I recently started a fitness training program and post regular updates on my website. I wrote this post to give my reason why I am getting fit. I think being a parent comes with many responsibilities and one is to teach our children how to live a healthy lifestyle. I thought this might be motivation for some of you thinking about doing a fitness program. This  is cross posted at www.charlieprofit.com (click the Insanity button). photo credit: USACE Europe District

Some of you may know, I am forty years old. I learned several years ago that the average male lives to be seventy-two. That means I was middle aged at thirty-six! Well, as I turned forty I began to think about what I want the next forty years of my life to be like; I guess I plan on living a little longer than the average male. Living a healthy lifestyle was near the top of the list, in my top three. One reason I think about being healthy is that my parents were not. My dad died of a heart attack, and my mom has had serious health issues, some which could probably be avoided with proper nutrition.

When I was thirty-six (and middle-aged) I started a fitness training program with a personal trainer. It was a great experience. I would go to his gym six times a week. I did this for almost three months. I lost a lot of weight and turned fat into muscle mass. I was feeling awesome and starting to look great. I remember telling my trainer that I don’t know how anyone could stop fitness training once they started. Because the body would go back to the way it was and if they wanted to start training again, they’d start from day one and it’s real tough in the beginning. Then life got in the way and I stopped. I tried to start again about a year later but that lasted only a couple weeks. So I eventually gained all the weight I lost back and then some!

There have always been excuses why I wouldn’t get into a fitness training program or even join a gym. Didn’t have the money was always an easy one to make. There’s never enough time in the day even though we all have the same twenty-four hours, and many people have gone on to do great things with the same limited time factor. The difficulty in doing the programs was also an easy excuse. But if you never start, you never get over that hump. I soon realized that if I ever really wanted something, I usually found a way when I found my reasons.

My wife and I have been very blessed with five wonderful, healthy, intelligent, well mannered children. I began thinking of the example I am setting for them: eating junk food when ever I feel like, drinking soda everyday, super sizing, and not being active at all. I wasn’t raised on a junk food diet, but when I became an adult and moved out on my own, it was quite the freedom to buy McDonald’s whenever I wanted, or to have as many chocolate chip cookies as I wanted before bed. I started to become sluggish and not very motivated to do things. I realized that if I continue to live this way, then my children will think that is how life is to be lived: eat what you want, how much you want, when you want and be lazy with no accountability. Even though we always have restricted their junk food intake, kids live more by what they see us do, then what we tell them to do. It was a realization that by watching me they could perpetuate the lifestyle I had settled into. And quite honestly I want them to be better than I in every aspect of life.

I started seeing ads for a fitness program called P90X, from BeachBody. I was really impressed with what it was doing for people. I decided since I want to get healthy, I put P90X on my wishlist. Then just about a month ago, my wife and I saw an infomercial for Insanity; another BeachBody product. This one seemed perfect for both of us to do as there are no weights involved. I asked my wife what she thought, if she wanted to try it and she said yes.

So, I am finally working out again. It feels great. I checked in at 195 pounds before starting and that is a very unhealthy weight for someone my age and height. After just two weeks of doing Insanity, I already lost four pounds! That’s two pounds per week! If I maintain that kind of weight loss after the sixty day challenge, I will have lost sixteen pounds and that will put me down to 179 pounds! My goal is to be 180 pounds of lean muscle when all is said and done.

To achieve my goals, I realized I have to make a serious lifestyle change. Doing workouts can’t be a fad thing, it has to be a regular habit for the rest of my life; the next forty years! So I have made a stronger commitment to myself than I did when I had a personal trainer: I am and always will be fit and healthy, eat nutritiously and live the healthy lifestyle I want to have. When I wake up, I look forward to my daily work out now. I have a lot riding on this commitment because this is a commitment I am making for me, my wife and my children. Doing fitness training and working out is now just a part of my schedule like eating and brushing my teeth.

How is your program working for you? If you don’t have one, what’s stopping you?