my radar screen. And, it feels like a permanent change now, I really want and need to do this on a daily basis. In fact, when I'm done with one of my group fitness class workouts or a one on one with my trainer, I feel tired, even drained, sometimes weak, but I feel about the best mentally I have in ages, and physically I rebound fast and feel like a million an hour or so later.

To tie this all together -- why the weird tangent about the military? Because, something I never would have thought of doing, but I want to enroll in a military style fitness training program later this year to close out my year of training. How crazy is that? Me, doing that? I know I can be ready to do it by the fall, and I'm so looking forward to doing it. To me, it will be the ultimate way to face some deeply ingrained past fears and issues.