The word fat can be an offensive word, and I don’t mean it to be when using it here, but with the new year, many people are making resolutions to become more fit. The problem is most expect results in a couple weeks or months, but for most people, results may not come for years, and using an example of someone becoming fat is a relatable one that I think most can understand.

Let’s think about someone who just graduated, and is working their first job out of school working a typical job for their part of town or the field they studied. They are somewhat fit after their senior year being a former athlete and attends the gym a few times a week. They make breakfast and bring their lunch to work, but usually pick something up on the way home for dinner after hitting the gym.

A few months into the job they realize that someone is always bringing something to the office for breakfast like doughnuts, kolaches or tacos, so they stop making breakfast so they can sleep a little longer knowing breakfast is at work. They figured they would just add in some extra cardio at the gym each evening.

After a year or so they stopped taking their lunch to work and started going out to eat with their co-workers or the company would cater food a couple times a week. They try to make healthy choices, but most of their co-workers chose restaurants that have minimal healthy options and are more on the fast side of the service industry. When the company caters food it is usually something they can get in bulk like fajitas, chicken wings, sub sandwiches or barbeque. Again, they try to make healthy choices but when they do they are usually harassed by their co-workers and end up eating whatever. They now are trying to make it to the gym every day because they are starting to notice some ‘not so positive’ changes to their body.

A little while after they started eating out every day for lunch they figured they’d stop eating dinner to counter the bad things they’d eaten. After the gym, they would have a protein shake, and that’s it, although the number of times to the gym has fallen back down again, and if they made it to the gym, they mostly stayed on the cardio machines because they were not trying to ‘bulk up.’

This continues for a few years, except the gym has become less and less because they extra cardio made them hate the gym, they were not seeing positive results, and they got burnt out. Now when they look in the mirror, they noticed they have put on a lot of weight in the midsection, and some recent blood work showed they were on the verge of some severe health issues.

It is at this point that someone usually tries to make a change. But this has taken years to get to this point. It did not happen in a few weeks, a few months or even a year, it took multiple years to get here, and it will take years to get back.

Understand that making a lifestyle change that is good or bad takes time, and for it to change your body aesthetically, physiologically and mentally takes time. Becoming FIT or FAT is a long game. It takes time to shape your body, and it takes a lot of work! I will tell you right now it is a lot easier to be fat than it is to be fit, but making a choice to be fit is the right one.

Come to our gym and try a class. See if it is something that you like. We try to help as much off the floor as we do on the floor. If you are at our gym now and are struggling to stay consistent with your food or your exercise send us an email. Don’t wait until it is too late and you have missed a month of workouts. Let’s break through this plateau now and get this year started on the right path!

Richard Andrews

CF-L2